All My Roommates Love

Man... I remember that freshman year being SO similar to when I was a sophomore. At first, I didn't even realize that my roommate not cleaning up after herself was a sign of anything. I just assumed that she was busier than I was, and so I would do all of the cleaning up after her. But then, when I would tell her that I had cleaned up after her, she would make me feel so terrible for bringing it up. She would act as if she was so stressed all of the time, and that I was just making things worse for her. Playing her music loudly when I was trying to study was also really annoying of her. I never knew for sure whether she was doing it on purpose or not, but it definitely felt like she was. The worst part, though, was when we would make plans with our other friends, and she wouldn't invite me along. And then she would act like I had forgotten about the plans, and say that she had thought that I was busy. It was really painful to be deliberately excluded from things in my own home.

There is beauty in ambiguity. And this setup is ambiguous. It doesn’t specify whether the characters are male or female. And it doesn’t specify whether they are from some past era or not. So it’s very versatile. You can match up just about any two characters from any story, or you can match up historical figures. The audience can then use their imagination to figure out what happens next. Is it a true story? It can be as many true stories as you want to make it. The setup is a simple template that is empty until someone fills it in with the two characters that they ship or find interesting. The power of the setup is the empty space of the template.

The fanfiction world is full of amazing novel-length stories, including many that are coffee shop AUs or artist AUs of existing characters. I talked about building a small business and slow-burn romance in those. You can find a lot of these stories on sites like Archive of Our Own. They have lots of filters, so you can search for your favorite fandom and then add tags like ‘fluff’ or ‘slice of life’ or ‘bakery AU’ or ‘bookshop AU’. I find some of the best character-driven, low-conflict storytelling on Archive of Our Own, and it’s all free.

A children’s manifesto – ‘I Like Myself!’ is a joyful celebration of kid-sized self-empowerment. Written and illustrated to convey unshakeable self-love via some very unusual and humorous differences (covering yourself in spots, having a warthog’s nose for example), this charming little book asks kids to declare their love of all things ‘me’. This is so much more than accepting differences; it’s actively celebrating them in an enthusiastic manner. The wild, exciting, often-chaotic world of illustrations beautifully mirrors that of a kid’s imagination, which lends credence to the book’s delightfully natural message of confidence – and of learning how to tap into it – via laughter.

This is not a nihilistic or (unfortunately) “tragic” story in the worst sense of those terms. Yes, it does go to some very dark places, but it does so in order to find hope, and to celebrate human connection in the midst of pain. And – crucially – every scene of pain has a scene of healing to come. So while the ending of the story is in doubt for much of the time, in the end things are going to be okay. The writers are taking good care of their characters and their audience.

You will feel taken care of by the writers in the end. That means there is potential for tears but also for healing. The story is a safe emotional investment. I have recommended this to friends who do not read sad stories. Even they agreed that the end was worth the painful journey along the way. It is a complete and very satisfying story.

I think one of the most entertaining CEO forced-into-marriage-for-inheritance storylines is that of the couple who starts off hating each other. Lauren Layne wrote a really fun book called “The Prenup” (Lauren Layne writes a lot of fun books). The leads are both lawyers, so their initial bickering is full of cute little pettiness like leaving mean notes on each other’s post-it notes. But it all transitions to a sweet inheritance tale when the CEO grandfather of one of the leads sets up the two of them to inherit a fortune if they just get married and stay married for a long time, and it takes them a while to actually start to like each other.

Novels like The CEO’s Substitute Wife and Married by Monday are webnovels that primarily fall under the melodrama category. This means much of the plot can be quite over-the-top at times, but The CEO’s Substitute Wife works because the male lead is often mean to the female lead due to him hiding the pain of past events. In addition to that, the two work to try and bring down each other’s armor and earn each other’s trust and affection. The other novella is Married by Monday which is a fairly lighthearted story. The main characters start off fake marrying each other by Monday, but by the end they realize that they have fallen in love. It is also an inheritance novel, though an unusual one. The conditions left by the female lead’s eccentric aunt are pretty quirky. This is another reason why the forced marriage novels work so well. They combine high stakes and intimacy. The two characters are fighting to earn the fortune that the other is trying to claim, but they are also fighting to earn each other’s love.

What the book achieves above all is to validate the private ending of Leo’s story over the public one. The public ending of the story of the man who founded a major company and watched it fail is one that will be trotted out as a cautionary tale for web entrepreneurs in tech blogs for years to come. The private ending on the riverbank with his friends of many years was peaceful and validated the quiet recovery he had made from the scandals of his life. In our culture we are addicted to the story of the scandal, of the failure. This novel insists that the real story of Leo’s latter years, of quiet recovery from personal scandals and of sustaining a true friendship over decades, is of far greater significance to us than the publicly recognized story of his downfall as the founder of a high-profile company. The book is a reclaiming of his story from the prying eyes of the public.

I’m rather cynical about dark and psychological storylines and typical vampire/demon/monster plots that promise a deep and complex struggle, but eventually resolve into a standard battle shounen story for the last few arcs. The friends are suddenly piloting mech machines or using the strongest magic, because a big bad Demon Lord is behind everything. The deep and complex personal struggle of the traitorous friends is wrapped up in a few easy battles, and the friends apologize and are friends again. It feels shallow and unfulfilling, and doesn’t deal with the sufficient amount of trauma and guilt that the friends would have had to go through. It would be better to keep the story small and personal, with the final fight taking place in a location that is familiar to the readers, such as the old friends’ classroom, an empty playground at night, rather than some crumbling dimensional rift.

AVAILABILITY: Yes. RECOMMENDATION: This is tough to recommend in audio format. The narration is great (Jeff Hays does a great job with a large cast and is able to bring out the nuances of their voices), but the story itself is an acquired taste. It’s a vicious parody of RPG-style monster evolving with a protagonist who is about as moral as a blender. The audiobook does a good job of smoothing out some of the rough edges of the written work, but at its heart it is still a story about a mimic that wants shiny things and to kill things. If you find the premise of that story to be amusing then you’ll likely enjoy this. But, be warned, the protagonist is not a normal hero to say the least. It’s a very system-based fantasy story with an unconventional hero. So, if you are into that sort of thing then this is a solid listen.

I read the ending so very differently to this. I thought it was a great subversion of the typical 'girl reporter solves cold case' story. She doesn't get to write the big scoop and get the promotion. Instead her fixations ruin her career and ruin her relationship with her closest friend.

The real ending to the book is that some mysteries are better left buried. They may not be solved but that doesn’t mean that the truth isn’t important. It’s just that uncovering it can cause so much pain and in the end not bring any healing to past wounds. A very powerful scene at the end with the main character’s uncle is heartbreakingly devastating. They both know a secret that will be taken to their grave.

It argues that closure is a myth we perpetuate in novels and true crime podcasts. In reality, life is messy and unclear. The solving of the crime within this novel was largely an afterthought, and the true subject of the book is the ways in which that traumatic event continued to affect the community long after it happened.