The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary: a review

My heart is warm and full of love. I got to the end just this morning and I just… I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. Let’s do those introductions.

            The Flat Share by Beth O’Leary follows Tiffy and Leon. Leon needs money, and Tiffy needs a cheap place in London. It works out perfectly that they live together. The only catch is that they’re never in the flat at the same time, and there’s only one bed in the flat. Tiffy needs to get away from her ex, and Leon needs to help his wrongfully imprisoned brother, so they’ll have to make it work.

 

I’m just going to cut to the chase, this book was absolutely wonderful. I can’t say two books in that a book is going to be high on my end of year list, but I do kind of want to say that. I loved the characters, the handling of dealing with trauma, the book’s structure, the way Leon’s narration style developed and changed as he became more comfortable. Oh, it’s all so wonderful.

            The characters felt so wonderfully real, and I loved seeing the versions of them through other people and in different ways. So, eventually Tiffy and Leon do meet, but before they do, they almost exclusively talk to each other via post-it notes left around the flat. So, in each of their own chapters, (each chapter swapping between perspectives) there are two versions of themselves. There’s the version that is the one we see, as the reader. This is perhaps the truest version of themselves because we know more of their story, and we see their thoughts. There is also the version that their flatmate sees. The version of themselves only revealed in the notes. This is still them, but there are hidden details, misremembered recollections, and there’s no way to fully show yourself through a couple of post-it notes. However, what this means is, when they do actually meet, many puzzle pieces begin to fit together, and that’s what makes them fall for each other.

            I do want to take a quick moment to say that the moment where they finally meet is one of the funniest scenes I’ve read in a good long while. I actually laughed out loud, which I don’t tend to do when reading. A book might get a snort at best. I don’t want to spoil this because it’s honestly so good, and you should experience for yourself. There was a moment just before it happened where I just thought oh no because I could just feel what was about to happen, and it was so much better than I had imagined.

            In terms of visual character development, the way O’Leary writes Leon as a narrator is absolutely fantastic. Before he meets and falls for Tiffy, he almost talks like he’s just making notes. He’s always very concise. That all changes once he starts to realise his feelings for Tiffy. The sentences are longer formed, and there’s far more feeling, and he begins to actually express himself. I’ve never seen character development being shown in a way that is so visual. Once finished, you can look at Leon’s first chapter and his last, and see how much he changes just by looking at the page, and seeing the structure.

            Finally, I want to talk about the way that trauma is handled in this book. Both of our protagonists have their fair share of trauma, Leon’s being older, and Tiffy realises that she is traumatised throughout the book. Thankfully this book (just as with the last book I covered) does not fall into the trap of ‘love conquers all and can make your mental health miraculously perfect’. They help one another, and comfort each other, but their trauma does get the better of them at times. They are human after all. I don’t know that I can fully express how wonderfully Beth O’Leary writes about trauma. It’s handled with such care and delicacy.

 

100% recommend this book. This warmed my heart in a myriad of ways, but also managed to break it into tiny little pieces. All the heartbreak is worth it because of the sheer amount of joy that this book brings.