the flatshare // beth o'leary

published: 2019

pages: 325

read: 7/19-26/2019 

book: 48 in 2019

SYNOPSIS

Tiffy and Leon share an apartment. Tiffy and Leon have never met.

After a bad breakup, Tiffy Moore needs a place to live. Fast. And cheap. But the apartments in her budget have her wondering if astonishingly colored mold on the walls counts as art.

Desperation makes her open minded, so she answers an ad for a flatshare. Leon, a night shift worker, will take the apartment during the day, and Tiffy can have it nights and weekends. He’ll only ever be there when she’s at the office. In fact, they’ll never even have to meet.

Tiffy and Leon start writing each other notes – first about what day is garbage day, and politely establishing what leftovers are up for grabs, and the evergreen question of whether the toilet seat should stay up or down. Even though they are opposites, they soon become friends. And then maybe more.

But falling in love with your roommate is probably a terrible idea…especially if you've never met.

MY THOUGHTS

😭😭😭😭🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

I wasn't expecting that. 

This was a bit of a slow-ish read for me.
It was good but it wasn't "drop everything and read me RIGHT NOW!" good. 
.....and then it was.

It took me a bit to get into.
It wasn't until page 170 that I got super into it and then couldn't read enough! 

So, so good.

It gets so gooood!!!!

Maybe I wasn't into it because I wasn't putting in the time but once I got over that slump I couldn't read fast enough and I absolutely loved the crap out of this book. 

I do wonder what happen with JW & Prior. It's not really addressed past what happens in that one scene buuuuuuuut whatever. Its fine. 

I love the relationship between Leon and Tiffy and how it evolved. Their first meeting was lol and ahhh!!!!!
I love that Tiff had such an amazing support system in the form of Rachael, Mo & Gerty. 
I love that Tiff is this vibrant colorful human who looks at life with all this color given what shes been through. 
I love what the author did with this story and with the subjects she focuses the story on. I was not expecting Tiffy's thing (don't want to spoil here) to happen at all so it took me for a loop. I thought it'd be just a break up and that's it. 

I loved this story and I'm so glad I didn't give up (I wasn't ever...but you know.) Definitely purchasing this book when I come across it. 

The one thing I didn't like was that Tiffy's name is Tiffany and instead of going with tiff, she went with tiffy. that irked me for some reason. 
That and Leon constantly saying Am instead of I'm (is it a British (or English) thing?). I know, pretty dumb lol but I think that speaks volumes for how good the book is if that's all that bugged me. 😂

Overall, super glad I read this.
Cant wait to own a copy and hopefully re-read in the future soon.

jump over for spoilers.

thanks for reading! 

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SPOILERS

Tiff moves out because Justin has finally started seeing someone else and he showed up to their place just to throw it in her face. ...and he tells her she needs to pay her half of the rent (plus backup) if she wants to stay. if not, she needs to bounce. 

Leon needs a roommate because he needs money for a lawyer for his brother who is in jail. 

Kay, Leon's GF is super against this but i guess lets it happen because they wont be in the flat at the same time and she's confident that she isnt Leon's type after seeing her. 

Tiff moves in, Leon is blown away by how LOUD tiff is (personality wise) they get along just fine and start leaving notes to one another. 

Tiffany happens to come across a bag of knitted scarves under the bed that she tries to get from Leon because she needs them for her book photo shoot thing that she needs to coordinate with Katheryn who is the author of the book. (that's how they start communication) 

because of those scarves, they were supposed to meet, Leon & Tiff, at his job. they had agreed to do something for the patients and its was also a way for K to meet the man who knitted the scarves but of course, the day of, Leon does everything to stay away from her.

they do end up meeting at the apartment eventually. Leon was in the shower and tiff basically ran into him. so they meet for the first time, naked. 

(im just going to point parts of the story now because its been too long...) 

• leon's brother is in jail because one night at a bar, i think he hit on some dudes chick. the dude couldn't handle that, they fought and then he left. on the way home, he stopped at a store, bought idk what and then the dude who's girl he hit on, decided to go into the same store and rob the place. they of course thought it was Richard and not the other guys.
• Richard is eventually freed because Tiffany's friend ( i forgot her name) took on the case and she did all the work the free lawyer was just glossing over. 

• Leon is on a mission to find his patients lover. he's meeting several John White's to see if he was the love of * i forgot patients name* life. it turns out he does find JW. he's actually the last one but of course, he doesn't say he is. Leon and Tiff are at the beach and she says something along the lines of life being great but then in the next page is a perfect example of what goes up must come down.... anyway, they're at the beach and home girl goes head first into the ocean and knocks herself unconscious. leon goes after her, JW takes them to this hotel where he is friends with the owner and they spend the night. i want to say this is the first time they hook up but i could be VERY wrong. its probably something during that weekend. anyway, they finally start dating but i completely forgot what happens.

• Tiffany has this thing going on with the author she's working with and she ends up being a model of something or other when all of a sudden Justin makes a sudden appearance. okay, i just remembered....at this point her and leon are dating. he just wasn't able to make it with her because he had to attend his brothers hearing to see if they were going to release him or convict him. this scene in particular, was the book launch. the first one i mentioned above was a teaching class of some sort on a cruise. so anyway, Tiffany is getting thanked by the author, Katherine and some other you tuber is filming everything (Tiff hit her up to advertise them...) when out of nowhere, Justin shows up and proposes to her in front of EVERYONE!!! she's shocked of course and says nothing so he gets up and hugs her and everyone thinks that she said yea. of course leon sees this and instead of I DON'T KNOW, CALLING HER TO SEE WHATS UP!! he shuts down, shuts his phone off and leaves on a long ass walk. 
• prior to the proposal, yes Justin had dumped her BUT he kept popping up everywhere. 1st: at that cruise thing. THEN at a book launch thing at a bar where some dude had hit on her and well, it was leading somewhere THEN there's a part where they go to castle to shoot some pictures and leon goes and they wanted to be together but they kept being pushed apart. and I'm sure there's at least one more that i cant remember. 
• the reason that Justin knows where she is always at is because he bribed one of her coworkers to offer up one of his spare rooms so she could live there and always be looked after for him and also to keep tabs on her and tell him at all times where she was at. 

all in all, Leon and Tiffany do end up together. 

Leon finally makes it home and everyone is all WTF and he's all well if that's what she wants and then Tiff's lawyer friend is all have you even bother talking to her and he's all nooooo and then yea. dumb shit. 

Richard eventually makes it to the flat and they're all celebrating when Justin shows up yelling to talk to Tiffany. demanding to talk to her blah blah blah....actually, i think leon and her were about to have sex so i might have this all jumbled up but the point is that he tried to break his way in talking shit to Leon about how they better not be hooking up (of course Justin knows where she lives because of the coworker...) 

.....all i remember is that Richard beats the fuck out of him (well not exactly, he just hits him once) AND I ONLY REMEMBER THAT BECAUSE IN MY HEAD I WAS THINKING "YOU JUST GOT OUT! ARENT YOU ON PAROLE OR SOMETHING!?  and then the cops show up and take him away. so this is the second time Justin shows up because when all that went down, everyone was over. 

all in all, it turns out that Justin was emotionally abusive and he never expected Tiff to move on. and so yea. 

super jumbled but definitely not a bad read.