Customer Reviews

The Room-Mating Season

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book was horrible. If you have the misfortune to read Room-Mating Season, you will find yourself waiting throughout the entire story for the hollow and shallow characters to develop and for the plot to pick up pace. Unbelievably the author takes the reader through decades of four women's lives who never learn any signifigant life lessons or grow past the maturity level they possessed at age 23. The overuse of the word "albeit" made me want to scream and I am amazed that I even finished this garbage. My only solace is that I checked it out from the library and didn't waste anything more than time.

"The Room-Mating Season" deals with four young women, Leigh, Cady, Vanessa and Susan, who all had very different personalities came together to share a room in New York City. They all hoped to be successful and each had a different vision of what "success" is. The book chronicled their lives from early twenties to when they were in their sixties. Leigh, was the rational, career-minded one who strived to be a casting agent while Cady was the romantic, spendrift and at times naive schoolteacher. Vanessa worked as a flight attendant and found the occupation suitable for her needs for adventure and meeting new people. Susan, was the odd one in their group in the sense that she was quiet, eccentric and never quite fit in with the rest. Soon, one event happened that changed their lives forever and the decisions that they would make in future would be based upon that particular event.

The theme of the book is friendship and how they were there for each other through highs and lows. The characters may not understood the decisions some of the decisions that were made but regardless, they were always there for each other. I really enjoy this book because it was written very well, very thoughtful and just mesmerizing. Rona Jaffe also tried to chronicle the lives and mentalities of women in each of the decades starting from the sixties. At the end of the book, you would feel that you really know each of the characters and feel for them. This is not a chick lit book but definitely one written for the female audience. I highly recommend this book.

I did like this book but ended up rating it for the kind of book it was and less for the amount of interest I had in it. I gave up and just realized it would be a big book of infidelty and it was a 4 star with that as the main topic. I felt there were way too many flings going on - can't one of these girls date a single guy?

Cady - very annoying, jealous of her friends, and can't live without being incredibly needy. Dates and falls nutso for a married guy, Paul. She enters a LONG relationship with this one and her life passes her by.

Leigh - good at heart, I wanted to believe but then again fell for a married man.

Vanessa - ok but needed to keep having flings to see if she still had it. Please!!!

Susan - ultra freak. You just need to read this book to find out more.

Charlie - fifth wheel? He has some kind of secret..wait till you find out!

Jaffe's latest saga, The Room-Mating Season, has all of the makings of an exciting in-depth story. The story begins with four roommates in early 1960s New York City. Vanessa is a gorgeous flight attendant, Leigh is an aspiring casting agent, Cady is a teacher, and Susan is the misfit who annoys and aggravates the other three. All four of these young women are attempting to find their places in the world and are adapting to a changing society.

This in itself would have made a great novel. However, Jaffe takes us through these women's lives beyond the time spent in their rented brownstone. The decades fly by and there are so many unanswered questions that it's difficult to sympathize or really grasp what has happened in the lives of the characters. I would have liked to have known more about the intricacies and less about the broad pictures that Jaffe chooses to present.

There are pages and pages of seemingly unimportant information, and then...poof! Readers are hit at the end with a startling revelation that isn't really resolved, but is instead hurried into an ending.

All in all, this was a disappointment for me. However, I always enjoy Jaffe's perspective on changing women's roles, especially the sociological aspects of the early years of feminism. This novel would have been better had she stuck to this idea.

Being a fan a Rona Jaffe, I was looking forward to another of her great reads. What a letdown The Room-Mating Season turned out to be! The characters were incredibly shallow--the only believable one was Leigh, who seemed to lead a fairly normal life. These three girls (women) thougt there was not a thing wrong with sleeping around--particularly with married men. About the worst of the three was Vanessa, who certainly was in dire need of a good therapist to find out why she couldn't even take a shopping trip to New York without picking up (and of course, sleeping) with any man who breathed. I found Cady to be very annoying--talk about feeling sorry for yourself. She inanely spent decades waiting for a married man who had no intentions of leaving his wife. Surely she could not have been that naive to fall for his "we don't sleep together & I'm staying in my marriage just for the kids" schtick---even a seventeen year old would have given him the boot. Come on!! Then she has the nerve to moan about her terrible life. How about looking at how it got that way? I could go on and on about these losers, but they are too ridiculous to warrant any discussions. Please, Miss Jaffe, let's get back to your real writing about real people we can relate to!!!!

When I was much younger, I read the author's book "The Fame Game." At the time, I thought it was one of the best books I had ever read (probably because at 16, I hadn't read many really 'good' books). However, I continued to be a fan of Rona Jaffe's and read all of her subsequent books and was usually entertained with a good story and interesting characters.

Unfortunately, The Room-Mating Season is neither a good story nor does it have compelling characters.

By reading the synopsis, it seems that the book is about 4 girls coming of age in New York City in the early 60's and continuing with their lives through present day (a great premise). Actually, it is really about 3 of the women and one male friend. I found the lead female character, Cady Fineman, so pathetically needy, so filled with jealousy, so immature and unlikeable, that every time a chapter started about Cady, I wanted to skip it.

What amazed me about all of the women in this book is how they so blithely had affairs with married men - and not only were they married men, but they were also much, much older married men (20 years older than the girls). It seems to me like Rona Jaffe has a fixation with older men and younger women. (And thinking back to "The Fame Game" it was also about a much older man having affairs with very young women.) Does she have a father/daughter complex?

With the exception of Leigh, the most stable woman in the group, the other characters do not mature or grow wiser with age. They mourn the loss of their youth because they are not beautiful or desirable to men anymore. Cady ends up desperately trying to pick up younger men to have sex with and Vanessa, because she is no longer desirable to strangers in bars, decides to have an affair with the one man in her life who has always loved her (even though she has the depth of a pickle chip).

This book is so lightweight, it could fly away on a balloon.

This book can be read over the course of a weekend and if I had read this book as a 16 year old, I probably would have liked it. More mature readers however, will probably be disappointed.

OK, I am not a prude, by any means, but this book was morally reprehensable! The main characters were all selfish, acting without consideration for anyone but themselves. The casual affairs with married men and the cheating on significant others seems to me like it should be treated as a major character flaw. Instead, it is the basis of the entire plot! By the time the women moved past the moral transgressions, I had a hard time, as a reader, caring what happened to them because they were so stupid and weak. The author tried to convince us that these girls were strong and independent, but they were weak and spineless. They deserved every bit of unhappiness they had.

And then there was the lame plot device of the roommate from hell who killed herself. First, maybe Jaffe could have spent a little bit of time explaining why Susan was so hard to live with. I've had bad roommates, and this Susan girl doesn't hold a candle to any of them. She has warts on her feet and she is awkward at conversation and turns the TV on loud. Wow. Satan's spawn, right in Manhattan! Then when she killed herself, the roommates "guilt" was so badly portrayed that it came across as how it had inconvienenced them. We're supposed to believe that they blamed themselves, but it never occurred to them to send flowers or attend a funeral? And then it was justified with, "Well, she had a common name and we would have never figured out who her family was." So now you have a character who you aren't invested in as a reader who is dead, then you add a whole bunch of "guilt" that is not fleshed out. The cherry for the top of this sundae of how not to write a novel is that in the end of the book, thier friend reveals that she didn't kill herself, he killed her. The girls all get together, and you should of had the justified reaction of why did you let me blame myself for 40 years, you were supposed to love me!, which you would expect for characters who think of nothing but themselves for the past 400 pages. Instead, you get a meeting of the mind(less) and they decide, "He's our friend. Let's protect him!" Fine, but for crying out loud, be mad at him! Utterly stupid.

But what bothered me more than anything about this book was the need to define the time period with silly trivia. There was just something about the way that it was written that sounded like a DJ at a bad oldies radio station. Something like - this is the me decade. There was a man in the white house that they called "Tricky Dick". Whatever. Why mention cultural events if the time period they represent do nothing to shape the girls lives or perceptions of things? It was totally useless. In that respect, it fit in the overall theme of the book.

If you want to read a good book about single girls looking for love, there are a lot out here. This one is really the lowest common denominator.

I did enjoy this book. Ms. Jaffe's writing style kept me eagerly turning pages. I was sad for Susan, happy for Leigh, and sorry for both Vanessa and Cady. But their personalities were set at the start of the story, and they didn't change very much over nearly forty years. And at the end I just said, "Well, that's it." I didn't feel like I'd witnessed anything special, just forty years in the three women's lives. Unlike some of the other readers who've posted reviews, I liked the surprise Ms. Jaffe threw in at the end. I don't want to say too much, but the memories these women kept alive for so many years would have been forgotten like last week's newspaper had things gone differently.

I guess I would have liked to have understood Vanessa better. She was such an enigma to me. How does a person become so empty? Cady, whom I felt was pitiful, was much better fleshed out. Leigh's life was too perfect for much space to be devoted to.

I'm not a fan of adultery, but I believe Ms. Jaffe was trying to make a point that some married men really do divorce their wives, while others string girlfriends along as long as they are allowed to.

But yes, I did enjoy this book.

This book started out with some promise, however the character development never fully pans out. Unfortunately the characters remain EXACTLY the same over a forty year span. They think nothing of their extramarital affairs, and remain shallow and generally unlikable. It seems Jaffe should not have tried to span so many years. I finished the book, only because I felt I should after reading half of it. I always finish a book when I start reading, but this one was a struggle. I really just didn't care anymore. There was a "suprise" ending but that gave little satisfaction because, again, by this time I just wasn't that interested in the characters.

I am disappointed and saddened because I am a big fan of Rona Jaffe. She is an amazing writer. I adore Class Reunion, and have just finished The Road Taken, which was one of the best books I have ever read.

Having said that, I looked forward to this newest novel and couldn't wait to get my hands on it. It did not live up to my expectations. The characters are shallow and self centered. I never understood them, or their reasons for making the selfish choices that they made. I cannot even fathom why they would remain friends after sharing an apartment for a short time. I didn't care for any of them or what happened to them. There is one character who dies and we never really get to know her, For some reason, these women who have no morals, think about her from time to time.

I feel cheated because I know Ms. Jaffe is capable of better writing than this.