Everyone has a bad roommate story, but Brisbane author Cale Dietrich has taken the idea as literally as possible.
In My Roommate from Hell, the roommate in question is the actual prince of hell.
And I loved every camp, silly, fun minute of it.
Published by Wednesday Books in 2025, the YA rom-com follows Owen, a college freshman with a very sensible plan: study hard, get a good job and set himself up for life.
Then he arrives at Point University and meets Prince Zarmenus, who is on campus for the first-ever Earth/hell exchange program.
Zar, as he’s known, is loud, messy and, in the words of the book’s blurb, “infuriatingly hot”.
He throws wild parties, brings a rotation of boys back to the room and accidentally sets Owen’s furniture on fire.
The fake boyfriend plot, with a twist
Regular readers will know I’ve spent a good chunk of this year with fictional fake boyfriends.
READ MORE: Starting ‘Fake Out’: the origin story
Dietrich’s version follows the rules of the trope while raising the stakes considerably.
When Zar’s antics start threatening not just Owen’s peace and quiet but demon-human relations, the pair strike a deal.
Owen will play the devoted boyfriend and teach Zar how to be a better human. In exchange, he gets an internship that could secure his future.
Zar, the blurb adds, will also “consider” being a better roommate.
You know exactly where this is going, and that’s the joy of it.
The twist is that a messy fake break-up here wouldn’t just mean a bruised ego. It could set back relations between two dimensions.
The hell of it all
What I loved most were the random, horrible “hell” things that keep happening to poor Owen.
One day there is simply a giant eye in his room.
On another, he wakes up to find Zar’s cat attempting to steal his soul.
It’s the kind of chaos I want from a book with this title, and Dietrich plays it for laughs rather than scares.
Big ‘Living Conditions’ energy
The whole thing reminded me of “Living Conditions”, an episode from season four of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I’ve always found to be a lot of fun.
In it, Buffy starts college and becomes convinced her irritating new roommate Kathy – who labels her food and plays Cher’s “Believe” on repeat – is evil.
Her friends think she’s lost the plot.
Spoiler for an episode that first aired in 1999: Kathy really is a demon, she’s run away from her own dimension to go to college, and she has been stealing Buffy’s soul while she sleeps.
My Roommate from Hell is that episode stretched to 352 pages, only this time the human falls for the demon.
READ MORE: Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz share a Buffy reunion and it meant EVERYTHING to me
Will there be more?
I read this as a standalone, and it works as one.
But there is so much potential in the world Dietrich has built.
Will more students come from hell? What happens when the exchange goes the other way?
Most of all, I’d love to check in on how Owen and Zarmenus go in the underworld.
The blurb does promise “just one bed, but that bed is in hell, surrounded by fire and brimstone”, and I’d happily read a whole book of that.
No sequel has been announced, but I’ll be keeping a close eye on his Instagram to see what is next.
Worth noting
Not everyone has been as charmed as I was. The book sits at 3.65 stars on Goodreads from more than 2600 ratings, with some readers wanting higher stakes.
My advice is to go in expecting camp rather than fire and brimstone.
Fellow YA author Aiden Thomas, who wrote Cemetery Boys, called it “a hilarious and charming descent into love, fake dating, and actual Hell”.
It’s also another win for Australian queer YA.
Dietrich was born in Perth, grew up on the Gold Coast and lives in Brisbane with his boyfriend, according to his author biography.
His earlier books include The Love Interest, The Friend Scheme, The Rules of Royalty and If This Gets Out, the boy band romance he co-wrote with fellow Australian Sophie Gonzales.
My Roommate from Hell is available now in paperback, ebook and audiobook, narrated by Zach Barela, and is stocked by Australian booksellers including Brisbane’s Where the Wild Things Are.
Here’s hoping Dietrich takes us back to hell soon.