*Spoiler free*
The Wheatons are infamous among the east coast elite for their lack of impulse control, except for their daughter Clara. She’s the consummate socialite: over-achieving, well-mannered, predictable. But every Wheaton has their weakness. When Clara’s childhood crush invites her to move cross-country, the offer is too much to resist. Unfortunately, it’s also too good to be true. After a bait-and-switch, Clara finds herself sharing a lease with a charming stranger. Josh might be a bit too perceptive—not to mention handsome—for comfort, but there’s a good chance he and Clara could have survived sharing a summer sublet if she hadn’t looked him up on the Internet… Once she learns how Josh has made a name for himself, Clara realizes living with him might make her the Wheaton’s most scandalous story yet. His professional prowess inspires her to take tackling the stigma against female desire into her own hands. They may not agree on much, but Josh and Clara both believe women deserve better sex. What they decide to do about it will change both of their lives, and if they’re lucky, they’ll help everyone else get lucky too.
The title of this book alone captured my interest. A romance book with roommate in the title? Yes, that sounded incredibly intriguing. And then I found out one of the roommates is a porn star, while the other is not as well versed in sex. And both of them set off to destigmatize female pleasure. And that’s not all, my friend read and absolutely loved this book, and then even more friends read and loved it, so I was basically bursting into flames with how much I wanted to read it.
Oh, I love this book so much. I LOVE THIS BOOK SO SO MUCH. It’s as good as everybody raves it is and it’s as steamy as everybody promises. It’s just so, so good.
Alright, because I like to make things awkward, let’s start with the sex. A major theme in this book is sex, one of the main characters is literally a porn star. So, sex is discussed very candidly and very often. Though, I don’t think this book has any more actual sex scenes, as in the main characters are getting it on, than any other romance book. But, those scenes were eyeball meltingly hot. Like, I think my hands heated up with how well they were written. Danan seriously knows how to write passion.
I think it’s pretty obvious that this book is extremely sex positive haha. I do want to mention that I really liked how casually, and not casually at times (because Clara is going on a journey of learning), sex is talked about. How it’s different for everybody, how women deserve better sex, and how stigmatized porn can be. There’s also conversations about how adult performers are treated badly and it’s just par for the course. And Josh and Clara want to change that.
I think the things I loved about Clara were the small things, because those small things added up to a character that I GOT and understood and completely loved. Those small things were thoughts and feelings that I’ve thought and felt myself. It made me love Clara so much. Like how she’s terrified of driving, especially on the highway. Like how she’s absolutely terrified of failure. Like how she wants to make everybody around her happy all the time. She was so wonderful and she honestly made me cry with how much I loved her.
I felt the same way about Josh too. I didn’t connect with him as deeply as I did Clara, but there were still those small parts of him that I just got. Like how he’s terrified of investing himself in something because what if it isn’t good enough? What if he isn’t good enough? How he turns to avoidance to deal with his emotions. Plus, he’s really a giant dork and absolutely adorable. Plus, the imagine of him with his mop of hair and glasses makes my heart kind of melt right out of my chest (this book made a lot of my body parts want to melt haha).
This book is also just achingly sweet. There is so much pining. Seriously, so much. Really, the entire emotional aspect of this book was just so incredibly well done. The build up to love, the ache of love itself, the jumble of emotions that comes with thinking a relationship is doomed, of thinking the other person doesn’t feel the same way. Gosh, it literally makes me want to cry (in a good way, I promise) just thinking about. It makes my heart squeeze.
Oh, this book touched me. It was sexy and adorable and mushy and emotional and steamy and wonderful and just all kinds of incredible. I loved Clara and I loved Josh and I loved their relationships and I loved how they went about trying to bring about a change in the way people think about female pleasure. This book is so, so good. Seriously, I basically cried my way through the last 50 pages because I loved it so much. It’s really so, so good.
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