Book Review: The American Roommate Experiment

The American Roommate Experiment by Elena Armas

Quote:

"I've missed you since you stepped out of this apartment, hours ago. And I had missed you for a long time before then, Lucas."

Blurb: Rosie Graham has a problem. A few, actually. First, she quit her well paid job to focus on her secret career as a romance writer, only to enter a creative slump. Then the ceiling of her New York apartment falls in. To make matters worse, when she heads to her best friend's apartment, she finds that Lina has already lent the studio to her cousin Lucas, who Rosie has been - for lack of a better word - stalking on Instagram. 

When Lucas suggests that they share the small space, Rosie discovers that he strolls around the place on a towel, has a distracting grin, an irresistible accent and cooks meals that are just as tempting. Then he learns about Rosie's writer's block and proposes an outrageous idea: he'll take her on a series of experimental dates to reignite her literary muse. 

This shouldn't be a problem because Lucas's stay in New York also has a deadline. But she might find it hard to write now the research is so much more fun... 

Book Review: A Little Life

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Quote: "You won't understand what I mean now, but someday you will: the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are - not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving - and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad - or good - it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well."

Blurb: When four classmates from a small Massachhussetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel painter pursuing fame in the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their centre of gravity. 

Over the decades, their relationship deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself; by midlife a terrifyingly talented lawyer yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by a degree of trauma that he fears he will not only be unable to overcome - but that will define his life forever. 

In a novel of extraordinary intelligence and heart, Yanagihara has fashioned a masterful depiction of heartbreak, and a dark and haunting examination of the tyranny of experience and memory.