I am sorry for the inconvenience but I don’t have the time to read this anymore and have lost interest in the concept. I believe that it would benefit your book more if I did not skim your book and write a rushed review. Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience.

Dnf 30%

Slow and a little hard to believe the romance. The style was hard to get into and the setting did not help matters.

Queer books always draw me in when I see them and while this book didn’t have the best writing and I didn’t connect with the characters I can appreciate what the author was trying to do. Thanks for the arc and allowing me to read it.

I've just finished reading this book, and I'm happy to report that this book was everything I was hoping it would be! It truly immersed me into the exclusive boarding school setting (drama and all!), and the LBGTQIA+/queer rep was everything I was hoping it would be. I enjoyed the mystery aspect as well, as it really kept me on my toes!

Overall, this was a solid four star read, and I will definitely be looking forward to reading more of Philline Harms' books in the future! Highly recommended for fans of the dark academia aesthetic, as well as TV shows like Gossip Girls and Gilmore Girls (but make it queer!).

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

Never Kiss Your Roommate was hard for me to get through, I didn't like the characters that much or the plot. others might like the book more than me. I think you should give it a chance if you like queer school set books.

2/5⭐ to Never Kiss Your Roommate by Philline Harms. Thank you to Wattpad for an egalley in exchange for an honest review. At first glance, this read like many of the boarding school high school rom coms that I've read and enjoyed before. Though the setting, writing and characters weren't especiallly stand-out, it was cute, had queer rep, and had elements of mystery. Unfortunately, I can't recommend this book due to the limited and problematic representation embodied in the character of Noelle, as pointed out by POC reviewers. So, if you are thinking about reading this book, I would point you towards their reviews before supporting or purchasing this book.

Never Kiss Your Roommate, although a contemporary YA romance, feels magical exactly in the way my inner child wants a boarding school to feel (without the transphobic author, wink wink)- I'm just sad it ended up perpetuating problematic representations of Black girls.

The atmosphere and Harms' descriptive "show-not-tell" writing is immersive. I loved that there was a dual point of view and double romance storyline with Evelyn and Noelle, and Seth and Jasper. The queer camaraderie and WLW/MLM friendships between both Evelyn and Seth, and Noelle and Jasper was also so lovely to see. What the book seemed to lack was BIPOC sensitivity readers/reviewers before its publication.

On the minor critique side, The Watcher was - to me - fairly predictable. Knowing that Harms began writing this when she was 16, and for young readers, this makes sense. But the more glaring problems with this book still absolutely need to be addressed, and with this book being professionally published and in 2021, these issues should not have fallen through the cracks.

From the beginning, I wondered if I (as a NB/white reader) was reading too much into the characterization of Noelle, but upon making my way further through the book and after reading reviews by Black folks and POC, I realized there were far too many anti-Black stereotypes being perpetuated with the traits Noelle was given. Especially with her being one of only Black characters/characters of colour in the whole book and with the author herself being white, it fell flat. Without a deeper analysis into why she's perceived as mean, aggressive, confrontational, standoffish and hypersexual by her (mostly all-) white peers, it read more as a racist archetype that she was written into than a character written to expose these kind of anti-Black stereotypes.

Among other stereotypes include: Noelle not caring about school, having an absent father, smoking cigarettes, and playing basketball (as pointed out by TikToker @Grapie: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMNtr8Tf1/). With all of these things together, this portrayal should not have made it past multiple editors and beta readers.

With an enemies-to-lovers type romance and anonymous, online spy/exposer "The Watcher" that is reminiscent of A or Gossip Girl, this book had the potential of exposing misogynoir through how a young Black girl can be racistly mischaracterized by her peers. This book could have had the ability for young readers - and those who enjoy YA like myself - to be hooked, but it was certainly not without its faults which I'm sure were even more obvious to readers of colour, and especially Black readers, who I'm sure were not able to experience the magic of the atmosphere or romance because these positive aspects were eclipsed by stereotypes.

I loved this story! It was so sweet! I loved the characters and the plot. Such a sweet romance. Highly recommend.

The premise of Never Kiss Your Roommate sounded so cute to me, and while it had its fun and sweet moments, I wasn't a huge fan of it overall. Noelle's original descriptions and characteristics were very stereotypical and problematic. Similar to what a lot of reviews that I looked at said after first being introduced to her, they were racist. Although we do get to dive into her throughout the story, I still don't think that a lot of what was included at the beginning was necessary or okay.

I was also confused as to why Seth got almost 50% of the book for his own story. Don't get me wrong, I loved it and could have read a whole book just about him and Jasper. But, I thought going into the story that it was going to focus on Evelyn and Noelle's relationship, especially as the cover only depicts them. Adding Seth's love story was great, but there was so much going on and it just felt a little too chaotic for me.

This story had potential but was just a little too cringy and busy in the end!

TW for kidnapping, blood, violence, abuse in the past that still affects character, racism.

Thanks to NetGalley and Wattpad for the ARC of Never Kiss Your Roommate by Philline Harms.

Such a great book! I enjoyed reading this one so much! I highly recommend this book. Side note: the cover!!!! So queer ugh yes

Really cute, sapphic, coming of age story. Not my favorite, but I'm not the target audience for this and I think that had books like this been out when I was a teenager, I might have seen myself in literature sooner, realized I was queer and been able to live my authentic self. So I'm glad that books like this exist!

DNF - Did not finish. I did not connect with the writing style or plot and will not be finishing this title. Thank you, NetGalley and Publisher for the early copy!

The writing just wasn't for me in this book and I didn't really enjoy any of the characters. I'm thinking it could be the fact that some YA books just aren't for me.

Oh this was so fun. I love when stories take place in school/university so this was just so fun. I highly recommend this for a fun and cute read.

sadly, before i could download this title, netgalley took it off their catalog. that means i can’t review this one. HOWEVER, i will be checking in with my library to see if i can get a copy and review it that way

And they were roommates! This was a fun, tropey romance set in an engaging world. The writing could have been a bit more polished, but it was easy and fun to read and I was engaged in the romance throughout.

Romantic Cliches are abundant in this book, making it the perfect comfort read. Plenty of wonderful representation is abundant. It's clear that author Philline Harms cares deeply about character development. A sweet read for an afternoon.

I wanted to love this but I was not into it whatsoever. I feel like every part of this, the story, the characters, the dialogue, was very contrived and I can't think of a moment where I actually enjoyed reading it. This might be a case of "its not you, its me". Very hard to put my finger on why this didnt work for me, but I think I've just seen other books who did it much better.

This book featured heavily racist tropes and stereotypes that made it nearly unbearable to read. The overall plot was fine but nothing special, about 4/5 of the book was somewhat predictable.