Two years ago Addie and Dylan broke up and have avoided each other ever since.
In the present day, Addie and her sister have just set off on an epic road trip to a friend's wedding in Scotland when a car slams into the back of theirs.
It turns out to be Dylan and his best friend Marcus. They're heading to the same wedding, but with their car now out of action, Addie and her sister have no choice but to offer them a ride.

I'm really struggling to review this book because I really like Beth O'Leary's writing. I've enjoyed her previous two books, and I don't think there's anything technically wrong with this one.

The book is told from both Dylan and Addie's perspectives. You follow one timeline in the present where you learn how they met, and why the relationship ended. You then also follow the road trip in the present day where it's clear that feelings are still there.

I've never read a second-chance romance book before, and this has made me realise they're not for me. Because while I like romance books that have relatable characters, I don't enjoy romance books where the situation feels too relatable.

I also struggled to understand why Dylan and Addie *actually* liked each other. Other than the physical attraction. I would have liked a little more showing and less telling.

I wouldn't want to put anyone else off from reading this and I would read other books by this author in the future, but unfortunately this wasn't for me.

Addie and Deb are going on a road trip, from the south of England to the North of Scotland, for their friend's wedding. Everything about the trip has been meticulously planned, from the service stops to the snacks.  What isn't planned is for another car to run into the back of them not long after they set off.  To make matters worse the driver of the other car is Addie's ex, Dylan, and his best friend Marcus, both of whom Addie has studiously avoided since the break up.  Dylan and Marcus are also heading to the wedding, and now need a lift.  Cramped into a tiny car with over 300 miles left to drive Addie and Dylan can't avoid each other any longer.

I enjoyed both of Beth O'Leary's first two books, and am happy to say that this one carries on the trend.

O'Leary has a knack for creating endearing characters.  Our focus here is on Dylan and Addie, and whilst I was rooting for the two of them to figure things out my real favourite was Marcus.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, I just have a soft spot for rogues.  Deb and Rodney were both a lot of fun, Deb's devil may care attitude was a winner for me.

At the start of the book I found myself not really that bothered about the flashbacks.  I didn't feel like I needed to know Addie and Dylan's story, or at least not the early days.  I just wanted to be in the car and seeing what could possibly go wrong next!  As the book progresses though it became clear that you do need to understand the early days to understand how the couple are where they are now.

This book is so much fun, the road trip is just a mad cap adventure and I really enjoyed reading about what calamity would happen next.  I think I was more interested in whether they would get to the wedding than whether Dylan and Addie would work things out.  There are some more serious undertones here though, with a pretty close look at toxic friendships and families.  It was an interesting take on the rom-com, and all round a good read.

This book is a great summer read about how we can forget and forgive the past when stuck in a car with people from our last for a long time.

This is a very sweet and charming story. I couldn't put it down!
Beth O'Leary does a great job of humanising these characters in a way you can't help but root for them.
Would recommend!

The Road Trip was my first Beth O’Leary book, it was a great first choice.
Addie and her sister Deb are travelling to a wedding in the North of Scotland when they have a collision with another car! Can you imagine how Addie felt when she realised the driver was her Ex boyfriend Dylan and his best friend Marcus.
They end up travelling to the wedding together in Debs mini. Definitely a recipe for disaster.
With an extra passenger Rodney in the mix too there is just one drama after another!
Will they ever reach the final destination? Read it and see, you’ll not regret it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Quercus for the advanced copy of Beth’s very witty book.

The plot is absurd and just gets more absurd as the story progresses with each layer unfolding another ridiculous scenario. There is an ex boyfriend, an awful boyfriends friend, a dramatic bride to be, a trucker to the rescue, a stalker and more. Despite this is a great book, well written, funny, sad and ridiculous in parts. Despite the romance/comedy set up some deeper themes are touched on which stops the book being a 100% trashy romance novel. Overall would recommend to anyone looking for an easy to read, not to deep but not to shallow peace of fiction. Perfect for a sunny day in the garden or at the beach.

The Road Trip by Beth O'Leary is a sweet story of second chances and a wonderful blend of funny and poignant. It's perfect holiday reading, or ideal to pick up when you just need something warm and comforting to escape from the real world.
The premise is fairly simple, Addie and her sister are heading to Scotland for a friend's wedding, and its going to be the perfect road trip, the snacks are sorted, the playlist is set and the road lies ahead. However they have barely left home when a car rear ends them , and to add insult to injury , it is driven by none other than Dylan, Addie's ex. He and his best friend are heading to the wedding too, and when it transpires that their car is no longer safe to drive, the obvious solution is that they all travel together, even if this is something that neither Addie nor Dylan are thrilled about. A four hundred mile road trip in close proximity with an ex does not make for a comfortable trip , and as one thing after another goes wrong the tension between the pair mounts and they are forced to rehash the reasons why they broke up in the first place.
The book moves between the current day road trip and the past where we see the development of Addie and Dylan's relationship as well as why it fell apart. and the two timelines are nicely woven together throughout the book. I liked that we got to see both sides of the story and that the author made sure that neither character was perfect, both had flaws that contributed to the ending of the relationship. On the downside I couldn't find a single redeeming feature for Dylan's friend Marcus, he was thoroughly unlikeable from the beginning of the book to the end and I really struggled to see how Dylan put up with him for so long. The book opens with a literal bang, but then the pace slows quite a bit, much like the traffic our characters encounter, before speeding to a conclusion that borders on farcical at times.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher , all opinions are my own.

I don't know what it is about O'Leary's writing but somehow it never seems to draw me in as much as it does everyone else. I enjoyed her previous work, The Flatshare was good but I also wasn't emotionally invested, if that makes sense?
Here it was the same - I loved all the elements (who isn't a sucker for a good road trip story) and while I enjoyed my reading experience, I could not for the life of my tell you the names of the protagonist and the love interest, which is not...good.
But the book was!
So definitely a me problem and my sieve brain and less that of the book. Hoping to one day find a O'Leary book I can totally connect to because she is so beloved!

I love Beth’s books but this one was a bit of a change of story / pace / theme. It took me by surprise but I did enjoy it in the end. There were perhaps a few too silly, frivolous events on the roadtrip and I found I much preferred the chapters in the past. But it all came together well in the end.
I’d really like to reread this one now knowing the nature of the story.

As always Beth books are really good, enjoyed every min of it.

Every book I read if Beth it absolutely brilliant

I love Beth O'Leary and her writing style. But I didn't love this one as the previous...
Just didn't...
This was a 3 stars read for me

The Road Trip is set in a Mini Cooper, odd? Yes, but it works. Deb and Addie are travelling to Scotland for a wedding when their car is rear ended by no other than Addie’s ex, Dylan and his best friend, Marcus who are also on the way to the same wedding, and who now need a lift. What could possibly go wrong?
Quite a bit it would seem.
So they, Addie, Deb, Dylan, Marcus and Rodney who was already being given a lift, all resume their Scotland trip in, you’ve guessed it, a Mini Cooper. With too much traffic on the road and too many secrets in the car the running is not smooth.

The Road Trip is packed with slap stick humour that reminds me of old Charlie Chaplin movies, it’s a joyful bit of escapism that I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

Beth O’Leary is quickly becoming the Queen of romcom. She is single handedly upping the bar of this genre, her books are light, funny and full of warmth. What I particularly love about her characters is their depth, they may be flawed, they may not even be likeable (cough cough Marcus) but they are always complex and have a discernible journey.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

After reading the Switch I had high hopes for the Roadtrip. However, I struggled to connect to the characters and found the constant interruptions of their journey neither funny nor unpredictable. The Charme that the the characters of the Switch had, was missing from this book.

The only thing that kept me reading was the curiosity about how and why Addie and Dylan‘s relationship had ended. But even that revelation did not improve my overall opinion.

I did appreciate the overall character development of Addie, Dylan, Marcus and Dylan’s mom.

Simply beautiful! This is my third Beth O’Leary book and I’ve adored them all. This one is warm, captivating, full of emotion and will give you all the feels.

Absolutely brilliant. Beth O’Leary has produced another corker. However reader beware - if you’re expecting a story on a similar vein as her previous stories, this won’t compare. This is a very different beast - it’s darker and feels more grown up. Both in O’Leary’s plotting, character development and storytelling.

This is funny, full of romance, charm and family/human drama. I love the relationships between Addie, Dylan and her sister Deb and his best friend Marcus. The character development of these main characters and those in support really pulls you in. I’ve read some unfavourable reviews for Marcus, but for me he’s the character with the most development, so stick with him.

This book is about forgiveness and the lengths we’ll go to for the ones we truly love. How we’ve always got their back, no matter their destructive behaviour and the consequences. And it’s also about journeys (yes the literal ones) but also the journeys we go in our selves as we grow and change, particularly as some characters go to some dark places. Loved it!!! When’s book 4 out?

⚠️ TW and potential spoiler: there’s reference to an attempted sexual assault (not in any detail)⚠️

Another fantastic book by Beth O’Leary, I’ve read and loved them all.
Sisters Addie and Deb are on their way to a friend’s wedding in Scotland. Rodney is unknown to them and tagging along, he’s was on the wedding Facebook Group and needed a ride the wedding. Unfortunately a traffic accident which involves Addies ex boyfriend Dylan and his best friend Marcus, who are incidentally on the way to the same wedding, sees them all travelling to Scotland together in Deb’s Mini. Really, what more could go wrong.......
I found this book quite refreshing. A mixture of moments which put a big smile on my face to quite serious topics but it wasn’t until I finished that those came to mind. We as readers, know at the beginning that Addie and Dylan broke up with unfinished business but it’s not revealed why or how till very late in the book. Chapters are set as ‘Now’ and ‘Then’, which I found a little hard to get into the groove at first but we get an insight to their relationship and it’s workings and complications.
The characters all had their own issues and foibles and I enjoyed seeing the growth and changes. I can say that money does not ensure happiness.
A great read.
Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for a copy to read.

I have read both Beth’s previous novels and enjoyed them, I think she is 1 of my favourite authors. I find her writing style so relatable that all her characters jump out of the page and you feel part of their journey and do not want to leave them at the end of the story. This was another great story and I thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in Dylan and Addie’s story, along with the other characters that are part of their lives. There were some laugh out loud parts as well as some more emotional sections, but as usual the author’s writing is so gifted that it is a joy to read.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read a preview copy of this book.

At the moment, we would all love to go out on the open road and go on an adventure and the best way at the moment is via Beth O'Leary's third novel, The Road Trip!

This is a road trip like no other! One that Addie and Deb were certainly not expecting to plan out the way it did! All set in their Mini Cooper, with their favourite music and snacks, the sisters are on their way to rural Scotland to attend a friend’s wedding. Due to an incident, they then end up taking Addie's ex-boyfriend Dylan, his friend Marcus and Rodney, a Facebook 'hitchhiker!' A completely different journey to the one original planned! Imagine travelling over 400 miles with your ex-boyfriend in the car along with this friend and a stranger - all in a tiny Mini Cooper!

We see the story through two viewpoints - that of Addie and Dylan - this allows us to see an in-depth character analysis, their personalities and the chemistry between them. Addie and Dylan have not seen each other since they split up two years ago, and the book alternates between when they first met and now.

The Road Trip book draws on true friendships, past relationships, the future and finding your true self. Very hard-hitting topics are tackled, sensitively and skilfully. The Road Trip is a rollercoaster of a book, a very emotional read but extremely funny too.

I absolutely loved The Flatshare and The Switch and I did find The Road Trip a much more complex novel, which I found at times hard to follow. Part of this was due to the dual timeline and the switching between the two characters story. I also did not gel with the characters as much as I did in Beth O'Leary's first two books where I felt I was must more invested in each of the characters.

Not my normal type of read but pleasurable and also funny at times. Following a trip full of disasters and an underlying love story, there was enough of a pull to keep my interest.

Big fan of The Switch and The Flat Share so I was excited for the Road Trip. It was the fun read that I needed and I devoured it in 2 days of reading. I loved the dynamics of the people in the car, a mix of people that you would not want to spend a very long car trip with

It has been almost 2 years since Addie and Dylan broke up, breaking off contact with each other completely. But a cruel twist of fate sees them together again, along with Dylan's best mate Marcus, who never thought Addie was right for Dylan, Addie's sister Deb who is on her first baby free trip since giving birth to her son, and Rodney, a random who needed a lift to a mutual friends wedding in Scotland.

It is a very long way from the south coast of England to Scotland by car, especially on a Bank Holiday weekend. If it can go wrong it does go wrong, and we have a hilarious set of situations that the 5 get themselves into on route to the wedding. Add to that the tension and the awkwardness of the relationships and it is a wild ride.

We learn about how Dylan and Addie met and fell in love, and then broke up through now and then chapters telling the story. It is not all fun and games, there are some serious subjects discussed in this story.

But will they make it to the wedding without killing each other? That is a very good questions - you will have to read it to find out

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my advanced copy of this book to read.