Title: Roam.
Author: C.H. Armstrong.
Publishing House: Central Avenue Publishing.
Genre: Young Adult.
Synopsis: Abby Lunde and her family are homeless. They’re living on the streets in the town of Rochester. They had a normal life in Omaha, but they had to leave it behind because of her mother’s awful mistake.
Abby tries to be a normal teenager, but it’s difficult when you’re in high school and you’re keeping a secret like her one. Will her new friends disappoint her like the ones back at home, or will they help her live the most normal life possible?
Rating: 4.5/5 stars.
(Beware, this review will contain spoilers)
A huge thank you to NetGalley and Central Avenue Publishing for giving me the chance to read this book as an E-Arc before the release date. All opinions, however, are completely my own.
Like I said in the premise, all the opinions in this review will be totally my own, but I have to say I was completely blown away by this book. On NetGalley it is listed as New Adult, but I have to say that I see it more as a classic YA, there’s nothing in it that could possibly make you think that this book is not good for a much younger audience.
This is an amazing contemporary book about Abby, our main character, and her struggles dealing with her condition of being homeless.
This read truly opened my eyes, because I felt the hurt and the pain both of Abby, and of her family. I swear I cried a lot, both sad and happy tears.
My favourite part of the book was the luck she had in finding amazing friends at her new school. Even though they did not know about her “secret”, they didn’t (almost) blink once when they found out.
Josh was definitely my favourite in the group of her new friends, he was so sweet in giving her all of those cute Disney nicknames. He’s the king of Disney for sure. I also liked how the author included diversity in this book, because Josh is gay, so there is a LGBTQ+ representation (it is still not a thing to be taken for granted, especially in YAs). But let’s talk about the big elephant in the room: the reason why I gave this book 4.5 out of 5 stars instead of 5 and this is because of a few particular lines Abby tells Josh when they first meet. She says something along the lines of “are you sure you’re gay?” and I hate that, cause yeah, he’s sure thank you very much, you don’t ask that to a person who is certain about his/her/their sexuality. Hence the 4,5 stars and not 5. This just bothered me a lot. Like a lot.
Beside that, though, their relationship was adorable, I like to see a good male/female friendship once in a while.
Talking about the romance in this book I have to say I was really surprised. I couldn’t possibly believe that the author was able to deal with the awakening of Abby’s personality, her friendships, her struggles, and after all, even deal with a good romance. But she aced it!
Zach is our significant other in the book, and he’s the dream boy of the school. Everyone loves him, he’s good at sports, at music (yeah, in 2018 we can deal with both, thank you Troy Bolton for leading the way), and he is also charming as hell. I would have fallen in love with him too, in high school, even if I’m more of a nerdy/intellectual boys kind of girl. Sorry for the stereotypes, I don’t usually condone them, let’s just use them one second for practicality, it goes totally unsaid that everyone has a lot of different things in his/her/their selves, and everyone can be whoever the hell they want. So yeah, they fell in love at first sight, but it’s young love and I can totally see it. If they will last in the long run, well, everyone usually asks that when they’re reading a YA, it’s a classical question, or at least it is for me. We all surely hope for the best for all of them. I can’t deal with the thought of Lara Jean and Kavinsky breaking up, thank you very much.
Another thing that I really enjoyed about this book was the familiar bond. I loved how Abby’s family was stronger when everyone was there, and I loved how, despite the differences and the struggles, everyone kept on loving each other and they always tried to understand the other person.
In conclusion I truly recommend this book to anyone who would enjoy to read a good and classic YA but that deals with a theme that it’s not usually seen so much, such as homelessness.
Thank you again to NetGalley and the publishing house for giving me this chance.
