Road Trip by Beth O'Leary

A road trip to Scotland for a wedding should be a great holiday for sisters Abbie and Deb but when they give a lift to another guest, who seems a little stange and they end up giving a lift to Abbie's ex-boyfriend and his best friend then mishaps, break downs (not only the car) and adventures begin as tensions, conflict and old feelings start to bubble inside the small Mini Cooper.

Road Trip isn't simply a second chance at love but a book about the love of family and friends even though they might be dysfunctional, facing up to big mistakes and mental health issues.

This is a funny, touching and heartwarming book and definitely something I need at the moment. I really enjoyed Road Trip and Im definitely looking forward to the next Beth O'Leary book.

Thank you to @netgalley for the digital copy.

I’ve read the one of her previous books as well and I have seemed to have the same issue I had with this book. The beginning is always amazing, I love the concepts the author uses. It’s executed pretty well until the book feels too long. The middle dragged quite a lot. I wish we didn’t have so many flashbacks one after the other. I would’ve liked to have seen more tension and slow burn in the present. But as I’ve said, I enjoyed the concept and it was a good read

Addie, her sister Deb and tjeir friend Rodney are at the start of their trip up north for a wedding, when a car slams into them. Unfortunately, the driver of that car is her ex-boyfriend Dylan and his annoying friend Marcus, also on their way to the wedding. The accident totalls Marcus' father's car and Addie is kind enough to offer them a ride.

The chapters alternate between Addie and Dylan and between then and now and this kept the flow of the book going. Unfortunately this is where it stops for me, I didn't like Addie's and Dylan's characters, if anything Deb stole the show for me.

This was my first book by Beth O'Leary, and I unfortunately it wasn't really for me.

I was so excited to read this book after adoring The Flatshare and The Switch, and it did not disappoint!! This book starts out with Addie and her sister Deb on their way to their friend’s wedding in Scotland, with an extra car guest who they’ve offered a lift to, Rodney. When starting out on their road trip, they get into a car accident with none other than Addie’s ex Dylan, who is road tripping with his friend Marcus. This twist of fate means the five of them end up crammed in a mini and on their way to Scotland.

I loved this book so much! I love how Beth O’Leary does a dual point of view narrative so seamlessly, and this one has the added element of dual timelines also! The scenes in the past when Addie and Dylan were falling in love were so beautiful and made me want to escape to the south of France. I loved reading these chapters and when reading either timeline of the book, was so sucked in that when the other timeline reappeared I was pleasantly surprised to jump back or forward.

The current timeline of the road trip was highly entertaining whilst also being so moving and beautiful. I loved seeing them all try and muddle along while disaster after disaster occurred. This book made me laugh out loud so many times, but the humour never took away from the more serious themes of the novel. Just be warned, without giving too many spoilers, there is a reveal in the latter part of the book that features unwanted sexual activities and attempts.

If you want to read a romance full of heart and soul and well developed characters, I definitely recommend this one! Second chance romances isn’t my favourite trope but I do enjoy it when it’s done as well as this! It was such a great book and you should all read it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Quercus books for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

I have conflicted feelings about this one. I went in to it so wanting to love it but sadly I didn't. This book had the most insufferable characters ever, with whom I felt massively disconnected to. I absolutely despised Marcus, was frustrated with Dylan and felt nothing when it came to Addie. She was a pretty bland character, although I did like that she was a teacher (so am I). Her and Dylan's relationship was horribly toxic. I wasn't rooting for them to be together.

It was amusing in parts albeit ridiculous at times. I enjoyed some of the banter and road trip elements of the story.
However, for the most part it was underwhelming. All in all it was disappointing and I had to force myself to finish it. A 2.5 - 3 star read for me.

I loved The Flatshare, and The Switch was in my top 10 books in 2020, so I fully expected to love The Road Trip wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, this was a bit of a mess for me, mostly because I could not connect to a single one of the characters.

Every single character in this book (apart from Addie's parents) is shallow and self-absorbed, and I felt absolutely no chemistry between Addie and Dylan at any point. Early in the story, Addie tells Dylan not to make her out to be a manic pixie dream girl, but that's ultimately all either of them is to each other in the 'then', and it's ultimately was not enough for me to root for them in the 'now'. Take out the sense of spontaneity that comes with a summer in Provence, and Dylan's initial head over heels lust for Addie, and all that was left was a lot of bickering and frankly awful behaviour.

There are also no real consequences for anything, in this book. Dylan crashes a car in the first five pages, which is conveniently forgotten once it's served as the set up for the plot. Addie's sister Deb is a mother now (something The Road Trip makes a big deal of, mostly via lame jokes about men being uncomfortable with breastfeeding), but makes a whole series of irresponsible choices that no one ever really questions. And, worse of all, Dylan's best friend Marcus stalks Addie, manipulates her boyfriend and accuses her of cheating (when it turns out she's actually been sexually assaulted), but it's totally ok because he was in love with her, and he says sorry. Even though now!Marcus still sees fit to sexually objectify women and generally be a bit of an all-round immature idiot.

I really hope this was a blip in the road for O'Leary as she tried something new (her other protagonists have been slightly older and more self-aware), because I really did love her first two books, but I was more or less rage-reading this one by the end.

When Addie and her sister Deb travel to their friend's wedding in Scotland, they're excited for a girly road trip. But things all go askew, when they another car rear ends them, and their road trip is crashed by Marcus and Dylan - who happens to be Addie's ex. As feelings and tempers fly, Addie and Dylan start to figure out they may not be really over each other.

This book was well paced and had some enjoyable writing - including some witty, easy flowing dialogue and some comedic moments that genuinely had me laughing out loud. There are loads of elements in this book and in Beth O'Leary's writing in general that I do really like, and feel like I should love but I never seem to love her stories as much as others do and this one overall, was disappointing for me.

As nice as the writing was, the storyline of the road trip started to bore me quite quickly and I think a lot of this centred on Addie and Dylan as a couple, and the fact I just didn't really care about them and I actually I kind of wanted them to stay apart from each other rather than get back together. I appreciated the effort that Beth O'Leary put into this book to shine a light on toxic relationships - that occur in your family as well as with friends, and how easy it is to be trapped and almost blind to these kind of relationships and treatment until it's too late. There was also a fantastic chapter in this around consent involving an attempted sexual assault and I really like how the author phrased it that consent isn't something that just stops mattering at some point during sexual interaction, it moves along and can be taken away at any point and that has to be respected and listened to.

But back to Addie and Dylan, I just didn't like them. I liked Deb the best, and weirdly Rodney but I feel like Deb could have had so much to her, and I would have liked to know more about her mind worked other than her deciding to have a baby via sperm donor and hook up with random truck drivers. I also thought the breastfeeding lark with Deb was overdone - 100% understand a woman needs to breastfeed but when you're away from a baby for a whole weekend, surely you'd pump and dump instead of attempting to store breast milk in a hot car?

Dylan was so off-putting for me, and I thought he was honestly a waste of time when it came to Addie's time and energy. I appreciate there was some conversation near the end how he was suffering from depression and was taking meds and going to therapy but this felt very rushed and thrown in at the very end (literally a couple of sentences). It didn't change the fact that for the majority of the book Dylan had been this wet blanket who moped around on his father's money - a father whom he hated but was still happy taking handouts from. And Marcus was just the wooorsssst. I find it hard to believe anyone would put up with Marcus's behaviour - especially towards a significant other and he had the worst excuse, not that there would have been a good excuse.

So yeah, this story didn't so it for me but I still enjoy Beth's writing as a whole and I really like her sense of humour that often comes out in her books too.

Beth O'Leary does it again. After loving both The Flatshare and The Switch, obviously, I was very excited to pick up her newest offering The Road Trip. This book definitely had a very different tone from the previous ones but as with those, I devoured this in one sitting! I loved that the characters were the same age as me which is so rare for me to find in books - early twenties romances just don't seem to exist - although I didn't really find myself relating to any of the characters. I enjoyed the dual timeline and didn't really prefer one part to the other, I loved how the story progressed with each section. This is definitely not a lighthearted rom-com though so don't go into it expecting sunshine this is very much a novel about depression, co-dependency, and abuse in many different forms with a splattering of romance thrown in (and Rodney for some comic relief). These characters are flawed and I genuinely wanted to yell at them on numerous occasions but ultimately I very much enjoyed my time with this book!

Always enjoy Beth O’Leary’s writing as I find it so easy to read, this book is a picking apart of a relationship and it’s downfall after the hero and heroine crash into each other and have to endure a long road trip together, along with their friend and sister, heading to a mutual friends wedding.
It’s a back and forth kind of story jumping between the stress of the current road trip and glimpses of their past relationship. The story is brought to life a lot by the side characters and their antics. Whilst the close proximity aspect was the main setting for the story, it ran a little out of steam, meaning I didn’t love this one as much as The FlatShare.

First of all I need to say that I absolutely loved The Flatshare and The Switch and based on those books I think Beth O’Leary is a very talented writer.

Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy The Road Trip half as much as I was expecting to and I feel so disappointed. The whole story felt really heavy and negative - very unlike Beth’s other books. The ending managed to save the book a little and left me with a 3 star review but I live in hope that any future books are more similar to her first two books.

The Road Trip is sort of a romantic comedy. This is my first book by this author.

The story is told in a past/ present storyline. And there is both the male and female POV.

The female narrator is Addie (21 in the past and 23ish in the present - 1st person POV). The male narrator is Dylan (23 in the past - 1st person POV).

I loved the premise of this book. Addie and her sister Deb go on a road trip to get to their friend's wedding. However, so much of the story is set in the past. This seemed super odd to me if the title is The Road Trip.

I liked the idea of the road trip. But I wanted more. I actually enjoyed the parts in the past. It was interesting to see how everybody met. And I really liked Addie and Dylan's story. But there was just something missing for me. I wasn't as interested in the road trip as I wanted to be. And Dylan's friend Marcus was so annoying.

The last part of the book was definitely the strongest for me. And overall I did come away with a good feeling.

Happy publication day to The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary! The synopsis is widely available so I won’t share it here, but in brief it is the story of two exes making a road trip to a wedding.

There were things that I did enjoy about this book but ultimately it was a miss for me. I loved that there was forced proximity, duel POV and also a duel timeline. I thought that the past timeline started off strongly in France, when Addie and Dylan met. Then when summer was over and Addie was teaching/Dylan was travelling/doing nothing it went off the rails for me and I started getting bored. As for the road trip itself, that started off well too but ended up frustrating me a lot. I just kept thinking “why is this trip taking so long???” and felt like one or more of the ‘incidents’ could easily have been cut out and then the ending would have felt less rushed.

I found that I didn’t really like the characters either, although I didn’t mind Deb. Now I don’t need to like every character to enjoy a book, but I didn’t get why everyone was obsessed with Addie- she seemed ‘fine’ as a person for the most part but nothing remarkable, Dylan was whiny and weak, then Marcus was dreadful.

I think part of the reason I’m disappointed is because I loved her first two books and I was so excited to read this! It had the potential to be amazing and then it just wasn’t for me. Will I read this again? Very unlikely. Will I read further books by Beth O’Leary? Definitely!

So many people have shared rave reviews and if it’s something you fancy then I’d still urge you to read it! Beth’s usual writing style was still there and there were some great moments- just not enough for me personally.

Thanks to Quercus for my advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Having enjoyed both Flatshare and The Switch I just had to read Beth O'Leary's latest book. I did disappoint.

In what appears to be Beth's style, the story is told from alternating POVs from the two main characters. Unlike the previous 2 titles this book deals with the present and flashbacks to the past. We discover how Addie and Dylan met and how the fell apart.

I really like how Beth writes a solid romantic comedy but also manages to deal with serious issues like mental health and alcoholism. It's a fine balance and I think she gets it just right.

Loved Beth O`Leary`s first two book but this one fell flat with characters I just couldn`t gel with.
Addie and Dylan are exes and are going to a friends wedding in Scotland, what were the chances they both set out at the same time and crash into each other and the bigger can is unroadworthy so all 5 friends end up travelling together in a mini.

The story goes from present to numerous occasions in the past which got me confused on where I was.
It would have been better to just write it from the beginning to end instead of going backwards and forwards.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

As someone who loves road trips and Beth O'Leary, I was eager to read her newest novel. The idea of being stuck in a car with my ex for 400 miles... not so much.

I love the banter between the characters and the premise of the entire plot. I cannot imagine the stress of starting a road trip like this though... It's just a book you won't want to read while on a road trip!

Thanks for letting me read this and give my honest opinion.

The Road Trip follows a group of friends travelling to a wedding together cramped in a rather small car for the size of everyone in it. The main focus is on Addie and Dylan - a head over heels couple broken up over an unknown event in the past which we find out about at the end. It switches between them meeting and the current car journey so you really understand their journey and the development of their relationship.

The Road Trip was so easy to read! I loved all the characters and got completely swept up in their own individual stories. This book made me really laugh out loud in parts and kept me wanting to know what happened.

As soon as I did find out what happened with Addie and Dylan's relationship though I was so frustrated almost on the verge of angry but I can't say why because it would be a massive spoiler alert. I really would love to get it off my chest so if anyone has read it please message me so we can talk about the end! 🤣 really didn't enjoy it as much as The Flatshare! Will give it 3/5 stars .. I really wanted to love it!

If you want a nice enjoyable light read then definitely pick up a copy! Nice light summer read for a beach day... and then if you are equally frustrated with the ending you could throw it in the sea ... i'm joking ha ha! Can't wait to see what you all think i'm sure this will be all over social media!

I love a book that brings entertainment, drama but also an ease of reading. This is a book that does all of the above.

I really enjoyed that this was a different take on a traditional ‘road trip’ book, If I was to read the title alone, I wouldn’t have predicted this. But I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed reading it with another book blogger!

A recomended read! 🥰

Dylan used to go out with Addie, but they split up, we don’t really know why but somehow Marcus, Dylan’s friend was involved.

Marcus and Dylan have been invited to the wedding of the year and are on their way in a borrowed Mercedes.

Addie and Deb, her sister, are on their way to a wedding, they have set of extra early and intend to make it a Road Trip to remember, just the two of them….oh and someone called Rodney who bagged a ride with them.
What happens when the two cars collide and they all end up travelling together in Deb’s mini will keep you entertained the whole way to Rural Scotland.

The dialogue between the occupants of the car made me laugh out loud. There are also heartfelt discussions and many sombre moments because this is not just a sweet romantic novel, remember it is written by Beth O’Leary who always goes the extra mile when she is unfolding secrets and revealing truths!

The reason why Addie and Dylan split had me reaching for my tissues and just when I thought my heart would break, they arrived at the wedding and all hell is let loose!

Description

Addie and her sister are about to embark on an epic road trip to a friend’s wedding in rural 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 four-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?

My Thoughts

Beth O’Leary is a name on a lot of people’s lips (and TBR lists) so I was made up when my request to read her latest release, The Road Trip, was approved (especially considering it was one of my most anticipated books for 2021).

I quite enjoyed The Flatshare (rating it 4.5 stars back when I rated books!) and have yet to read The Switch (it’s on my Kindle waiting to be read, once I get through my never ending TBR) but I went into this one with caution: can an author whose two books have garnered so much attention and hype deliver a third that’s just as good (or better?).

At first, I wasn’t sure where to place this one. It looked – from the bright, fun cover (as is customary of O’Leary’s books, hence the fact they’re plastered all over Instagram) – like a fun, road-trip narrative that would do very little to quash my desire to get in a car and drive (or be driven, considering the thought of getting behind a wheel – and being responsible for myself and a car – gives me the creeps. Big time). Of course, looks can be deceiving and – as I delved deeper into this book – that proved to be the case.

The Road Trip doesn’t waste time getting started as – within seconds of the opening chapter – the reader witnesses the crash that not only leaves Addie with whiplash but with two extra passengers, one of which is her ex.

It’s such a bizarre set up, two sisters, two best friends and one random acquaintance but with humour, heart and seriousness O’Leary crafted a book I just couldn’t put down. I was laughing, eye-rolling and swooning throughout.

I’m sure I’ve said this before but I do love a second chance romance, as long as it’s done well, and O’Leary certainly does it well. A lot of people have read holiday romances but it’s very rare we see stories of how the romance works – or doesn’t – when everyone returns home. The start of Addie and Dylan’s romance is sun-soaked and steamy, even though Dylan’s Uncle Terry lurks in the wings. Weaving between past and present, O’Leary takes the reader from fling to thing and showcases every moment of the relationship. It’s sensitive and sweet and honest, which is very rare.

O’Leary also presents other relationships brilliantly. Though I do wish Deb was included more in the story, there’s no denying I loved the relationship between her and Addie. I’m very close to my own sister so I love seeing sibling relationships portrayed in books. I also really appreciated the relationship between Dylan and Marcus. Even though Marcus was a difficult character to mesh with, and Dylan was a bit pretentious at times, I think O’Leary does a brilliant job of conveying fiercely loyal friendships and how far we go to make sure the people we love are ok.

A bit like the trip the book depicts, the book itself was a little bit slow in pace. It took a while to get started, and – much like the car journey- required snacks and tunes (got to say, I loved the occasional Taylor Swift tune thrown in there). Of course, once it got going, I read it quickly.

I thought I’d love the relationship this book depicted but, in all honesty, I didn’t. Though there were sweet, tender moments and I can’t deny watching Dylan and Addie fall for each other in the past was a joy, I wasn’t fond of their relationship in the present and – whilst many people will be happy with the ending – I kind of wasn’t.

Regardless, there’s no denying that The Road Trip is a good read. It had wholesome, funny moments mixed with serious, emotional ones. It definitely made me excited for whatever O’Leary has planned next…

This is the first book by Beth O'Leary that I have read and after a bit of a slow start, I really enjoyed it. It took me a while to get in the Then & Now storylines but once that was sorted I raced through it as I wanted to know what had happened between Addie & Dylan, along with her sister and Dylan's best friend Marcus.

Marcus is a rum guy, he has his problems and therefore needs Dylan as his crutch. How does the relationship go between Addie & Dylan, how much influence does Marcus wield, where does her sister fit in?

I loved this book, it had joy, laughter, drama and thought provoking moments I give it 5 stars and will be reading more of Beth's books in the future.

Also if going on a long road trip with 5 passengers, get a bigger car than a mini!!

Enjoy the ride.