Review of “The Road Trip” by Beth O’Leary


Overall:
 4/5 Stars

Summary of review:

I loved this cute novel. The characters were the highlight of this novel!

Summary:

This story is set in two timelines: present and past. As well as two points of view: Addie and Dylan.

Past story line: Addie and Dylan meet and fall in love. They break up under mysterious circumstances. We get each piece to why they broke up throughout the novel.

Present timeline: Addie and a few people are driving to a wedding. They gear up for an epic road trip. But they get into an accident with none other than Addie’s ex boyfriend, Dylan, and his friend. They are all going to attend the same wedding and decide to carpool together. Addie and Dylan have not seen each other for 2 years after their break-up. Also, Addie and Dylan’s friend do not get along. So what could seriously go wrong?

My thoughts:

This is not a typical romance. It is not a boy meets a girl, and they fall in love. This is you, the reader, piecing together why they broke up as well as seeing the two exes together again. I want to label this as a Romance/mystery in a sense. You are basically figuring out if they are meant to be together and what happened 2 years prior.

The characters were great! I felt like I really knew them! They were cute/charming, great dialogue between the characters, and funny too. There were some really serious parts as well, which was written into the plot perfectly. I liked how the characters were cute but flawed. The author painted a picture of the characters like they were “real” people.

I thought the stories (past and present) were weaved together perfectly. The build-up to why Addie and Dylan broke up was not what I expected though. It was built it up throughout the novel just to reveal it rather quickly at the end. The ending felt rushed. I wish that the author would have fast forwarded and seen the characters in the future or just wrapped it up better.

Conclusion:

Overall, this novel was great! I really did enjoy the characters a lot. It had a mix of heavy and light moments. It was a good mix.

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read the trigger warnings. It could spoil parts of the story.

Trigger Warnings: unwanted advanced/sexual assault, alcoholism, mental illness/depression, stalking, and homophobic parents

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