Book Review: The Flatshare - Beth O'Leary

The Flatshare was published back in April 2019, and has been sat on my TBR and neglected ever since - until I saw a copy in a bookshop recently and immediately picked it up. Unfortunately though, this book did not live up to its reputation for me...see below for my thoughts. 

From Goodreads: 

"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… "

My thoughts 

This book is very much a standard romcom - it starts with an unusual, unrealistic premise of two flatmates sharing a bed despite not knowing each other, involves a lot of light and fluffy romance told from two very charming and humorous POVs and ends...predictably. 

This would be fine and my expectations of a simple romcom would've been more than satisfied if this book hadn't been so hyped from its release. I've waited over a year since this book came out before reading it, and still see it talked about everywhere. So my expectations were high going in, meaning I just felt underwhelmed whilst reading - I felt like I was constantly waiting for something to click in order to understand why people love this book so much, and it just never did.

I think Beth O'Leary's writing is very good, and there's a lot of humorous points throughout which I definitely smiled at. There's also some good discussion of more complex topics such as the long-lasting effects of a toxic relationship. However, I did think this book was far too long and drawn out - it's 400 pages long, and 100 of these could easily have been cut if some of the more tedious/repetitive scenes were taken out. 

If you're in the mood for a romcom, or they're your preferred genre in general, then I would recommend this - otherwise, I think it might be a bit of a chore to get through. 

All in all, it's a good enough book - but don't believe the hype before reading in order to avoid disappointment.