Roomies

Gr 9 Up—Immediately upon receiving her roommate assignment from UC Berkeley, high school senior Elizabeth can't wait to "introduce" herself with a logistics-heavy email to Lauren. After all, Lauren lives in San Francisco, worlds away from Elizabeth's experience in suburban New Jersey. Unfortunately, Lauren does not receive the roommate assignment with the same enthusiasm. After years of sharing spaces with siblings at least a decade her junior, she bristles at Elizabeth's initial overtures, leading to a rocky start for this relationship. As the weeks pass and the girls share more personal information, the thawing process begins, then stalls, then begins again. By the end of the summer, a tenuous truce has each teen believing that this may work out after all. Zarr and Altebrando use alternating chapters and voices to weave together this tale of roommate matchmaking. The technique lends a tone of authenticity to the story while highlighting the perils of relationships based solely on electronic communications.—Colleen S. Banick, Westport Public Schools, CT