Title: The Roommate (Shameless #1)

Author: Rosie Danan

Publisher: Berkley 2020

Genre: Romance

Pages: 325

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Romanceopoly - Starstruck Sweets (Celebrity); Cover Love - Need of a redesign

Where I Got It: Library

Spice Rating: 5

The Wheatons are infamous among the east coast elite for their lack of impulse control, except for their daughter Clara. She’s the consummate socialite: over-achieving, well-mannered, predictable. But every Wheaton has their weakness. When Clara’s childhood crush invites her to move cross-country, the offer is too tempting to resist. Unfortunately, it’s also too good to be true.

After a bait-and-switch, Clara finds herself sharing a lease with a charming stranger. Josh might be a bit too perceptive—not to mention handsome—for comfort, but there’s a good chance he and Clara could have survived sharing a summer sublet if she hadn’t looked him up on the Internet...
 
Once she learns how Josh has made a name for himself, Clara realizes living with him might make her the Wheaton’s most scandalous story yet. His professional prowess inspires her to take tackling the stigma against female desire into her own hands. They may not agree on much, but Josh and Clara both believe women deserve better sex. What they decide to do about it will change both of their lives, and if they’re lucky, they’ll help everyone else get lucky too.

Overall a cute romcom style romance featuring some great conversations about sex work. The set-up/meet cute is very contrived and silly, but once I got over that, I really fell into he story and the characters. Josh is a great male lead who really stays true to himself the entire story. I loved seeing Clara grow and change throughout the book. The steamy scenes were definitely steamy and fun. The third act break-up/conflict felt believable and sufficiently full of drama without being too cliched. I also loved seeing a male lead actually make amends for his actions. The ending was rushed and a bit too cliched for my tastes keeping the book from being a 5 star book. But in the end, I still really enjoyed this one.

Shameless

• #1 The Roommate

• #2 The Intimacy Experiment

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