Unlucky Roommate by Layla Stone

4 Stars

The writing and editing of this novella was super clean, with few if any typos that I caught in the ARC version of the manuscript. The world building was competent, especially considering how short this novella was. The characterization was deft and adroit, again, especially considering how short this story was. The development of the romantic relationship was super quick. I would consider that the one big weakness of this story, but I don't know if the author even could have done it any better with how short the word count was. The plot and pacing was interesting and exciting, with me turning pages to find out what was going to happen next so fast the pages were smoking! There was relatively little angst in this novel considering the hero's past and his past relationship with the heroine, but I felt that was appropriate considering how short this story was. There were very high stakes, which I prefer in my romance novels. This novel used the Enemies to Lovers trope. The world building, plot and pacing were all four or five stars. The characterization was four stars, and the development of the romantic relationship was three stars. The combined score for this novella was therefore four stars. This novel has a Happy For Now ending instead of a cliffhanger, so that is a big plus of this story. I recommend this story to fans of sci-fi romance who have busy lives and only have time for a story with a short page count. It was a delicious little morsel. I do not plan to buy myself a keeper copy of this novella, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

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