And They Were Roommates (Publication Day 5/27/25) is Page Powars’s second published book, and is set at the Saint Valentine’s Academy for Boys, an exclusive boarding school that promises that those who excel there have their pick of Ivies. Charlie is going as a scholarship student, the same as his Mom, who went to the sister academy right next door. Phones are confiscated at dropoff and not returned until departure, so the students on each side need to actually interact with each other. As a trans student who is not out, Charlie had requested a single room, but finds out that there was a problem with his deposit and so he has a roommate. That roommate happens to be Jasper, the boy who broke Charlie’s heart the summer before he transitioned, when they were at a writing summer camp on opposite sides of the wall, and Jasper doesn’t recognize Charlie.
Charlie does his best to stay away from Jasper, but they have every class together, and they are part of a semi-secret group that takes unauthorized messages across the wall (which they nickname the “cockblockade”) to the sister school, and students pay Jasper to write poetry as part of the messages. Charlie does meet some nice guys, and no one seems to guess his secret, but he has to work harder than he ever has before, with PE, especially.
It’s cute, not an earth-shattering book, but there are some interesting characters, and I appreciated both Charlie’s and Jasper’s growth through the book, and the fact that Charlie was able to make friends who he could trust with his true self, including Jasper. It was also completely weight-neutral, no anti-fat bias at all.
Reading While Fat 