The American Roommate Experiment

One of The American Roommate Experiment’s protagonists, Rosalyn “Rosie” Graham appears as a secondary character in Elena Armas’s previous novel, The Spanish Love Deception, as Catalina “Lina” Martín’s best friend and coworker at an engineering consulting firm. In The American Roommate Experiment, Rosie has left her corporate job due to finding success as a romance writer (under the pen name Rosalyn Sage). She finds this change daunting and difficult to explain to others, especially her father and younger brother, Olly. She is accustomed to “[keeping] a tight grip on any situation” (108), but writing is a departure because it is both less structured and “ruled by emotions” (108). Rosie’s father, a single parent, takes pride in her engineering career, making her terrified of disappointing him. This fear only intensifies when she struggles to write her second book, her first with a major publisher.

In addition to her professional upheaval, Rosie longs for romance, similar to the novels she loves and the relationship that Lina found with their coworker Aaron Blackford. Her dream of romance results in her interest in Lina’s cousin Lucas Martín, whom she follows on social media and expected to meet at Lina’s wedding. Lucas’s arrival in New York reignites this interest, with their first meeting comprising her mistaking him for a burglar. They become roommates at Lina’s apartment while Rosie’s apartment is repaired. Rosie finds herself confiding troubles to Lucas—her flooded apartment, new writing career, and fear that her brother may be involved in dangerous work. She allows Lucas to stage four “experimental dates” for them (as per the four key phases of romance), in the hopes that experiencing romance will help with her book. Her writing improves, and she finishes her book with time to spare, falling in love with Lucas in the process. Though she thinks of herself as dependent on his generosity, Rosie encourages Lucas to consider new career paths and acknowledge the trauma of the surfing accident that ended his professional career. She thus pushes him to embrace a more authentic, open version of himself, just as he drives her to overcome her imposter syndrome. She comes to accept that she is worthy of romance, no longer seeing herself as a background character to Lina and Aaron’s love story.

Lucas’s experimental dates change both Rosie’s professional and personal lives, to the point that she follows him to the airport to ask him to continue their relationship for real. When he rejects her, Rosie learns that lasting love is more complex than a single romantic gesture. Lucas eventually returns to her, with encouragement from Lina, restoring her faith in romance through his promise to work on himself and truly commit to her. Rosie’s journey to regain confidence underlines the power of love to become one’s best self.