Rooming With My Two Lovers is a series that I wouldn't say I liked when it started. In many ways, it falls into the typical conventional trappings you'd see in most other adult BL stories. There is this emphasis on teasing and gaslighting in a way that feels uncomfortable; it feels like lines of consent are pushed a bit too far, and some of the characters have the charisma of that guy who knows everyone in the HR department by their first name. I was rolling my eyes at the setup because of how comedically convenient it was, and I was fully expecting to hate this story by the time we got to the end.

None of this was helped because I was genuinely annoyed at the book's presentation. Not only is the style a bit generic, with our three main leads sharing distinctly similar profiles, but the overall panel layouts were confusing. The page-to-page progression can feel so disjointed that it feels like pages are missing between scenes. But even on the same page, there'll be moments where the spacing between characters in a scene is so poorly conveyed that it legitimately feels like a character is teleporting back and forth in the middle of a page. I had to go back and re-read some chapters because I thought I was going crazy or that my review copy was messed up, but that's just how the story is presented. It does get better as the story goes on, but suffice it to say, my first impressions of Rooming With My Two Lovers were not strong.

But then we get to a definitive turning point roughly halfway through the book, and Rooming With My Two Lovers does something that I wish a lot more BL stories would do: the characters sit down and have a proper conversation like adults. There is an acknowledgment of the aforementioned bad behavior that takes place early on; those feelings of possessiveness are given a bit more of a stronger context, and you begin to understand the perspective of all the characters that share scenes together. Whether it's Atsushi and Enraku's complicated dating history, Atsushi and Shiki's newfound affection for each other, or Shiki and Enraku's love for each other as friends, I found myself genuinely won over by the three-way dynamic these characters had by the end. What's even better is that it's not as simple of a relationship as the three loving each other; each of them seeks something specific from the other, and they all come to a compromise in a very healthy way by the end.

There isn't some massive tone shift where everything gets light and fluffy, but rather, it feels like a weight is lifted off of the characters' shoulders as they begin to understand better what they want from each other and what they want for themselves. The complicated and twisted feelings of love that stem from particular fetishes like teasing and even cuckolding are brought up in a surprisingly believable way. It also helps that the sex scenes portrayed in the book are used to establish character interests. All the sex scenes themselves are rather nice and intense. Still, I appreciate that the characters comment on specific things that happen during those scenes, like the looks that Atsushi gives his roommates or how he reaches out to them specifically.

There are times when the characters poke each other for their rather unorthodox or weird kinks, but there's a firm understanding of where those kinks come from and why they've persisted into adult life. I wish the book was a bit longer to expand upon those fetishes, but the job is still commendable. The story goes from a cliché and harmful story to probably one of the more healthy three-way relationships I've read about in quite some time.

Your mileage may vary from person to person when recommending this book. The whole story is self-contained in this one volume, and if you are somebody who likes seeing a definitive transformation present from the story's beginning to the end, then I think this is worth picking up. You have to stick through some rather cliché opening chapters to get to the exciting part, even though I can't guarantee that the payoff might be worth all of it. That could be a lot to ask of some people, and as I mentioned before, the presentation needs work. But if you're used to those BL clichés and are open to something a bit different, I can recommend this book.