I absolutely adored this! It was incredibly fun and the romance was heartwarming. I throughly enjoyed the main couple, but all of the characters were delightful!

And They Were Roommates is a quippy, smart and light-hearted young-adult romance, set in a traditional boarding school for boys. The story's protagonist is Charlie, a transfer student attending Valentine as an Excellence Scholar who is mistakenly placed in a double-room (he specifically requested a single for privacy!) with none other than the boy who stole his first kiss..... prior to his transition. He always knew he was a boy, and getting into Valentine had always been a dream! And now he will do anything and everything to ensure he stays.

There were a few plot points I was questioning from the beginning, mainly pressures on the main character to achieve certain goals, that were eventually answered by the end of the book. I enjoyed the slow-burn, second-chance, grumpy sunshine romance between our love interests. Blaze A. Dixon was also a TREAT of a comedic relief. The author did well building the main character's world and letting the readers into his mind and though process. Charlie is a bit messy and delusional!

However, this wasn't a five star read for me. Delilah, the female character who attends the girls boarding school across the "cockblockade" plays the role of Charlie's best friend, but there's no depth in their relationship. Also, the relationship between them is immediately strained when she comes in with her own dialogue. Second, I think this story would benefit from "going back in time" and giving readers a preview of what actually happened at camp. Toward the end, I was almost questioning if this part of the story existed as the first book, and this book I was reading was a spin-off, because so much was missing for me.

Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a light-hearted romance to read this summer, a young adult with a trans mc, or even books that explore the inner-dialogue of someone who is trying to live up to immense social and academic pressure.

(I will review this book on my bookstagram, @brintsbooks, in the coming days and before the publishing date).

Thank you to Macmillan Publishers for this eARC. This was such a relatable read. This poor boy is so stressed out all the time and so afraid to disappoint everyone and his anxiety goes crazy and I related to that so hard it was nearly upsetting. I really liked the concept of a trans boy moving in with his first crush from pre transition and the friends he collects along the way made my heart warm. Just a really good really important read!

I was immediately drawn by the books title (anyone else grow up on Vine?) add in the cover and description? Sounds gay I am in!!

I loved EVERYTHING about this book! It totally captures how hard it is to navigate youth, then you add in academic pressure, friends, crushes, being queer, too that off Charlie is keeping a big part of his life under wraps for fear of being kicked out of school!

From the get go I love Jasper and Charlie frenemy-ship (?) Charlie is trying so hard to avoid Jasper to make sure he doesn’t recognize who he was and Jasper seems to be totally enamored with his roommate and wants to spend all his time with him.

This book will make you kick your feet at all the cuteness. I loved every character 🥹♥️

Thank you so much to Page Powars, Macmillan, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my review.

This book is Ouran meets Hana Kimi some of the favorite shoujos of all time! Charlie, the main character is reunited with his summer camp love who broke his heart, only Jasper knew him before his transition. It's silly and ridiculous in a way that I think a teen romcom with a trans main character pulls off perfectly. It's got heart and fun characters - Jasper and Charlie are literally Tamaki and Haruhi in another font and I enjoyed watching their shenanigans.

Charlie is the only trans student in a private all boys high school who has just transferred in as a scholarship student. He was supposed to have a single room but finds out on check in that he has a roommate, Jasper; said roommate is the boy that broke his heart before he transitioned.

Suddenly Charlie's plans to lay low go up in smoke, sharing a room with Jasper and getting involved in the tutoring program that's really a front for love letter delivery to the sister campus. Can Charlie survive at Valentine Academy for Boys?

This was a semi stressful yet delightful read. Stressful because Charlie is a ball of nerves (for valid reasons). I appreciated the people Charlie did find along the way, so even though themes in this novel could have gone really serious, most things land pretty upbeat. My first read from Page, but now I need to go read his other books.

Thank you to Macmillan Children's Publishing Group | Roaring Brook Press for an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. This book will be published on 5/27/25. I will post to Instagram closer to publication

And They Were Roommates was so good! It was such a fun and easy read! Charlie is so sweet and such a great main character. Jasper is so annoying at first, but then you start to see what Charlie sees in him and start to love him more and more as the book goes on. You really see how much love Charlie has for his friends and found family. I adore this book so much that I HAD to preorder a signed copy already even though I read the eARC. Sign me up for 10 more, I love Page Powars’ writing and can’t wait to read more!

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan for giving me the opportunity to read an eARC of And They Were Roommates in exchange for my unbiased review.

Overall, this was a fun read! I have been so excited to read this after seeing it promoted on TikTok. I love a good Queer romance and set in an academic setting I knew I was going to eat it up! I really enjoyed the out there characters and their eccentricities. I really felt like I was reading about silly and in some cases pretentious teens. It was silly and kooky but really fun!

I did have a few issues. Without too many spoilers, let’s get into it. I think most of my issues with the book is that it didn’t make sense to be set in a high school. I was talking about it with someone and like…. It feels like it was originally supposed to be in an older setting but got bumped down to YA. Maybe that wasn’t what happened but that’s just what it felt like to me. For example, there are so many times that Jasper is referred to as the sexiest poet of the year or something like that… Y’all that is a child. At MOST this kid is 16 years old. Why are we referring to a child as SEXY? And there were so many plot points where it didn’t make sense that this was happening at such a young age. I can excuse silly things that don’t make sense like 2 16 year olds being best selling authors. But this person broke your heart when you were 13 and now you’ve decided to give up on love entirely? So yeah, i just think it would have made a lot more sense within the storyline if we aged these characters up a few years

I also think this book has been misrepresented in its promo. This book did not have the focus on the love story to be classified as a romance ya book. The focus on STRIP and their letters was the main point and I wasn't expecting it. There is some tension and build up but it wasn’t the main plot and felt kind of rushed at the end like oh right we need to add in the romance. I mean based on the cover alone, I thought we would get more of a will they won’t they scenario of developing feelings or attraction to one another

Lastly, the main female characters felt one dimensional and not fleshed out as characters and just used as plot devices. I guess I can sort of excuse this as they aren’t allowed a lot of page time because of Valentine’s rules around communication. But it just didn’t sit right with me.

Ok so that was a lot. BUT. I promise I really did have fun with this story!! Once I reset my expectations, I had a good time.

If you liked Page Powars’ The Borrow a Boyfriend Club you’ll love this! A light-hearted LGBTQ+ young adult romance set at a prestigious boarding school featuring your favorite found family and enemies to lovers tropes. This one was slow to start but had a strong finish. I surprised myself by loving the friendships more than the love story in this one; the supporting characters really stood out and were some of my favorites.

3.755 ✨ I thought the story was a cute little romcom moment, with boarding school setting and twist on the classic trope. I found myself really enjoying the main character and his evolving friendships but I wish we got more moments with the love interest but I feel like the jump from acquaintances to more happened (not quickly but) suddenly. I felt very intrigued with the tutoring storyline but I felt like we only dipped our toes into the it. Overall, it was a decent quick read that I would recommend for anyone that wants a sort of non-serious LGBT contemporary romance.

----My ARC copy of the book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair, unbiased review.----

This book was TOO CUTE! I read it in a day because I was hooked. It was different in a good way, and I ended up invested in everyone, including the side characters!

2.5 stars -- "And They Were Roommates" bases its titular cliche for its attention-grabbing synopsis; coupled with the twist of the main character being a trans boy, the novel should be a romp. The execution, however, leaves more to be desired as I felt neither butterflies nor giddiness while reading. Instead of being absorbed in Charlie's predicament and immersed in the school setting, I felt detached and disconnected from the characters and story. A reason could be that we don't learn much about Charlie as a person especially pre-transition unless it's somehow related to Jasper and their past summer together. While the school setting is understandably intense yet unexpectedly welcoming, towards the end it reads like a bet to see whether Charlie will get to stay at St. Valentine's, while also coming across as quite juvenile. Although there are certainly good moments, I wouldn't say I liked reading this, but it's definitely an important one representation-wise and a lot of people will love it--especially for its trans rep in the current landscape/hellscape.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC copy of this book in exchange for a review.

I really love second chance romances so when I found this book I thought it would be right up my alley. While I loved the dialogue between Charlie and Jasper, the story was a bit slow for me. The story was decent enough for a one time read. Would still recommend to my audience.

And they were roommates!

Thank you Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group for the ARC!

Charlie is ready for a fresh start at Valentine Academy for Boys, and has gone to great lengths to ensure that he will have the opportunity to be his authentic self, without judgement. Yet, this plan is thrown into chaos when his roommate is none other than Jasper Grimes, a familiar face from his past. Jasper knows a lot about Charlie, and his chance to finally have a fresh start seems threatened. But Jasper doesn’t recognize Charlie. And Charlie finds himself more and more drawn to Jasper, and possibly ready to be known fully, on his terms.

This was such a delight. A charming, unapologetically queer and fresh love story, filled with plenty of romantic tension and a big heart. Representation is so important, and we’ve got something truly insightful and powerful in And They Were Roommates. Highly recommend it!

I loved this book I love me a good second chance romance and this delivered I loved the banter between the two characters I liked Charlie and happy we got some good representation

i don’t necessarily gravitate towards ya too much anymore but when i tell you this needs to be your ya pick of next month, i’m not exaggerating IT HAS TO BE!! the best words to describe this book are cute and camp. that’s truly all you need to know going into it
the found family? so camp i will not get over it
and the love interest? the most melodramatic poet you’ll ever meet so incredibly camp
i saw another reviewer compare the vibes to she’s the man if the mc was actually trans and THAT’S IT THAT’S THE FUN, CUTE, CAMPY VIBES THIS HAS! it does feel very ya, but it hit the exact spot that i needed it to that i read this in one sitting

Thank you, NetGalley for sending me an eARC of this book!

This story is for anyone who watched ‘Ouran High School Host Club’ and head-cannoned Haruhi as a trans guy. It’s fun and camp and full of characters you can’t help but love. And the slow burn was *perfection*. A super fun read.

“No, I don’t possibly have this disgusting disease you’re talking about.” “You mean lovesickness—?”

When Charlie ends up as roommates with the boy who broke his heart before he transitioned, his first thought is that Jasper is going to reveal his secret and get him kicked out of Valentine Academy. He doesn't expect to not be recognized at all. So he tries to maintain his distance, not just from Jasper but from everyone else, to try and hold onto his identity and his spot. But no matter how hard he tries, Jasper keeps integrating himself into his life and though he tries to keep those old feelings from coming back, he soon realizes that they never went away in the first place.

“Love is never not scary. It’s a matter of whether you’re enjoying that fear.”

There were so many things that I loved about this book. The pretentiousness, the dramatics, the big emotions of teenage boys and the way every moment, every interaction and every decision feels like it could make or break your life. Unlike the other boys on campus, Charlie's secrets have the potential to get him kicked out. But regardless of his attempts to remain a lonely enigma, he unintentionally creates a name for himself. He forms a circle of friends who he eventually ends up trusting. And it all starts and ends with Jasper, the one person he tried the hardest to stay away from.

“Just because you can do it all doesn’t mean you should, Charlie.”

Jasper is the kind of person you think you won't like, especially since we see him from Charlie's perspective, and his own opinion of Jasper is skewed by the past. But Jasper's smart and loyal and a true romantic. Add in the drama, the teenage angst and his charm and vulnerability, and much like Charlie, you can't help but fall for him.

“Why do you always hide your face?” Jasper says. “I like your face.”

From the moment they meet again, there's this tension between them. Sometimes it verges on hate and other times it's on the other end of the spectrum. But these two are utterly obsessed with each other and Charlie's attempts to pretend that he wasn't were some of my favorite parts of the book. His incrurable sickness, his constant questions about Jasper, the way every little thing about Jasper seemed to bother him but he missed those little things when Jasper wasn't around. He just cares so much even when he tries not to and the moment he finally accepts it is just so wonderful!

"It makes my head spin. Forces me to feel every conflicting emotion of the incurable sickness that I thought was cured."

This book wouldn't be complete without STRIP and the non-tutors. These boys are all so different and if it weren't for these circumstances, they never would have been friends at all. But they're so loyal and care so deeply about each other. I just loved how Charlie found himself this tight circle of friends who are exactly what he needed. Blaze, Robby and Xavier round out this book in so many ways. Their antics made me laugh so much and I loved getting to know them through Charlie.

“Charlie.” I’ve never heard his voice this soft before, yet there’s something more unrestrained that simmers beneath it, too, making my chest burst in ways I never knew existed."

This book reminded me a little of Page's first book. Not in the story (apart from the secret club within a club that's all about romance and young love) but in the characters and the feelings it brought out. It's so refreshing and joyous and I just enjoyed every second of it. I was already a fan, but now I'm even more excited for Page's future books!

Unfortunately, this one just wasn’t for me. I really wanted to like And They Were Roommates, but I had a hard time getting into the story. I tried picking it up multiple times, hoping it would click, but it just didn’t hook me.

The pacing felt very, very slow, and I found myself struggling to stay engaged. I usually give a book a few chapters to pull me in, and if it doesn’t, I move on which is what happened here. I ended up DNFing it.

That said, I know this book has worked for other readers, so it may be worth checking out. Just wasn’t the right fit for me personally.

Based on the premise, I thought I would really like this book, but I think that the author was trying to do too much and it became increasingly over-the-top. While reading, I was often reminded of this exchange between Charlie and Nora at the beginning of Emily Henry's Book Lovers:
"“And the cast is caricatured—”
“Quirky,” I disagree. “We could scale them back, but it’s a large cast—their quirks help distinguish them.”" And They Were Roommates felt like this- a cast too big for the space which compelled the author to make each character quirky in a way that came off as unrealistic.

In addition, much of this sounded unlike any real boarding school I could imagine. A scholarship dependent on being ranked 1-5 in the class after your first semester? Two schools being so completely separated by gender that there is only one time for overlap each year (If this is so important to the school, then why are the summer camps co-ed?)

I think And They Were Roommates could have benefited from one more round of editing, scaling down the cast slightly, and building stakes outside of an unrealistic school system. This will find its audience though, and seems to already have, and I'm genuinely glad so many others are enjoying it.