narrated by Carrie Hope Fletcher and Kwaku Fortune
Unabridged audio (9:35)
2019 Quercus
400 pgs.
Adult RomCom
Finished April 7, 2020
Goodreads rating: 4.13 - 66,701 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary England, small city....
First line/s: "You've got to say this for desperation: It makes you much more open-minded."
My comments: This has been on hold for many months with a long waiting list and I was greatly anticipating it. It didn't disappoint. Yes, it was humorous and well written, it had fantastic protagonists with their own silly quirks, one an extrovert and one an introvert. But it also had some serious themes as well. An ex-boyfriend with serious issues, an innocent brother in prison, and patients in Hospice, where Leon worked as a nurse. For at least half of the book the two protagonists shared a flat without ever seeing each other, never knowing what each other looked like, but getting to know each other almost intimately by leaving lots and lots of post-it notes back-and-forth. Very cleverly and satisfyingly done. Not a steamy romance , but with its own kind of tension and build-up. Of course it has the prerequisite friends, in this case three of them - one being a lawyer and one being a psychologist. It does not hurt the plot, LOL, or take away from me giving it five stars, but it probably should (snort, snort). I enjoyed the book greatly in the midst of this quarantined pandemic as I EPPed my fingers raw.
Goodreads synopsis: Tiffy and Leon share an apartment. Tiffy and Leon have never met.
After a bad breakup, Tiffy Moore needs a place to live. Fast. And cheap. But the apartments in her budget have her wondering if astonishingly colored mold on the walls counts as art.
Desperation makes her open minded, so she answers an ad for a flatshare. Leon, a night shift worker, will take the apartment during the day, and Tiffy can have it nights and weekends. He’ll only ever be there when she’s at the office. In fact, they’ll never even have to meet.
Tiffy and Leon start writing each other notes – first about what day is garbage day, and politely establishing what leftovers are up for grabs, and the evergreen question of whether the toilet seat should stay up or down. Even though they are opposites, they soon become friends. And then maybe more.
But falling in love with your roommate is probably a terrible idea…especially if you've never met.
What if your roommate is your soul mate? A joyful, quirky romantic comedy, Beth O'Leary's The Flatshare is a feel-good novel about finding love in the most unexpected of ways.
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