The American Roommate Experiment

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-16

Chapters 17-20

Chapters 21-24

Chapters 25-28

Chapter 29-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Shared Meals

Lucas and Rosie frequently bond over meals, as befits Lucas’s love of cooking. This allows Elena Armas to showcase their budding relationship and deepen the themes of Imposter Syndrome and Authenticity and Tensions Between Romantic Narratives and Real Life. After their awkward first meeting, Rosie finds Lucas sleeping in a diner. When she discovers he could not get a hotel room due to his missing credit card, she is consumed with guilt. As a peace offering, she gives him sausage rolls she just purchased from a bakery. Lucas is impressed by his roll and says that “it deserves to be seduced and worshipped” (36). This moment gives Rosie a glimpse of the real Lucas, beyond what she knows through Lina and social media. Later, Lucas brings Rosie Cronuts, recalling her craving for them during her existential crisis over her apartment and unfinished novel; they settle on “cronut you” as shorthand for their appreciation for each other (119). Shared meals thus become a symbol of Lucas’s passion, Rosie’s vulnerability, and the couple’s growing trust.

Both Lucas’s experimental dates and his authentic gestures involve food. He makes pizza for Rosie for their second date, and his skills intensify her attraction. He later impresses Alexia, Lina’s neighbor and a famous chef, by making dinner for her—leading her to suggest he pursue a culinary career. Lucas choosing to cook in both his roles—as experimental boyfriend and roommate—frames Rosie as part of his authentic passion, a key to his new career. Rosie further demonstrates her influence by introducing him to Japanese fried chicken after their pizzas burn. On their fourth and final date, Lucas replicates Lina and Aaron’s wedding cake for Rosie (as the wedding was almost Lucas and Rosie’s first meeting), and she says it is “sweeter, softer, far better than the one served at the wedding” (270). Armas implies it is Lucas’s love that brings out the best in his food. His commitment to culinary school becomes part of his new life with Rosie in New York, underlining the pursuit of authentic passion as key to personal happiness.

Water

Lucas is a former professional surfer who spent his life on the ocean, but the importance of water is not limited to his memories. Armas includes water in pivotal scenes, making it key to both Lucas and Rosie’s emotional journeys and growing bond. Lucas steps out of the shower when he realizes that “Rosie was just checking [him] out” (64). Rosie pretends to observe the wave tattoo on his ribcage, and his interest in her attraction indicates the attraction is mutual. Lucas thinks of surfing literally as “the one thing [he] had thrived doing. The water, the waves, feeling the roughness of the wax under [his] feet” (92), but he also thinks of other pleasant experiences in these terms, as he describes Rosie’s shampoo as a “wave of peaches” (155).

Much of Rosie and Lucas’s vulnerability with each other involves water. At the Halloween masquerade ball, his offer to help her with her soaked dress leads to a charged encounter, though interrupted by Lina. On their fourth and final date, the pair dance on a restaurant rooftop, and Rosie is so overjoyed that “not even when the sky open[s] and beg[ins] pouring on [them], [does she] move to leave his arms” (272). During this rainstorm, they kiss for the first time, finally admitting to their genuine feelings, beyond their dating experiment. Not long after, Lucas takes a shower, indulging in fantasies of Rosie—and when she walks in, she joins him, literally awash in mutual desire. Though Lucas thinks of water as part of the happiness lost to him forever (due to his leg injury and loss of his surfing career), these moments show he is still connected to others, less lost than he believes. Rosie later describes the words of her novel as “how [she] imagine[s] riding a wave would feel” (217). Lucas is her inspiration, so his passion is on her mind as she writes. During their first night together, she kisses Lucas’s wave tattoo and voices her love for it. Water pushes both characters to authentic admissions of their feelings and awareness of each other, enhanced by Armas’s use of figurative language.

Clothing

As part of their dating experiment and growing romance, Rosie and Lucas focus on their appearances and notice each other due to forced proximity. Both their appearances and forced proximity accentuate the tension between romantic narratives and real life. Rosie is drawn to Lucas in casual situations—fresh out of the shower and “the way his emerald-green hoodie hug[s] [his] chest” (116)—revealing that her attraction is based on his “ordinary” self, not any grand expectations for him. She accepts Lucas for who he is, in contrast to his self-loathing. During their dates, Lucas compliments Rosie’s appearance, but their flirtation reaches new heights during the Halloween masquerade ball. As Lucas takes in her dress, Rosie finds herself “feeling things [she] should keep in check for [her] own good” (218). The formal atmosphere and Lucas’s protectiveness lead her to feel as though they are a couple like Aaron and Lina. When Rosie removes her dress to clean it, she voices her fear that Lucas is not attracted to her—however, he declares, “[Y]ou have me figured out all wrong” (237).

Later, Rosie asks Lucas to finish what they started at the ball: This romance trope, grounded in formal clothing—disguises—leads to an open confession of attraction. When the pair have sex for the first time, Rosie discovers Lucas is wearing nothing under his hoodie, as he rushed to her without putting on more clothes. The need for formal dates falls away in the face of open attraction, mirrored in their clothing choices. Even when Lucas rejects Rosie’s offer to go to Spain, she “still ha[s] Lucas’s bomber jacket wrapped around [her]” (353), a signal that their separation is temporary and their happy ending is to come.