Tiffy Moore needs an apartment, cheap and fast.
Leon Twomey needs cash, easy and fast.
Tiffy sees an ad in the paper, and although skeptical she is also desperate.
Leon works nights at a hospice so can offer to share his flat for evenings and weekends.
Can two people share a flat and never meet?
I know I’m late to the party, but what a debut for Beth O’Leary!
I’ll be honest, the start was a little rocky. For the first 10-15% I was unsure whether I could continue, but I persevered and have never been so grateful for my inability to give up on a book.
The story is told via 2 narrative strands, the points of view of Tiffy and Leon, and through a series of Post-It notes they leave each other. Tiffy’s parts flow effortlessly, but Leon’s are more stilted. His chapters are made up of short monosyllabic sentences with a severe lack of pronouns and tend to read like a list. I can see from a few bad reviews this title received, that this writing style seemed to be the main bug bear, and for me too for a while. However, as I continued and got to know Leon this only serves to portray his personality accurately, and as his character develops and becomes less awkward so do his sections.
Aside from the protagonists who are highly loveable and relatable, the supporting cast in this story is strong. O’Leary uses her characters so effectively, each has a unique personality, but more than that every one has a purpose and a role to play. I find quite often in the rom-com genre that there can be a large amount of padding characters, people that seemingly have no affect on the plot and only provide interactions to fill space, which can become tiresome.
Whilst this novel definitely falls into the rom-com category, it is certainly not all hearts and flowers, the underlying tone is more serious. O’Leary covers some hard-hitting and sensitive subjects such as emotional abuse, PTSD and a miscarriage of justice. These themes are skilfully interwoven within the story, retaining the gravitas they deserve, without the reader losing the overall lightness the narrative provides.
This is easily my top read of 2020 so far, and I believe it will be a hard one to beat. Amazing characterisation, laugh out loud funny prose and a quirky, wholly original concept. A must-read for fans of romantic comedies with a little more substance.
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