Review: Housemates by Emma Copley Eisenberg

Book Info & Summary

Okay, even if this hadn't been the Literary League pick for June I probably still would have picked it up because look at that cover!

Housemates tells the story of Leah and Bernie, two people who recently started living together and who feel equally stuck in the rhythm of their lives and decide to take a road trip to find passion for their creative works again and end up finding love and purpose. Interestingly, the story is told mostly in third-person and the narrator is a photographer who spots Bernie and Leah one day in a coffee shop planning their trip and decides to follow them around because they remind her of herself and her own "housemate" (aka former romantic partner) she lost to illness a few years ago.

This is most definitely a character-driven novel. I had a hard time getting into it at first because the road trip doesn't even really start until about halfway in, and the first half of the novel takes us through the backstories of Leah and Bernie's relationships with the other housemates, the people they work with and their families. We also focus a lot of Bernie's relationship with her disgraced photography teacher and the complicated dynamic they had. While he unquestionably hurt other people, Bernie ruminates that she got the best of him but is still thrown off and angry when he leaves her in charge of his possessions and legacy when he dies. Seeing her decide to take her own life and legacy into her hands with Leah's support was really satisfying. I was most drawn to Leah and their struggle with where they fit in, both with their housemates, the world at large and within the experience of the road trip and subsequent exhibition shows.

Reviewing this book is difficult because I feel like describing the events without reading through all of the character exploration really takes away from the emotional impact. At times heartwarming, unsettling and odd, Housemates is one you really have to experience for yourself.

I would recommend this book for everyone. It demonstrates that there are so many different queer experiences and there is no one way to demonstrate or live queerness. It shows very real and not idealized romantic and platonic relationships, including the good and the bad in equal measure. Emma Copely Eisenberg's characters are allowed to make mistakes and face the consequences of their actions without villainization in the narrative, but in a way that still makes you question how you move about the word and the impact you have on others.

A week after finishing I am still struggling with whether or not I liked this book - which may be the case for many readers. I'll be interested to see what the rest of my book club has to say! If you still feel hopeless about the state of the world over the last few years and where we're going in the future, I think you would get a lot out of picking this one up.