My Roommate From Hell

Cale Dietrich
Completed 1/9/2026, Reviewed 1/12/2026
4 stars

This was a very cute, sweet, YA fantasy about first love as a freshman in college.  The twist is that the main character’s roommate is the Prince of Darkness.  Actually, he’s a prince from a parallel dimension where the inhabitants look like what we consider classic demons.  The sense is that visitors from this dimension over thousands of years have contributed to the collective idea of Hell and demons.  In this story, the roommate is part of an exchange program between the two dimensions to alleviate the misconception.  It’s complicated when the main character and the prince find themselves falling in love.  I didn’t see in my research if the author was influenced by Clarke’s “Childhood’s End,” but if he was, he took it in fun, eldritch directions.

When his mom drops Owen off at Pointe University, they are stunned to find out that his original roommate withdrew and Owen is now paired with Prince Zarmenus of Tartarus Beta, the parallel dimension, but commonly referred to as Hell.  Its inhabitants look like demons, although they can shape shift, and the dimension is full of fire, brimstone, rivers of lava, and eldritch horrors, just like the mythology of Christian Hell.  The university’s dean stresses the need for Owen and Zarmenus to get along to help with Earth/Hell relations.  She tells Owen that if he lasts out the semester exchange without incident, she will get him an internship at Google.  That highly motivates Owen and he agrees, only to find out that Zar is a spoiled, inconsiderate, and basically oblivious roommate.  Zar is also an extremely hot hunk.  Owen, on the other hand, is an intense, obsessive perfectionist who has never been on a date.  Navigating the situation is tough for Owen, made tougher by Zar’s suggestion that they pretend to be boyfriends to allay Zar’s royal, overbearing parents’ fears of failure in this exchange, as well as to convince the dean and the general populace that humans and demons can have a healthy relationship.  This forces Owen to question all his perfectionistic behavior and confront his fear of intimacy.  Hijinx ensue.

Yes, this is kind of a silly urban fantasy, but it deals with serious social awkwardness.  Owen has been focused on schoolwork his whole life, trying to do better than his parents and help them out financially.   Everything else is an irrelevant distraction.  His best friend Ashley is a classmate who was supposed to go to Pointe U with him but got pregnant and withdrew.  So now he’s alone and struggling to make friends.  Zar is a party boy.  He plays video games, never cleans his side of the room, and brings guys back to the room after dates while assuming Owen is asleep.  Without Ashley, Owen is lost.  Eventually, he does make some acquaintances.  Between them and through texts and calls with Ashley, he does finally confront Zar about his behavior.  The book is written in first person from Owen’s perspective.  So, we experience his struggle with conflict resolution, friend-making, and being in touch with his feelings.  And things become more complicated as he tries to deny his attraction to Zar and face his fear of pursuing what he wants.  

Then there are protests by fundamentalist extremist groups who can’t accept that the “demons” are simply beings from another dimension.  As usual, they fear what they don’t understand.  Additionally, they are followed around by the paparazzi who want photos and stories about this momentous college exchange program.  It’s bad enough that Owen is already an introvert, but this makes things even more uncomfortable.  Over time, though, he starts to enjoy his time with Zar despite the external pressures.  And of course, he has to face the fact that he is falling for Zar.  

I give this book four stars out of five.  It’s very angsty, Owen being a college freshman.  We spend a lot of time in his head full of cognitive dissonance, but it’s done well.  There is also dialogue, action, and plot.  The world building is decent, and the prose is not overly flowery.  If you’re over teen angst novels, this isn’t for you.  But if you like a sweet, college-aged romance between an spoiled prince and an introverted nerd, this will prove very satisfying.  There are no spicy scenes; it’s not that kind of book.  It’s an honest take on being a young adult in extraordinary circumstances.