Thank you so much @quercusbooks for sending me The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary - way outside of my usual comfort zone but I thought hey ho let’s give it a go, and ended up loving it! I read it when I was feeling very run down at the end of a hectic period at work and it was the perfect weekend read I needed - fun, fluffy, but also tackling some important themes.
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Tiffy and Leon are two young Londoners strapped for cash. Tiffy has also just got out of a toxic relationship and desperately needs somewhere to live for cheap, so when Leon posts his bizarre advert for a flat-share involving sharing one bed (as he works nights and is away weekends), she decides to take a chance and apply. I mean yes we know what is going to happen but it’s still an original premise and the journey it takes to get there is full of surprises and super cute SQUEE moments!
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I love books that incorporate letters, diary entries or whatever into the narrative, and here we get the most adorable post-it notes, texts, letters, DMs - I always just think it adds that extra dimension to the story! Tiffy and Leon’s relationship builds slowly so there’s none of the annoying love-at-first-sight, and both are such great characters. There’s a fantastic range of side characters too!
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And it’s not all just cute post-it notes and sexual tension, O’Leary tackles themes of emotional abuse, PTSD and gaslighting too, and it’s all weaved very well into the story. Although I read most of it with a big fat smile on my face, I also teared up a bit too at some parts - it was a rollercoaster of emotion okay!!
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At one point near the end there is the classic case of ‘if these characters actually SPOKE to one another this gigantic misunderstanding they’re barrelling towards could be easily avoided’ but it resolves fairly quickly, which is good because that’s one of my pet peeves in a novel!
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Overall, a great read that I would recommend picking up for something to make you smile!