I couldn't put this book down! Harley was so wonderful! I can't wait to buy this and add it to my collection and for my bookstore Smart Bookaholics Inc Bookstore

I was excited for this because I love a good roadtrip story, unfortunately, I just didn't connect to the characters in this one.

I wasn't a biggest fan of the narration style. It was written like a letter, which I didn't mind at all, but it felt a little like successive info dumps in the beginning. The information wasn't as naturally integrated as I would have liked. I also don't feel like I got enough background on Harley and Dean to care about their relationship, or their friendship. I didn't find Harley to be a likeable character, I sympathized with her for her loss and guilt, but I never actually liked her. Some other emotional scenes didn't really have an impact on me, because we didn't get to spend enough time in the scene - there wasn't enough buildup to have a satisfying payoff.

I did appreciate the strong emotional ending, and it felt like a great place for our characters to end up. This was a nice read, but I was never invested.

“This is more than a road trip. It’s a quest, a pilgrimage.”

This book is a trip, quest, pilgrimage, and more! I LOVED this book! This is the book I’ve been waiting all summer for. I absolutely devoured “The Long Ride Home” – read it cover to cover (well, digital cover to cover, that is) is 3½ hours; it was that good!

In “The Long Ride Home,” Juliet (who prefers to go by her nickname Harley) sets off on a cross-country motorcycle trip to return the ashes of her recently-departed mother to their favorite beach in NYC. So that she doesn’t have to go alone, Harley brings along her only L.A. friend, Dean. But Dean is really more than a friend. He and Harley slept together once, and now she’s fighting the growing feelings she has for him – after the death of her mother, she can’t let anyone else get that close. But Harley may have to let Dean in because he would be the father of her “maybe baby.” But events on this run-of-the-mill road trip quickly take a decidedly disastrous turn (or turns), and Harley is left feeling even more lost and alone than when she left.

Why did I love this book so much? Well, for one, I love road trip books. I’ve never been brave enough to take a cross-country trip myself, so I enjoy the vicarious thrill of the ride through the characters of books. But the fact that this book was about a road trip is only what got me to crack the cover. As Harley says, this is about much more than a mere road trip. While Harley does stop off at two places of significance to her past, this book departs from the traditional road trip plot of a set of characters who make multiple, increasingly significant stops along their way to a destination. No, in this book, Harley mostly makes stops because it’s dark out, and she needs to rest. This trip is a soul journey – a quest to find the strength to keep living after a devastating loss and deal with the tough situations popping up in the present. This book is about so much more than a trip.

I adored the character of Harley. Ok, admittedly, I got a little tired of reading about her crying and being upset over the death of her mother. But then I slapped myself and said, Hey! This girl just lost her mother! Give her a break! Harley’s voice was honest, raw, and real. And snarky! God, I loved the snark! So typically teenage! I also appreciated how real the author made Harley’s actions and reactions. She does some really “bitchy” things (to quote Harley, herself). She lashes out, hurts the people around her, and makes some exceedingly poor decisions. Just like a teenager faced with this scenario would. I think young adult readers will really identify with Harley because of how authentically she is portrayed.

This book was an emotional roller coaster! I laughed, I cried, and I outright bawled like a baby for the whole last chapter. But, even though this book deals with some very real, very heavy topics, it still felt light and hopeful and optimistic. All of these reasons are why I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED “The Long Ride Home.”

The main character is very difficult to like. Her supporting characters provided investment, but she did not. While the writing style was easy to read, it did not make me want to continue the story.

Disclaimer: A free copy of this book was received through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Harley has just lost her mother in a house fire and had been forced to uproot her whole life and move to L.A. When she and her only friend, Dean, go on a road trip to scatter her mother’s ashes in New York Harley has to make some tough decisions. She’s keeping a huge secret, and one way or another she’ll have to tell Dean eventually.

This book is both funny and beautiful. The relationship painted between Harley and her mother through memories is cute, loving and silly. Harley’s mother is the mom everyone wishes they had. Harley has positive relationships with several women throughout the book, from doctors to random old ladies and that’s just as wonderful. It’s great to see a book that focuses mostly on the connections women can make with each other. Unfortunately her connections with men weren’t as well written.

The relationship between Harley and Dean doesn’t feel quite believable. They even point out at one point that they barely know each other at all but they’re drop dead in love? Dean puts up with all Harley’s shit, because she’s in pain and suffering, but that’s something you do for a loved one not a girl you’ve known for a few months and who hasn’t been speaking to you. It feels idealistic and unreal. This isn’t to mention the way her dad is glossed over in about four pages, at which point why include him at all.

I also feel like although the trauma of losing a parent is addressed beautifully, the other catastrophes that Harley suffers during her road trip are cast aside. These things should leave lasting scars on Harley’s psyche but she recovers instantly from them because she has bigger problems. Unfortunately, your mom’s death doesn’t negate the way a sexual assault should affect you at least a smidgeon.

All that out of the way, Waters has a fantastic voice for writing teens and the narrative style of the book is creative and allows for a great little twist at the end. Harley is swimming in grief, and it’s written in a very realistic way. It’s rare that a picture of grieving is so well painted.

This is not an excellent romance novel, but it is an excellent novel about a woman going through a difficult time and struggling to find support, and it manages to be funny too.

This book was quick in a good and bad way. I love books I can read in one sitting but this one sacrificed some of the major plot lines in order for it to be quick. Harley's mom dying is a huge plotline yet it's hit or miss on the details surrounding her death. The book seems to start in the middle of the story and doesn't necessarily fill in all of what happened before that. I liked Dean and Harley's relationship even though it was messed up it was perfect but that plotline too seemed to be missing a lot of background. I'm glad it had an epilogue and I feel satisfied with the ending. This book offered a real glance at the choices surrounding unplanned pregnancy which I wasn't really expecting. Overall, it was a nice book but needed more details in many areas to make it a fully rounded plot.

Harley is dating Dean whilst her mum passed away in a fire she caused accidentally, the pair leave for New York, her hometown to scatter her ashes. They go together as Mercy, her mum's friend she lives with now won't allow her to go alone.

As they travel together, soon Harley realizes that she's late and riding on the back of a motorbike with her head full of thoughts of pregnancy and her future throws her into recalling the past. How Dean and her were both self destructing and joined up to do so together now could change their lives forever and as they journey on he tells her he loves her while she faces up to the fact that she loves him back too quite possibly. Yet after running away from him to gather her thoughts, an awful event and ending up in hospital, Dean and Juliet, her real name, track down her father Andy who tells her some home truths. That then spurs her decision about her baby for good.

Running themes through out the book are strong of PTSD and panic attacks along with sex themes and a suicide attempt along with obviously a late teen pregnancy. These are serious issues and are relevantly raised amongst a group they can gravely affect at such a growing age still.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!