Jenna Levine - My Roommate is a Vampire

Cassie Greenberg loves being an artist, but it’s a tough way to make a living. On the brink of eviction, she’s desperate when she finds a too-good-to-be-true apartment in a beautiful Chicago neighborhood. Cassie knows there has to be a catch—only someone with a secret to hide would rent out a room for that price.
Of course, her new roommate Frederick J. Fitzwilliam is far from normal. He sleeps all day, is out at night on business, and talks like he walked out of a regency romance novel. He also leaves Cassie heart-melting notes around the apartment, cares about her art, and asks about her day. And he doesn’t look half bad shirtless, on the rare occasions they’re both home and awake. But when Cassie finds bags of blood in the fridge that definitely weren’t there earlier, Frederick has to come clean...
Cassie’s sexy new roommate is a vampire. And he has a proposition for her.

Comment: Last Christmas I was given this book as a gift and even though I had seen references to it on friend's lists or in suggestions because of that feature on GR "readers who liked this also read...", I confess I wasn't specially eager to see what it was about.

In this story we meet Cassie, a young woman about to be evicted from her apartment for lack of payment. Cassie is a complicated situation, she works two jobs but still can't make ends' meet and although she loved her arts college degree, she is aware it's not the easiest option to get a steady job. While speaking to her friend Sam, they see the advert of someone looking for a roommate, but the rent is so low for the area, they are wary of the veracity of the offer. Still, Cassie replies and agrees to meet the person there. That is how she meets Frederick, who seems to be a very weird person, and not only because he speaks as if he is a character in a period drama. As they deal with getting along, Cassie realizes Frederick is hiding a big secret, but will she be able to cope with learning he is actually a vampire?

I have nothing against colorful or cartoonish covers if they suit the tone or the content of the story. In fact, some are really cute and everyone knows book covers can be as appealing to enjoy as a plate of food might seem before one starts eating. Sadly, as it so often happens, sometimes the content isn't as bright nor as tasty and I'll have to say the content of this story was not as good as the cover is (for me).

Cassie is a likable enough heroine. She embodies the adult life of many people, who probably studied what they love in school/college and then real life isn't as easy, especially if one doesn't already have an obvious path or a lined up job. Cassie works two jobs and it's still difficult to pay rent and other things, so when she sees the opportunity to live in a good area of Chicago for a cheap rent, she believes it must be too good to be true, but she still feels she needs to try it. Of course, this being romanceland, the offer is genuine and the roommate is weird but seems to want to be friendly. 

I think this was a good premise and the beginning was interesting enough, but I will say I wasn't immediately caught by what was happening. Something about the writing just didn't seem to make this story truly engaging, and I felt things were develop on a superficial level, which can be tricky and nowadays isn't my preferable style of story. I also disliked that the story was being told in first person by Cassie, both for the reasons I often write about in my comments, but also because of the writing style; it just didn't feel as if the way this was being told would be the best way to tell this story.

The premise is cute enough, two strangers meet and, on top of it, one of them is a vampire. I was quite curious to see how this would play out and how the author would make it work between them but since we don't have Frederick' POV, things feel very one sided. The author also chose to make Frederick a vampire who was woken from a coma, if I understood correctly, and now he needs help to navigate the 21st century. This is, again, a great idea and if the goal of this story was for this to be a romantic comedy, that would make it quite original, but the execution wasn't really well achieved, in my opinion.

The dynamics between them weren't very consistent. I could not be led to believe that they were really falling in love, and not even close proximity, which often is why these types of plots are designed for, helped. Frederick was too lost in a new reality, I'd say, and his lack of knowledge about so many things was not as endearing as I think the author imagined, particularly since part of the interactions between them happened because he wanted her help to blend in. 

The vampire condition was also a theme I found lacking because it wasn't developed at all, nor were those who were vampires like Frederick. He had a "friend" who I didn't connect with either, for instance.

The situations they see themselves in as the story moves along, the progress of their relationship, the specific details about Frederick's vampire status and abilities were very weakly developed elements. I think the author had all these ideas in her head but the actual transition into a written text didn't really compute. Two thirds of the story gone and I was already convinced this would not be a good story overall, but then the author adds this last third drama regarding Frederick's family and a supposed marriage between him and another vampire from his past. I am really sorry to say it, but this was the most ridiculous thing the author might have invented!

I say this because the choice to make Frederick deal with this problem by meeting his mother and his supposed fiancée, and then making things go wrong, so that the solution was to have Cassie "rescue" him was so incredibly juvenile and childishly written, I cannot understand how the author's friends and her editor might have approved (I've read the thank yous at the end). I will be truly honest: the only reason why I don't give this book a negative grade is because it was easy to read this story. There's no real development, no real evolution for the characters, no real intensity nor complexity to their characters or their actions. I will certainly not remember much about it after a while...

Grade: 5/10