MY ROOMMATE FROM HELL

A new college student discovers that his roommate is the prince of Hell—and he’s almost as annoyed by him as he is attracted to him.

Owen Greene’s determined to have a good first year at Point University come hell or high water—even if hell is exactly what he gets. A team of scientists recently created a portal to an alternate dimension that contains basically every stereotypical element of a hell—“demons, brimstone, rivers of lava.” But Owen is shocked to learn that Zarmenus Bloodletter, the so-called prince of Hell, is sharing his room. And though Zarmenus turns out to be a pretty good-natured guy (and hot, too—although Owen’s trying not to notice), neither he nor his soul-stealing cat, Bell, know how to be a good roommate. There’s a lot riding on this interdimensional exchange program, which could promote harmonious human-demon relations. But then Zarmenus ropes Owen into a fake-dating scheme for the ages—Owen will help party boy Zarmenus behave better, so his father doesn’t make him leave, and in return Zarmenus will help Owen secure the internship he desperately wants. Fun gags aside, Hell is thinly sketched, and Zarmenus doesn’t experience much culture shock on Earth. But as a slow-burn romance, the story is tender, undeniably electric, and charmingly innocent, and the examination of the often-fraught first year of college is superb. Owen is cued white. Zarmenus sometimes appears as a pale-skinned human and sometimes as a towering, fiery-red, winged creature.

Delightfully messy.