Housemates is a 'once in a lifetime' kind of book. A contemporary, queer triumph. It has everything you could ever want in a book. It's gay, it’s messy, there's found family, there's finding yourself, a celebration of our bodies and what it means to really live in them, a road trip, the meaning of art, the creation of art, failures and successes. All of this is woven together in a brilliant and thoughtful way. It is unlike anything I have ever read before and it will be in my heart forever. I will be thinking about Bernie and Leah for the rest of my life. I loved these characters, I loved their story. Housemates felt like home while I was reading it. This is one you're absolutely going to want to read.

Housemates was an excellent read. I really appreciated the author's insight into being queer and figuring out what that means to yourself. I liked the different dynamics of the housemates and the slight satire of how they were a little bit ridiculous in their politics/beliefs. I loved the exploration of photography as a way to reveal the world and the appreciation for taking time to make art. I liked the road trip part more than the house living part.

I couldn't get into this book, had to DNF. I didn't like the writing style and really disliked that there weren't quotes.

I went into Housemates geared up for a classic road trip novel and, in many ways, it was that, but also much more…

Emma Copley Eisenberg has a sharp, observational lens that results in highly specific, intentional sentences commenting on everything from sexuality to bodies to relationships (both romantic and platonic) to art. I was especially intrigued by the questioning around the ethics of appreciating and benefitting from bad men who create good art *.

Housemates appeals to anyone in its humor and views on how to simply be in the world and find your path, but is also delightfully written specifically for a queer audience without a lens shift to over explain cultural norm nuances, which is a breath of fresh air in an age where education fatigue is high.

*if you’re looking to go even more in-depth on this topic pick up one of my favorite reads from 2023, Monsters by Claire Dederer.

This unfortunately didn't work for me.

While I can acknowledge the writing style will work for many, it meandered a bit too much for my liking. It took awhile to get into the road trip element of the story. This, in tandem with the latent stalker vibes the early sections game, made it difficult for me to become invested.

4.5 ⭐️. this was such a lovely love letter to the state of Pennsylvania. I fell in love with Bernie and Leah's resilience and their warm coming of age story. this story felt so familiar and cozy.

my only critique is that this book desperately needed a pennsylvania editor. the geographic connections did not work logistically. my small lil town was mentioned as a "stop-over" chapter and while the town was described EXACTLY like it's layout, the drive Bernie & Leah took after does not geographically make sense-- it realistically would have added an extra hour (or more) to their journey and they would have had to backtrack their drive to get to their next stop.

thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for an Advance Reading Copy in exchange for an honest review

This is a delightfully fresh take on a genre which has been dominated by straight white men. Eisenberg's compassionately human protagonists make great companions for a long trip. A perfect summer read.

“She felt fond of life. Where had that come from? When did it go missing?”

Filled to the brim with feeling, art, & rich characters, Housemates by Emma Copley Eisenberg is a beautifully queer road trip novel.

Bernie was just looking for a place to live. When she responds to an ad by Leah, looking for a housemate in the home they shared with other queer people, she’s starting a new chapter in Philadelphia. Both queer artists, and incredibly different people, they find themselves drawn to each other and their friendship blooms as they explore how their art (photography for Bernie, writing for Leah), and how they can create something meaningful together. When Bernie finds out she has inherited a former professor (and disgraced artist)’s collection of photographs, Bernie & Leah set out on a road trip to retrieve the photographs using the trip as a catalyst to create their own collaboration.

Housemates is a stunning gem of a book. It brings something new & electric to what we know as the road trip novel, filling it with modern queer artists whose longing for connection and meaning isn’t all that different from all those who came before.

The writing will envelop you; you'll see here, feel and smell it all. The characters that Eisenberg creates are complete; they are living, breathing, flawed, and charming real people. Each character is treated with such love, tenderness, and care, while never shying away from their rough edges. She explores the facets of what it is to be a human person in a body; from trauma to entitlement to food to loneliness to weight, there’s no judgment anywhere to be found, just a deeper understanding. You’ll see parts of yourself in each character, maybe one more than the other (I think I’m a mix of them both). I loved Bernie’s slowness and intentionality and Leah’s curiosity and talkativeness. Brilliantly, their methods of expression are extensions of who they are and how they navigate the world.

Housemates is a wonderful, warm book that embraces its characters, their feelings, their bodies, & their art. And like any good road trip, you’ll wish this one wouldn’t end.

This was not what I was expecting, but I had fun with it regardless. The writing felt vivid and poignant in the moment, but I am unsure if I will remember much of it in the long run (but that could just be a me problem). I loved the nuanced discussions of absolutely every topic imaginable (it feels so genuinely mid-20s to know a little too much about everything and nothing). Also, I am always a sucker for a road trip aesthetic, so this was a solid novel in my eyes.

This book is for you if you’re REALLY into photography.
This book is not for you if you hate books with no quotation marks around the dialogue.

-1 star for this feeling like Photography 101.
-1 star for the boogers, poop smears, and sebum descriptions.
-1 star for the road trip not being long enough, and starting like 40% into the book.
+1 star for the oddly specific description of the 1991 film Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken. The author didn’t even mention the title and I knew exactly what they were watching.
+1 star for the LGBTQ representation.

QUEER ROAD TRIP!! This book feels like sitting on your porch on a summer evening and watching the sunset peek through the lingering clouds after an abrupt rainfall.

Thank you, NetGalley for the arc!

A road trip book that instantly captures your heart and your attention. Another great Pride Month read and I love seeing this representation. Celebrating everyone as they are - truly spectacular

3/5 stars

I read this one for book club that meets this month! I'm eager to chat with others about it as I still don't know how I feel about it. It seemed a bit disjoined between the present and Leah and Bernie's life growing up and I was very confused as to why it was told as if there was a third person along the road trip with them.

This book tackled a lot of heavy topics such as racism, classism, gender norms and eating disorders. There was also quite a bit of talk of the pandemic and thankfully it didn't feel like too much by making it a present-day book. I did really enjoy the small towns they visited and the people they met along the way. Seeing Bernie and Leah's relationship grow throughout the road trip was beautiful. This was a book where I could picture myself there too!

The premise was good, but the execution was lacking a bit, and the ending felt a bit rushed. I overall am glad I read this book for book club and learned a lot and am excited to chat with others about it!

I wanted to love this so so much and it has a really strong start, it’s just wayyyy slower than I liked. I appreciated the description and background, it just seems to take forever to get to the actual story portion!

DNF around 25%. It was moving really slowly, I was bored, and already started skimming. To be fair, lit fic just has not been my mix lately. I haven’t found something I’ve really enjoyed in the genre in a while, but I’ll always keep picking things up and hoping! So this one just wasn’t for me. At least it was queer!! We love to see it. If a lit fic doesn’t hit right for me then everything I may have highlighted and tabbed and the quotes I would have waxed poetic over just end up feeling disingenuous or pretentious and flowery.

Love the premise of this book but found the writing to be a bit hard to get into. I couldn’t find a way to get anchored into the text.

Thank you to NetGalley, author Emma Copley Eisenberg, and Random House Publishing Group: Hogarth for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

I am so sad this didn't quite work for me. Queer literary fiction is my favorite genre, and on paper this was pretty much everything I could have wanted from a book. In terms of the queer art and queer road trip plot line, specifically "Part 2" in the book, this did work for me. I enjoyed seeing Pennsylvania through the eyes of Bernie and Leah and found that Eisenberg's writing really shone here. Parts 1 and 3 felt super disjointed in comparison, and the biggest thing that didn't really work for me personally was the narrator. It didn't feel necessary and wasn't ever fleshed out enough to make a large impact on me as a reader. I found myself instead annoyed and a little confused to have to be interrupted with the flow of Bernie and Leah's story to read an omniscient perspective. I also would have loved for part 3 to be longer where they are actually showing their work to again get a better sense of who they are and what they're doing. There was some interesting commentary on body and gender roles all throughout, but unfortunately, I found myself bored in parts and just wanting to get through it because I wasn't connecting as much to the story as I was hoping. Maybe I'll try again one day because I know it's been super acclaimed by people whose tastes are usually the same as mine!

So smart and well done. This is a novel about a road trip and housemates and love and self-discovery. The writing is top notch. It starts in a way that instantly captured my interest in a coffee shop. I could "see" these characters and wanted to hang out with them. I love stories with smart women who grow and learn and develop and this scratched that itch. Thanks to the publisher for the copy. Loved it.

4.5 rounded up. This novel is an incredible exploration of creativity, the push and pull of found family, and the intricacies of perspective. Each character is richly developed, making their individual and collective journeys compelling. I also just adored the way the book dealt with fatness and queerness - extremely lived-in and realistic, while handling everything with the utmost grace. The way the narrative is framed is exquisite, putting the narrator's perspective in the forefront when it makes sense.

There were a few pieces that didn't totally click for me; the plot was sometimes slightly hard to follow as it jumped around a bit, and I felt like I needed to keep track of where we were when I likely didn't need to. However, the vibes were excellent - this book is very vibey.

Overall, Housemates is a novel that quite deftly and beautifully sees the characters, joins them on a creative journey, and reminds the reader of how community and artistry not only can be intertwined, but they should be.

Housemates is, on the surface, a road trip novel in which Bernie (a photographer) and Leah (a writer) set out to document life in rural Pennsylvania. But it’s so much more than that. This is a celebratory book, a novel that celebrates art (both the act of creating it and the act of absorbing it), friendship, queerness, and what it means to be alive (and finding joy in being alive) during a politically and socially fraught time in American history. It reads like a love letter: to Pennsylvania, to youth, to the human body, to falling in love – with yourself, with someone else, and with life itself. It’s about being messy and imperfect and helpful and hurtful – about how it feels to be seen and understood, and how it feels to be misunderstood. It’s a truly special book.

Emma Copley Eisenberg has created such incredible characters in Bernie and Leah, who are written with so much texture and tenderness that you can feel Eisenberg’s love for them emanating from the page. Their desires and insecurities, their regrets and their secrets, are so deeply felt in the narrative. They are complex and flawed and real. The people they interact with on their road trip are fascinating, subverting expectations at every opportunity as Eisenberg delves into the soul of Pennsylvania, a place she describes as having “two hearts.” Through Bernie’s mentor, a photographer and professor accused of inappropriate conduct with his female students, Eisenberg raises thoughtful questions surrounding whether or not an artist can ever truly be separated from their art.

But what’s truly wondrous about Housemates is Eisenberg’s lively, richly-detailed writing, which immersed me completely in the world of the novel. Her descriptions of Bernie’s photographs are vivid and evocative and created such a clear, striking picture in my mind. Surely it couldn’t have been an easy task to write a book about a visual art form – but Eisenberg totally nailed it. I don’t know if I’ve ever read writing quite like hers, and I can’t wait to read whatever she writes next.

4.5 stars instead of 5, only because I’m not certain the narrator's POV, while certainly interesting, was necessary, and the ending felt a bit flat compared to the rest of the book. Otherwise, Housemates was a near-flawless, unforgettable reading experience. Thank you to Hogarth for the early reading opportunity.