The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary: Book Review
The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary
Published April 29th, 2021
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Addie and her sister are about to embark on an epic road trip to a friend’s wedding in the north of Scotland. The playlist is all planned and the snacks are packed.
But, not long after setting off, a car slams into the back of theirs. The driver is none other than Addie’s ex, Dylan, who she’s avoided since their traumatic break-up two years earlier.
Dylan and his best mate are heading to the wedding too, and they’ve totalled their car, so Addie has no choice but to offer them a ride. The car is soon jam-packed full of luggage and secrets, and with three hundred miles ahead of them, Dylan and Addie can’t avoid confronting the very messy history of their relationship…
Will they make it to the wedding on time? And, more importantly… is this really the end of the road for Addie and Dylan?
Thank you to the publisher, Quercus Books, and NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC of this book. All thoughts are my own.
At this point, I’m ready to admit that second-chance romance might be my favorite trope. I love the idea of the two leads starting with all this history behind them rather than building from the ground up. It just helps make all their interactions – even the little ones! – feel so much more intense.
I think that worked to the story’s advantage here. The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary is told in alternating timelines; the past: where Addie and Dylan meet and fall in love for the first time, and the present: where they’re broken up and forced back together on a comedy of errors road trip. Knowing that they would eventually break up made the timeline where they first got together all the more meaningful. (And added some interest to scenes I wouldn’t have cared for otherwise.) It also upped the stakes in the present timeline by showing all that lost potential.
What I liked best about this story was seeing how much each character had grown during their time apart to become the people they needed to be for their relationship to work the second time around. It made their reconciliation feel more rewarding.
Add in a cast of characters with such distinct personalities, all the mayhem of their journey, and Beth O’Leary’s signature sarcasm and wit; despite some bumps along the way, The Road Trip was an overall enjoyable ride.
Have you read The Road Trip?
What did you think of it?
Let me know!
Liza
Liza is a twenty-something book blogger who spends way too much time with her nose in books and feels way too much. She loves cooking, baking, reality tv show watching and, of course, reading. She can be found most often with a cup of tea in one hand and a book in the other. Her blog, Literary Liza, features bookish content like reviews, recommendations, and author interviews.
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