I tend to stay away from the romance genre as when I did read it a while ago, it would annoy the hell out of me. Nothing in a romance book ever happened in real life and I ended up resenting the story somehow. Sounds mad I know, but that’s just how my mind works 🙂 After seeing The Flat Share a lot across Bookstagram, I decided to buy it and give the romance genre another go.
I have to say, I was very pleasantly surprised. I went into this book thinking that more than likely I wouldn’t enjoy it and that it would just put me in a mood afterwards, however, I actually enjoyed this very much.
OK, the premise of the story is very far-fetched and unbelievable but overall, it turned out to be a lovely read so I looked past this crazy storyline.
Tiffy is coming out of an abusive relationship and decides that the best way to get rid of her abusive, narcissistic boyfriend is by moving out once and for all. Living in London, she obviously has London rental prices to deal with so when she comes across an ad from Leon, she thinks it’s too good to be true. The idea is that while she isn’t at work 9am-5pm, she will have the whole flat to herself as he is working nights and spending weekends at his girlfriend’s house. The catch is that they will have to sleep in the same bed while it’s each of their turns to be in the flat.
They both communicate by leaving post-it-notes around the flat and through these written messages, you see their relationship start to grow. Leon’s own relationship fails and then the reader is routing for Tiffy and Leon to finally meet. An accidental encounter in the shower is full of chemistry and then the reader is routing for them to go on a date!
The story has alternative chapters with the POV changing between Tiffy and Leon. It did take me a while to get used to the writing style in Leon’s chapters, but I can see the author deliberately chose to change the writing style to make it easier for the reader to differentiate between the POV.
There seems to be two further characters that is making it difficult for them to get together. Tiffy’s ex-boyfriend has started to stalk her and Leon’s brother is currently in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Both sub-stories is stopping Leon and Tiffy from finally getting together, however, when Tiffy finds a way to help Leon’s brother, they are pretty much thrown together to work on getting the brother out of jail.
When they finally manage to get together, this becomes a lovely story and the ending had me crying happy tears. Yes, I know that I am getting soppy as I get older haha!
I enjoyed this book so much that I am going to try more romance novels and I will definitely read the other books by this author. I would recommend if you are after a quick, easy read and not likely to be put off by far-fetched stories and can enjoy for the lovely romance that it’s meant to be.
4/5
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