The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary

Tiffy and Leon share a flat
Tiffy and Leon share a bed
Tiffy and Leon have never met…

Tiffy Moore needs a cheap flat, and fast. Leon Twomey works nights and needs cash. Their friends think they’re crazy, but it’s the perfect solution: Leon occupies the one-bed flat while Tiffy’s at work in the day, and she has the run of the place the rest of the time.

But with obsessive ex-boyfriends, demanding clients at work, wrongly imprisoned brothers and, of course, the fact that they still haven’t met yet, they’re about to discover that if you want the perfect home you need to throw the rulebook out the window…

⭐⭐

Rating: 2 out of 5.

This book could have been so much better. I started out really enjoying it, it had a funny premise and I liked the characters; too bad that didn’t last.

The story is about two people who live in the same apartment and sleep in the same bed, but they’re never there at the same time – they live together for months without actually meeting each other. At first they’re annoyed by each other – it has to be strange living with someone you don’t know and seeing traces of their life everywhere. They start leaving notes for each other – at first little things about leftovers, but very quickly (too quickly) the notes turn quite personal. Tiffy suddenly writes a note with too much information about her love life and that’s how they start getting to know each other. This happened too fast to be convincing. I got the feeling that the writer just wanted them to get talking already so the story can move on.

Still, I enjoyed the book up until Tiffy and Leon actually met. It all went downhill from there because the two of them together romantically are actually not that interesting at all. If they were just friends and the story focused on Tiffy’s healing from her previous relationship and the two of them helping Richie, I think I would have enjoyed it more. The epilogue was unnecessary and made me take it from 3 stars to 2 because it felt so forced.

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