This post and giveaway are brought to you by ROOMIES by Sara Zarr and Tara Altebrando. All stories and opinions are my own.
In just a matter of months, I’ll be sending my oldest daughter off to college. It has been both bittersweet and exciting and definitely retrospective. As she has made plans with future roommates, shopped for her own sets of towels and luggage (thank you, Black Friday sales!) and waited patiently for those college acceptance letters to come in, I’ve thought back on the time when I was at her stage…and how exciting and scary those first few years of college were.
My freshman year of college was spent at the dorms, rooming with my best friend from high school. In high school, we were terribly close, like two peas in a pod. Half the time, we’d show up to school dressed the same. We were totally in sync and knew that we’d be perfectly matched roommates.
While we remained close friends, living side by side proved to be very different than being best friends in high school. That first year was filled with a few personality conflicts but more good memories, date-story swaps, late night talks…and my first introduction to the snooze button (there’s nothing much worse in my opinion than trying to enjoy the last bit of morning’s sleep when someone else’s snooze alarm is going off every 5-7 minutes).
The next 2 years of college were spent at an old 3-bedroom apartment. There, six of shared a very-stuffed refrigerator (try fitting all the food you need for the week on half of one shelf OR keeping half-used bags of frozen peas organized in the freezer), three of us shared a bathroom, and we still had plenty of those date-story swaps and late night talks.
It was at that apartment that I got more adventurous – discovering a love for latin dancing, and an affinity for practical jokes on the guys that lived near us (ask me someday about the cocoa-flavored DIRT cookies I lovingly made for an apartment full of boys across the street and the rotten bananas they hid in our pantry as a thank you gesture…).
Note: this is NOT how we normally dressed. But didn’t we make the perfect Laura and Mary Ingalls?
Oh, the memories I have with college roommates!
About ROOMIES by Sara Zarr and Tara Altebrando:
When Elizabeth receives her freshman-year roommate assignment at the beginning of summer, she shoots off an email to coordinate the basics: TV, microwave, mini-fridge. She can’t wait to escape her New Jersey beach town, and her mom, and start life over in California.
The first note to Lauren in San Francisco comes as a surprise; she had requested a single. But if Lauren’s learned anything from being the oldest of six, it’s that you can’t always get what you want, especially when what you want is privacy.
Soon the girls are emailing back and forth, sharing secrets even though they’ve never met. With family relationships and childhood friendships strained by change, it suddenly seems that the only people Elizabeth and Lauren can rely on are the complicated new boys in their lives…and each other.
With humor and heart, Sara Zarr, National Book Award finalist for Story of a Girl, and Tara Altebrando, acclaimed author of The Pursuit of Happiness, join forces for a novel about that time after high school, when everything feels like it’s ending just as it’s beginning.
ROMMIES was recently released (December 24, 2013) in hardcover and Kindle editions.
Sara and Tara are touring the US in the next few weeks. See if there are any tour stops near you:
- January 12, 2014 – New York, NY: McNally Jackson
- January 15, 2014 – Salt Lake City, UT: The King’s English
- January 16, 2014 – Provo, UT: Provo Library
- February 4, 2014 – San Francisco, CA: Books Inc, Opera Plaza
- February 5, 2015 – Petaluma, CA: Copperfield’s Books
And be sure to check out the funny Roomie stories that readers have submitted at NOVL.com.
Enter the Roomies Giveaway
We’re giving away a copy of ROOMIES this week! The giveaway is open to readers with US street addresses only. A winner will be chosen at random and notified via email. Good luck!
Bonus: Sara and Tara are also giving away a Roomie Survival Kit which includes earplugs, home spa essentials, a signed copy of the book, a special note from the authors, and other fun things—all packed in a shower caddy! By entering my book giveaway, you’ll also have a chance to win the grand prize Roomie Survival Kit.
© 2014, Food Fun Family. All rights reserved.
This isn’t exactly a “favorite” roommate story — I moved to California with a good friend of mine and after living with her, determined she was crazy. Haven’t seen nor spoken to her since.
had one who took my stuff
My roommates and suite mates were bored one Saturday so we decided to do outrageous hair do’s and outfits. Then we had a fashion show. It was a crackup!! One of my friends even dressed up like a pregnant woman. It was hysterical!!
Believe it or not I have never had a roommate …. unless you can call my husband one!
The only roommate I’ve had, other than siblings, is my spouse. My twins just spent their first semester at college and choose to be each other’s roommate. What a cute looking book.
My roommate in college turned out to be a great person. We lived together for three years and are best friends now. She’s like a cartoon character where there’s never a dull moment. One day she was wondering what the medicine inside the Nyquil tablet tasted like. I told her not to do anything stupid and to just take the pill like you’re supposed to. She decided to cute it open and lick the inside. -_- She had the funniest face as she screamed how disgusting it tasted. Lol