Genre 📚: YA/NA Contemporary, Paranormal, Fantasy
Tropes 💁♀️: Demon x Human, Opposites attract, Forced proximity, Fake dating
Rep ✔️: Queer main characters and side characters
CW ⚠️: Religious bigotry, drugging/kidnapping
Rating ⭐️: 3.5/5
Yup, the roommate is literally from hell. Main character Owen arrives on his first day of college to discover that he’s rooming with the prince of hell himself, Zarmenus. With the recent discovery of hell (as a separate dimension, not the afterlife), the prince is attending the school as a step to unify demons and humans.
Not so surprisingly, Zarmenus is a pretty terrible person — er, demon — to live with. He has a soul-sucking pet cat, he accidentally summons ghosts, and he’s a total slob. But Owen and Zar need to get along for the sake of hell’s image and a peaceful future. Naturally, they take it one step further and fall into a fake dating scheme.
These roomies made a fun pair, and once the dating hijinks kicked in, they were pretty darn cute. The problem was, I didn’t get a good sense of who Owen and Zar were, outside of the hardworking student and the laidback demon. And because of that, I wasn’t buying their romance. They built a nice friendship, and the romantic feelings were certainly there, but they never reached the intensity I needed. I’d still recommend this, though, as a nice light read with a lot of cool fantasy elements.
**Much thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. My Roommate From Hell will be released on November 11, 2025.
Sara Bechtol 