CWs: Recovering from unhealthy relationships, allusions to vehicular trauma, some descriptions of car accidents and related injuries, some ableist comments, and graphic scenes containing sex

I knew I had to request this book when readers from all across Romancelandia kept raving about it, but somehow I still wasn't ready for how steamy and delightful this book truly was.

On the one hand, this is a super fun adult rom-com that really makes a meal out of sweet domestic moments and all the delicious tension of a close-quarters romance, but it's also about two people uplifting each other and teaching the other person that they matter. It's about Clara and Josh coming from legacies of misunderstanding and being limited, and choosing to instead build something positive together, which I love.

The physical chemistry, the sexual attraction, is of course delicious and really fun to read about. I found that element of the story to be well-balanced, because you definitely get some great moments of pay-off, so to speak, but there's also moments where the characters pull back. There are times where either Josh or Clara realize they're feeling attracted to the other person but recognize that maybe now is not the appropriate time to be making physical advances. It's very rare in adult romance to see characters draw that boundary for themselves and to recognize that attraction doesn't always need to be acted on, and that other people don't just exist to be part of their sexual fantasies.

The banter between Josh and Clara was top notch as well, and it was nice to see them growing as friends while also growing into a romantic relationship. There's a lot of intimacy and trust between them, even before they become a couple, which is really refreshing to see. The story also really celebrates sex positivity, sexual agency, and being comfortable with your own body and your own desires. Discovering those things about yourself, if you want those things, requires a feeling of safety and empowerment that a lot of people don't often get growing up, so it was really rewarding to see that happening for Clara throughout the book.

There's such great emotional connection between the characters because they're both used to people only seeing them as what they can do rather than who they are. So for them to share space, in more than one sense, and come into contact with someone who's genuinely good and thoughtful really impacts both of them. Overall, I think it's a really hopeful story about taking stock of your life, building something for yourself, and moving away from the limitations other people have put on you.

My one note is that the story sets up a need for Clara and Josh to both reconcile with their families, and you don't quite get that at the end. There's a sense that there's been a reckoning of some kind, but we never get to see it, and I don't think there's enough evidence in the story to make me believe that Clara, specifically, could really come to a healthy place with her family. But that was just one small thing, and at the end of the day I still had such a great time reading this book! Highly recommend for all the rom-com lovers out there.

The keyword for Rosie Danan’s debut contemporary THE ROOMMATE (Jove, 315 pp., paper, $16) is capacity. The scandal-shy socialite Clara Wheaton insists it wasn’t bravery that led her to impulsively follow a childhood crush to the far side of the country: “Everyone had entirely the wrong idea about the capacity of Clara’s courage.”

Clara’s crush vanishes and leaves her with a strange roommate scrounged from the depths of Craigslist. Josh Conners is a popular performer in the adult entertainment industry; he’s playful and charming and has coasted through his career. As he and his strait-laced new roommate slowly fall for each other, Josh offers up what may be the most quintessentially romance-hero line I’ve ever seen: “His capacity for longing terrified him.”

It would have been so easy for a book with this premise to tip into tawdry titillation or shame. It never does. And I keep coming back to capacity, a term we use to describe the amount of space something has to grow into. “The Roommate” is a book about people expanding into their best possible selves — about embracing pleasure, loving unabashedly and fighting exploitation and small-mindedness. Warmly funny and gorgeously sexy, this porn-star romance is the most wholesome thing I’ve read in ages.

This was an easy, entertaining read. The first half of the book was strong - I felt the spark between the characters. Unfortunately the second half relied too heavily on their sexual attraction that some of that chemistry between the two characters was lost. This was a unique storyline and it kept me engaged most of the book, I just missed the spark the first half had.

"The Roommate" is a fun, sexy romance that stands out for being partly set in the adult film world. Clara and Josh end up as accidental roommates after she moves to LA to live with her longtime crush and is surprised to find that instead she'll be living with his subletter. Clara is hoping to break away from her rich East Coast family, and her strait-laced personality clashes with Josh, who is an easygoing adult film star. The romance is similar to other roommate/opposites-attract stories, but this book felt unique in how Clara learns more about Josh's profession and becomes inspired to start a business that empowers women to explore their sexualities. The main characters could have been a little stronger; much is made of how they have each disappointed their families, but their backstories didn't feel very convincing or well developed. Overall, however, this is an engaging, fun read.

4.5 stars

The Roommate was made for me: nerdy uptight girl with a cocky sex performer roommate who was a secret cinnamon roll. After being left high-and-dry by a childhood crush, Clara found herself sharing a house with well-known sex performer, Josh Darling.

Josh and Clara's chemistry was electric from their first encounter and the two expertly avoided their feelings and attraction to each other until I was up late at night silently begging them to find their happy ending. The sexual tension is expertly done with conversations that had me stop reading just so I could laugh out loud.

Along with navigating messy feelings, Danan included important conversations on the sex industry and the stigma surrounding it. With steamy sex scenes that will remind you of The Kiss Quotient, The Roommate hooks you with a charming love story and perfectly placed comedy. I can easily see myself rereading this.

Predictable Clara makes the rare impulsive decision to move from the East Coast to California in the hopes of upgrading a long-time friendship to a romance. However, quickly after arriving Clara learns that instead sharing close quarters with her crush, she will be roommates with Josh, a stranger, who helps her out of her comfort zone in ways she never saw coming.

"The Rooommate" is insanely sexy, wonderfully sex-positive, and turns the dated "crazy ex-girlfriend trope" completely on it's head in the form of the gloriously fierce Naomi. By turns achingly tender and laugh out loud funny, this one is not to be missed.

The Roommate is Rosie Danan’s debut novel and once I saw the cover and read the blurb, I knew I had to read it. I love those forced proximity books and the fact that the roommates were strangers, gimmie!

Clara Wheaton is a socialite that just finished grad school. She’s decided to move cross country (totally not like her) for a man. One of her best friends, Emmett, who she’s had it bad for for the longest time. As soon as she gets there she realized this was a huge mistake. Emmett sublets his room out to Josh and has Clara living with a stranger temporarily while he travels with his band. What a warm welcome.

Clara and Josh are complete strangers but they get along well enough at first. Then Clara finds out what Josh does for a living. It doesn’t change what she thinks about him necessarily, but she sees him in a different light. And after finding out things going on with his career, she decides to help him with a cause she believes in.

I honestly expected to love this one, but unfortunately it was just okay for me. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t love it. My only real problem with this one was I never felt the connection between Clara and Josh. I can find characters unrelatable and still love a book, but I have to feel their connection, the romance has to be real for me and unfortunately I never felt much between these two. I liked them both well enough, but I didn’t feel the spark.

Overall, this was a nice debut novel that I think a lot of people will love. It had some humor and steam and was enjoyable for me.

The Roommate is about an uptight socialite and her adult entertainer roommate. But it's about a lot more than that.

This is a romance about acceptance and bravery. It's about being true to yourself even under the most difficult of circumstances. It's also just super sweet and hot.

So, going into this one, I expected a cute and sweet book about reluctant roommates getting to know each other and falling in love. It was that, don’t get me wrong. Clara and Josh had a great development, I loved the progress of their relationship. But this book also had quite a lot of surprises and ended up not being what I expected when I started at all! But honestly, the more I think about it, the more I’m glad it was such a surprise.


For starters, this book was 100x dirtier than I expected, lol. But I loved how sex positive it was. Josh is in the very beginning revealed as a very well known porn star, which was quite an interesting profession to read about and something I had never read in a romance novel before. And although he works in the adult film industry, the book never glorifies it, in the sense that a big portion of the plot was about taking down an industry that treats their workers poorly, objectifies women, and so on. But at the same that the author made sure to bring awareness to all the terrible things about this industry, she also makes sure to never shame Josh for his work choice. He is proud of what he does, he loves what he does. And I loved that as well about the book so much!

Talking about the characters, they were so great, and a big thing I loved about it was the characters development they go through as the story progresses, which was well done. Clara, for example, grew up sheltered, wanting to prevent getting into a scandal to make her family proud of her, and so as the story arc moves forward, she tries her hardest to hide her involvement in something that could be a upsetting not just to her family but to the people she works for, but as she gets more involved and falls in love with Josh and the project, she starts to see that she shouldn’t care what other people think. I really loved her growth. Josh did a lot of growing throughout the book as well, a loved the moment with his family, but Clara was the growth that really stood out to me.

I loved Josh and Clara’s relationship. I loved that they bond and become friends before anything serious starts to happen. I love how sweet Josh is towards Clara all the time, and how Clara loosens up a lot when she is with Josh. Their bonding and development really made me connect with these two even more than I expected to because it was just so well done. Their scenes were sweet, funny, cute, and very very hot as the book and their relationship progressed. The conflict didn’t feel forced either, which I appreciated. I felt like it was inevitable and it helped in their personal growth, so it ended up adding to the story. Without it, it would’ve been harder for them to get to the epilogue.


I felt like there were a few things that were said throughout the book, but that were never shown. Naomi’s threat to Josh, for example... When she found out he didn’t do what she told him to, she didn’t even seem to care. I would’ve loved to see Clara talking to her family after everything got out, I would’ve loved to see Josh talk to his family about Clara, or Clara meeting his family, and then Josh meeting her family. There was so much internal monologue about Clara having to marry someone her parents felt was a proper match, and that they would throw a fit if she dated a porn star, but I would’ve loved to SEE their reactions to Josh and Clara’s relationship. At the end, the way the epilogue goes, it just felt like there was not issue whatsoever. I would’ve liked to see more than just being told.


But all in all, this was a solid 4 star book that made me smile, swoon, and really really happy. There were so many positive aspects of this story that I absolutely loved, and I would 100% recommend it. So good!

I REALLY wanted to love love love this story and there were some aspects that I really did! The banter between the characters was fun, the hero is definitely charismatic and pulls you end but I don't think I really ever bonded with the heroine and that made me not really believe the chemistry between these two.

I definitely liked the concept and the back drop of the story but I never quite connected. Mainly though, it was my lack of emotion for the heroine and her personality that stopped me from falling in love with the book.

It sizzled, it sparkled, it flirted... The Roommate is a quality romcom!

Clara is Type A to the extreme, while Josh is... not. The two of them get thrown into a roommate situation and it doesn't take long for sparks to fly. But Clara soon finds out that Josh is no ordinary roommate. He's an adult entertainer. And he's moderately famous because of it.

Clara decides to partner with Josh and his ex Naomi, and uses some of her trust fund to finance Shameless. A website that blends art, porn, and instruction with the focus on female pleasure. But things are always more complicated when feelings are involved.

This book is steamy. More explicit than Fifty Shades of Grey, and also more literary. The writing is crisp and creative. The voices are strong and surprising. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a fun, sexy read featuring two characters with depth.

The Roommate was so much fun to read. It was steamy, but also sweet. Raunchy, but also romantic. It was such a perfect blend for a romance book. I also loved the destigmatization of the porn industry, especially of sex workers. It was empowering and just a whole lot of fun.

Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Pub for the digital arc in exchange for an honest review. The book releases Sept. 15, 2020.

If you love a good steamy romance you should go pre-order/buy The Roommate by Rosie Danan today. This book is this unique blend of sweet and over the top sexy at the same time.

The plot centers around Clara Wheaton, and East Coast socialite, who relocates to the West Coast to be with her childhood crush. When she gets there she's perturbed to discover her friend is going on tour and has left her to share a house with roommate he found on the internet, Josh. Oh and by the way, Josh happens to be a porn star!

What follows is a very sweet opposite attracts story of two people getting past their differences to become friends and then more. But come on, Josh is a porn star, so the sexy bits are down right steamy hot.

Beyond all that though this story is about people finding strength within themselves and shedding the expectations of society to live their own best lives.

So ... for people who love steamy hot romance with a fun story line, go preorder right now! If you are romance lover who prefers things to fade into black, this is not the book for you. This book is full blown, lights on, steamy goodness.

I've seen so many romance readers hype up and in my opinion, it is well worth the hype. This is about a 27 year old woman named Clara, who up until now, has lived a very safe life but when her crush of over a decade invites her to stay at his home in California, she sees this as an opportunity to finally make her move. But when she arrives, she finds out that instead of spending time with said crush, she'll be roommates with Josh Darling.
Sharing a living space with a charming and handsome man is already well out of her comfort zone, but when she discovers who her roommate is, she begins to realize how out of her depth she really is.
The two then decide to help your everyday women take their pleasure/sexual prowess into their own hands and whilst this is happening, they also have their own desires to deal with.

This book was oh so good! The sexual tension was so palpable, the chemistry between Clara & Josh made me eager for them to finally get their shit together and just admit their feelings for each other. Oh, and the sex scenes were just *chefs kiss*
The dialogue was so much fun to read and the characters were a joy to read! One thing to note: I am a huge character reader but I was actually so interested in this plot as well! The discussions of sex workers in the adult entertainment industry and how poorly they are treated was informative and I loved that there was no shaming in this book.

Overall, I'd give this a 4.5 out of 5 stars. I will definitely be buying this when it comes out and if you're a lover of romance, I'd recommend checking this out as well.

I'm actually really torn on this one... So many people super loved it and RAVED about it, so I was really pumped when I got approved for an egalley of it. And... I don't know. This is actually bordering somewhere between 2 1/2 stars and 3 stars for me. It's billed as an adult contemporary romance, but both leads read as really young/immature. The sex scenes are really hot, and I liked a lot of the chemistry between Clara and Josh on the page, but the overall tone and writing style of the book felt very YA to me. Clara is 27 and Josh is I think 25? But with it being Clara's first time moving away from home and the finding herself plot points, this feels a lot like it should be billed as a New Adult romance and I feel would have read better if both leads' ages had been shifted down to their early twenties.

Beyond my issues with the ages of the leads not feeling authentic, this book was... okay. It took a while to get into, and both Clara and Josh were pretty unlikable at first. While their interactions with each other grew on me, they both remained quasi-unlikeable characters throughout the entire book. I wouldn't want either of them for a friend, and in the end what makes a book great *for me* is feeling a connection to the characters. I didn't have that with The Roommate.

This book killed me....I can't wait to share it with all of my friends and get my hands on a physical copy!!!
When Clara finds herself in California, passing up a dream job just to be close to the man child that holds her heart, she doesn't expect is for said man child to leave her hours after she gets there. When she meets her new roommate, Josh, she is instantly intrigued by this gorgeous man just because he is so different from the WASPys people she usual is around. When Clara discovers what Josh does for a living she is shocked and petrified that her uptight family will find out...but the more she starts to get to know Josh she realizes the world isn't black and white.
This book is so much more than a rom-com, it touches on the subject of female sexuality and partner pleasing sexuality in such an empowering way that I fell in love with it even more.

This book was so good. The chemistry between Josh and Clara is so organic and I love them together. Josh is one of my favorite love interests I have ever read. I can't say enough good things about this book and these characters and how much I loved them.

I sadly had to not finish this one. It has everything to do with my dislike of the main character and the missing chemistry from the two love interests. I found Clara to be unbearable. From the way she spoke to Josh and just her way of thinking, I just couldn't wish for her to find love. Also, Josh had such a different type of job that I knew I wouldn't have been able to look past it.

I was a little slow to commit to this book. I couldn't see how a porn star and a society princess could ever develop a relationship. I'm glad I stuck with it because it wasn't the issue I thought it would be. Danan does a really good job of making Josh a likable, identifiable character who could enjoy his job and be a loving, thoughtful boyfriend. Clara is slow to trust though and almost blows it before realizing her mistake but she's also likable and relatable..

Who'd have though a porn star could give us such a slow burning love story but that's exactly what Josh (or rather Danan) does. And despite the slow burn, there are two amazingly sexy scenes between our hero and heroine before they actually become a couple..

I enjoyed the story and the conclusion was a nice HEA.

These titles are fun and easy reads. During the pandemic it's nice to be able to live in a romantic fantasy.