Book Review: The Roof Over Our Heads, by Nicole Kronzer (2023)

The cover of The Roof Over Our Heads, by Nicole Kronzer, 2023. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

Author Nicole Kronzer

A fun bit of Roof swag: a notebook from the (fictional) Jorgensen House. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

Nicole Kronzer’s young adult novel The Roof Over Our Heads is a wonderful love letter to theater, families, and belonging. The main character of the novel is Finn Turner, a 17-year-old who lives with his two mothers and two brothers in a Victorian mansion owned by a theater company. But the theater has a new artistic director who isn’t convinced that the expense of the mansion is worth it to the theater’s bottom line. Finn’s mothers get the idea to perform an interactive play in the house—while the cast lives in the mansion as though it’s 1891.  

The plot is a clever spin on the old “Hey, let’s do the show right here!” trope, and Kronzer’s sense of humor is evident in the terrific title of the play: A Midsummer Night’s Art Heist Garden Party Escape Room Murder. Finn has to navigate through many complications, including figuring out how he will successfully memorize his lines, and how his footman character will be able to chat with his crush Alexa, playing one of the daughters of the household. The other daughter of the household is played by Jade, who used to be best friends with Finn in middle school, but now their friendship has hit a rockier patch. Throw in a drama teacher who is relentless about staying in character, and a dude-ish organ performance major, among others, and you have a recipe for delightful comedy.  

The condensed time structure of The Roof Over Our Heads heightens the tension, and the narrative drive will keep you turning pages. The Roof Over Our Heads is funny, heartwarming, and charming. Anyone who has experienced the magic inherent in theater will enjoy immersing themselves in the backstage dramas contained herein. Nicole Kronzer’s first novel, 2020’s delightful Unscripted, also had a theater theme, and even though my own acting career was limited to high school, I loved being back in that universe in The Roof Over Our Heads.

 

I knew that I was going to like The Roof Over Our Heads long before I actually read it. The first time I met Nicole Kronzer was in the fall of 2021—our mutual friend, the talented illustrator Katharine Woodman-Maynard, was taking one of my F. Scott Fitzgerald walking tours, and she had invited Nicole as well. I think about the third sentence Nicole said to me was “My next novel is set in the James J. Hill house!” I replied, “I used to be a tour guide there!” Although the house in The Roof Over Our Heads is called the Jorgensen House, it shares many characteristics with the James J. Hill House, and it was with gleeful pleasure that I read Kronzer’s beautiful descriptions of a place that I know so well. The next time I go to the Hill House I’ll be imagining Finn and the other characters running from one wing to another, running lines as they go, preparing for the next performance of A Midsummer Night’s Art Heist Garden Party Escape Room Murder.