Housemates feels like it was written specifically for me, in this moment of my life. And maybe it feels especially personal because I am a fat queer person who lives in Philadelphia, but I think that the heart of this book also transcends those identity markers. The representation is incredible, yes, and you can’t extricate the queerness or fatness from these characters, but I really think this book will affect many others in the way it has affected me. The writing is gorgeous, the characters feel so fleshed-out and real, the story is both nostalgic and fresh. I truly foresee this becoming a classic queer novel, one that perfectly captures the feeling of a specific period of time. Housemates is a marvel in its simplicity and tenderness, and I will be recommending it to every single person I encounter for the foreseeable future. Thank you to Random House for the ARC and the chance to meet Leah and Bernie early and spend a little extra time with them.

Two young queer artists go on a roadtrip to make cool art!

Housemates brings you along in this journey towards identity, creativity, reinvention, and acceptance. Leah and Bernie, our main characters, are queer artists figuring out what they want their lives and art to look like. This story focuses heavily on the creative processes of both our writer, Leah, and our photographer, Bernie, as they figure out how to translate the world into art that means something and produces change. It's also successful in its exploration of queer friendships and relationships (as well as the messiness that can often come from them!).

One of the strongest topic this novel discusses is how fatness changes the experience of being a human both internally and externally. Some of the most powerful chapters explored how Leah felt about being perceived, interacting with the world around her, how limiting and dehumanizing it often felt. I really identified with a lot of it; the exploration of this theme provided the space and language to process a lot of my own emotions about it.

The only reason I couldn't give this book a five-star rating is because the narrator's story and our main characters' story didn't feel like it came together in any meaningful way (or at least it wasn't clear to me). Of course, there are parallels between their stories, but I was hoping it was building up to something emotional or impactful. It didn't. More often than not, it took me out of the story.

Another thing to note is that this is written without the use of quotation marks. I don't mind that at all, especially when the text is still clear in terms of who's speaking and what's being said. However, I know some people have strong opinions about it, so it's best to know it in advance.

I think this book is a great addition to your Pride Month TBR! Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for providing a review copy of this book.

i liked housemates but also found it forgettable. this book didn't quite stick with me like i wanted it to - some flat characters, disjointed time jumps, and a distant second person narrative device felt amateur despite some interesting themes around queerness, found family, art, and young adulthood. i enjoy ECE's non-fiction writing and didn't feel that this debut fiction was up to par with that.

A really fantastic story! This novel centers around Leah (writer) and Bernie (photographer) and their roadtrip that they take together to capture Pennsylvania. The plan is for Bernie to take the visual pictures in large format photos and Leah to capture additional context from her writing. Jointly, writing and photography will capture more than each can individually. The story is told through the perspective of Ann Baxter. Ann is an older woman whose personal life mirrors Leah and Bernie as Ann is a photographer and had a life partner (Ann refers to them as “the Housemate”, as that’s what homophobic critics called them) who was a writer. The story opens with Ann recounting how the Housemate’s death caused her to retreat from the world. Ann stumbles upon Leah and Bernie and her obsession with their lives pulls Ann out of her depression. Ann tells their story with occasional bits of commentary on her own life popping into the story.

I really enjoyed this novel! I live near Philadelphia and it’s always fun to read stories that take place in your “backyard”. I enjoyed the little interactions that Bernie and Leah had with people during their roadtrip. It honestly reminded me a little bit of Kerouac and Steinback’s roadtrip novels, but updated to today and with queer women as the main characters. Leah and Bernie are fascinatingly imperfect characters and I want to hear more about them and their careers. Also I want to know if Ann eventually moves in with them (kind of kidding, kind of not). I also want to know what happens with Violet and Lucy Vincent. And the other housemates. A wonderful novel that I encourage everyone to read!

Housemates by Emma Copley Eisenberg was an excellent story.
I found myself so absorbed by the writing and characters.
It's a fabulous story with characters that you can truly empathize with.
I loved how she brought these characters to life on the page.
The writing was fantastic. Emma Copley Eisenberg kept me hooked and flipping the pages.

Thank You NetGalley and Publisher for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

“There’s nothing to changing your life, it turned out. You just put a toe in and fell.”

‘Housemates’ by Emma Copley Eisenberg explores two queer housemates who embark on a three-week road trip across Pennsylvania to document it through their respective mediums: writing and photography. Unbeknownst to them, this journey will be a formative turning point in their lives as individuals and artists.

I was sold on a road trip because doesn’t that seem so fun? But this story touched on a lot more without making this a heavy read, which is why I think it will make a lot of summer reading lists. Also, the cover is *chefs kiss*

Bernie is the newest addition to the house in Philadelphia, where Leah, her girlfriend, and two other housemates reside. While Bernie navigates the recent inheritance of her disgraced professor, Leah and her connect through their mutual admiration for art. So when Leah gets a grant to pursue her project, it comes at the perfect time for them to pursue their aspirations while learning about themselves and the people of the state they call home.

Art is central to this story, which is one of the reasons I enjoyed it. Bernie is a film photographer, and film is one of my favorite hobbies. This made me remember why I loved it so much that halfway through reading, I bought another film camera. This is just a testament to Emma’s writing that she successfully conveys the beauty and complexity of the medium.

With Leah, I appreciated how Emma spoke about writing, body image, relationship with food, her insecurities and desires for how she wants to show up in the world in an honest tone that did not fall reductive to recycled sentiments.

The ending was great, as there's an ominous third party narrating that I loved seeing revealed. It is an ode to community, art, love, creating yourself, and a love letter to Philly.

Thank you, Hogarth, for the e-arc!

this book is a truly beautiful story, rich with characters on their journeys of self-discovery. the narrative offers a emotional commentary on america, society, and the struggles many of us face. definitely a powerful and insightful read!

many thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the arc!

Thank you to the publisher for the advanced copy!

This was such a powerful and profound read. Centered around two young housemates who go on road trip around central Pennsylvania, embarking on a coming of age journey for them both.
Having grown up in Pennsylvania, I could relate to so many things the girls were seeing. The writing was so elegant and beautiful. The way the author talked about life was so different than anything I have ever read. We see the state of Pennsylvania was the eyes of these two characters as they use their art to convey it to an audience. We see the characters go through many events that became huge parts of the recent history.
The book remained me a lot of normal people in this way and told in the third person perspective of someone watching them both.
Bernie and Leah are such special characters and seeing their journey set in such a special state (I’m bias) was truly beautiful to read about.

Bernie and Leah road trip to retrieve the photos and negatives photographer Daniel Dunn has bequeathed Bernie in this gently satirical and entertaining look at the world. These characters and this situation will no doubt resonate with many readers. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Good storytelling from Eisenberg.

This beautifully written book had me reflecting on myself. A book about openness and art and finding the beauty in the little things. Two queer women take a road trip and fall in love on the way. Reading this filled my heart with so much joy.

Housemates is the story of a group of queer women who share a home. When Bernie, a new roommate moves in, she brings her photography equipment, an interest that was sparked by a professor in college. When he dies and leaves items to her, she and one of the other women travel to his home. They agree to photograph their trip and their friendship develops into a relationship. This is more of a road trip and friendship book and less of a romance story. I didn't think I was the right audience for this book, but I do love a thought-provoking narrative and this one fits the bill. Really well done.

I REALLY enjoyed this queer road trip story about art and openness and allowing yourself to be in the world in a way that feels expansive and real. I love stories about art, what can I say? And about young people contending with what it means to make things now. Loved the writing. Loved the characters.

Thanks to NetGalley for my review copy!

I didn't love this book. I think it was just a tad too slow for me. I liked the beginning but I really struggled to deeply understand how all of the perspectives connected in this book. I felt like there was such a large disconnect between the narrator and the characters that it really threw me off.

Housemates follows two queer artists as they roadtrip through Pennsylvania to photograph and write about its more rural areas.

3.5 stars.

Overall I thought this book was beautiful. I loved the cast of complete oddball characters and the setting with these 20 somethings living in a rundown house together with their cat. There were a lot of very poignant comments about America and society in general. In particular, there was great commentary on what it's like to be fat and queer in this country.

Where it lost me a little was the unnamed, mystery narrator. We didn't get much of an explanation as to how she fit into the story, and especially in the first few chapters, she felt very stalker-y. There were also times that it didn't feel super clear that we had shifted back into her POV and it took a second to catch up. It just took me out of it a bit.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

Far and away one of my favourite books of 2024 so far! What a beautiful reflection on the complexity and existential nature of being human in 2024, and especially about the complexity, joy, and messiness of being fat and being queer. I think this book is also a really lovely reflection on the beauty and value of art and creativity, and also of friendship. The author's writing is so descriptive and visceral and embodied. I loved the weirdness and quirkiness of this story, and of the kind of disembodied, (maybe?) omniscient narrator. This is the second queer road trip novel I've read this year, after Alison Cochrun's Here We Go Again, and they were both 5 star books for me, despite being so, so different from each other. I will definitely be going out to buy a copy of Housemates on release day!

4.5/5 stars! This was a beautifully written book about the life experience. Passion, grief, happiness, emotion. I thoroughly enjoyed the way the characters were dynamically portrayed. Thank you to the publisher for this e-ARC!

I loved this novel! Eisenberg uses a unique structure with three points of view. The novel opens from the perspective of an unnamed, older person who had been a photographer but was currently alone after her partner, dubbed "The Housemate," died about fifteen years prior. While at a coffee shop in 2018, she sees two queer young women looking at a physical map of Pennsylvania and talking about a road trip.

The young women are Bernie and Leah, a photographer and a writer, who conceive of taking a road trip and making art that is a combination of Bernie's photography and Leah's writing. Bernie is girlish, thin, and from a working class background in central Pennsylvania. Leah is boyish, fat, and from a well-off Jewish New York family. They met when Bernie answered Leah's ad for a 5th housemate to share the 3-story Victorian in Philadelphia that Leah lived in with her girlfriend and two other queer friends.

We learn both Bernie's and Leah's backstories, how Bernie learned large format photography from a famous photographer/professor, and how Leah is interested in so many things a professor once gave her feedback that her work was "exhaustive and exhausting," a phrase that echoes in her head. Through it all, Eisenberg describes Bernie's admiration of Leah's fatness, and Leah's attempts at acceptance of it. There is anti-fatness, in how Leah struggles and how the world treats her, a nonbinary fat person, but by the end, when the unnamed photographer/narrator is taking their photograph, Leah acknowledges her fatness and seems to better accept who she is.

There is the epic road trip and the landscape and beauty of Pennsylvania, a bonfire made of the photography of a terrible man, and the magic of finding other queer people where you don't expect to. The language Eisenberg uses throughout is beautiful.

What I didn't know is that there was a real Berenice Abbott and Elizabeth McCausland, a lesbian photographer-writer couple in the 1930s who did a series on "Changing New York" and which I now need to read more about.

Thoughtful, honest, and moving. Queer road trip novel? I was already sold, but the writing, God, it destroyed me. I cannot wait for everyone to read this book. I just know everyone is going to be obsessed with it.

I absolutely loved this.

It was slow, contemplative, and rich with mundane detail. At first, I was a little off-put by the frame of it: an elder queer photographer having an almost supernatural access/fascination bordering on obsession with Bernie and Leah, but ultimately it fit. It made the pace, the details, and perspective make sense.

I loved the prose, the treatment of power and abuse, the interrogation of what we owe our communities, and the sweet, messy, (im)perfect queer relationship(s) at its core.

One of my favorite reads this year and I'll be checking out this author's other stuff.

Thank you so much to the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for my honest review!

"What if this what it is all about: changing the point of view, making it so something can be regarded instead of imagined. You take the thing you think is inside you and then you put it outside of you so you can read about it or listen to it or look at it. That’s all I had ever wanted to do.”

This is a really great story about feeling aimless and purposeless but also feeling like you're about to burst with strong opinions and beliefs. It's a story filled to the brim with tiny observations on fully formed characters. It's about the times in your life when you find someone who reflects you back at yourself in a way that kicks off some new fully formed version of you and this person together. It reminded me of the times in my early 20s when I thought, I feel like I have a unique perspective on this situation that people should know about. Except, in this book, this perspective is actually translated and executed in a way that impacts tons of people.

Bernie and Leah are two of the most unique and vivid characters I've read in a while. They embark on a road trip together, which takes up half of the book, in which Bernie photographs rural Pennsylvania with a large format camera: one that comes with a hood you throw over yourself while you fiddle patiently with various knobs to get the right shot. Bernie drives because Leah can't. Leah is the more talkative and bold of the pair. She asks Bernie direct and probing questions. When the two make stops, Leah is the one that asks questions and gets to know people. When the two finish their road trip, Leah writes captions that accompany the photos Bernie took.

It's a road trip story told by a mysterious narrator who speaks about Bernie and Leah as if whispering the story of a myth to a hushed crowd.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC.