I was thrilled to receive this book to review! I loved #TheFlatshare and #TheSwitch and this did not disappoint.
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Dylan and Addie fell in love four years ago. Two years ago they broke up. Currently they are crammed in a small car with his best friend Marcus, her sister Deb and a wedding guest named Rodney. Dylan and Addie haven’t talked since they broke up and what better way to see each other after years not talking then a road trip, am I right?
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It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Dylan and Addie wreck cars at the start of the trip so they all load into the Mini Cooper, which isn’t at all awkward! What was supposed to be a trip blasting Dolly Parton with the windows down and planned snack stops becomes a trip no one envisioned.
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Five adults crammed in the car with physical luggage, emotional baggage awkward silence and the whirl of a breast pump is the perfect set up for the most uncomfortable carpool ever!
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Told in the before and now we learned how Dylan and Addie fell in love, how they unraveled and how they eventually found their way back to each other!
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This book is chock full of O’Leary’s signature humor but also real vulnerability. I really loved this one!
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Thank you #BerkleyPub and #NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.
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This book is available June 1st! Perfect for your summer road trips!

What if the end of the road is just the beginning?

The Road Trip by Beth O'Leary is a humorous, heartfelt journey both literally and figuratively. When we meet Deb, Addie, Dylan, and Marcus (oh, and Rodney) it is present-day and they are all trying to get to a wedding. It is immediately clear that there is a past between Addie and Dylan but the author takes us to the past to explain their back story.

While the group attempts to make their way across England to get to a friend's wedding, we keep jumping back in time to learn about Addie and Dylan's whirlwind romance and what brought about its demise.

The characters and funny and relatable. And I appreciated the different perspectives. The changing narrators and the change in time kept me turning pages until the whole story was out. I enjoyed the little twists and turns in the plot so the author was always just one step ahead of the reader.

I think this would make an excellent audiobook.

I liked The Flatshare, thoroughly enjoyed The Switch, and absolutely loved The Road Trip! O’Leary’s writing just keeps getting better and better!

I absolutely adore her writing- the characters are fun and quirky, the humor is strong, and the storylines are all so fun and relatable.

I especially enjoyed the back-and-forth timeline of The Road Trip, taking us through the early days of the main characters budding romance, and their untimely and unplanned road trip, a couple of years later.

This book had me laughing aloud often, smiling as I read, and satisfied by its sweet and impactful ending. The role and humor of the sub-characters, Deb make it a worthwhile read all by herself. I highly recommend this light-hearted read and look forward to this author’s next book!

Thank you to Berkley Publishing for my gifted copy.

Beth O'Leary delivers again with another solid read. This is the story of Addie and Dylan's relationship. The novel goes back and forth between the past and how they met and eventually broke up, to the present, where they're stuck together in a car for several hours on the way to a wedding. The story was very emotional but with a cast of hilarious secondary characters, O'Leary does a good job of making you laugh out loud between the heartbreak. I really enjoyed the depth of the characters and look forward to reading more by O'Leary.

Once again O'Leary's characters worm their way into your heart almost immediately. They are so real and their trials - and successes - feel like your own. I love her main characters and their supporting casts and am disappointed to think I won't get to see what happens for them next.

The Road Trip is a pretty well written book that I ended up not liking all that much. O’Leary has created an appealing plot line and some interesting characters. There is certainly a foundation for an enjoyable book. Unfortunately for me, the chemistry between Addie and Dylan was a mystery. What exactly did they see in each other that would solidify a serious relationship? The attendant friends and family members added depth and humor— the strength of an otherwise too long and hard to care about story. I will read Beth O’Leary’s next novel because I really liked The Flatshare; wish I could say the same for The Road Trip.

This book isn't charming, or cute, or likely to give warm fuzzies. I also disliked every character in this book. I really didn't connect with this title at all. I didn't find much to really like in it.

Beth O'Leary has become one of my reliably favorite authors. The Road Trip was a little less on the sweet side than her earlier books but she always has an interesting plot, believable characters, and an honest resolution. I could feel the tension, heat & stickiness of that never ending road trip right along with the characters!

I really enjoyed THE FLATSHARE by O'Leary, so I was pretty excited that this book was available to review. I like the author's writing style and her technique of telling her stories from two different perspectives. In this book, she also added on the extra layer of "then" and "now" sections. The hook for the book made me want to read it even more: Two exes on the way to a mutual friend's wedding find themselves having to ride-share and cram into a Mini with their travel companions (5 adults total in a little car) when one of them accidentally rear-ends the other.

HOWEVER, I don't think I am the right audience for this particular book. It is more new adult and coming-of-age than chicklit light romance in my opinion, probably geared to readers younger than me (in their 20s?). The main problem for me was that I didn't like the characters and the more that I read of the "then" sections, the more I disliked them and the more I was NOT rooting for the exes to get back together. The whole group of folks came off as overly-privileged partiers with unhealthy and toxic habits and relationships. The main love interests pretty much instantly fell in lust-love and didn't have any real solid foundation or healthy growth. I'm not really sure I would have read the whole book if I weren't reviewing it. There are also some really serious issues in the book that make it less fluffy and uplifting than I would have liked.

To be fair, the short chapters help move things along; and it's an easy read. There was also a particular plot line that presented itself later that got me wanting to turn the page. (But then I was plunged back into a loooong "then" section that pretty much took away that desire, sigh.)

Overall, not my cup of tea, but I am still interested in trying out the author's other published book that I haven't read yet (THE SWITCH), and I'll probably look out for future works by her.

the story didn’t really call to me all that much. i’m not sure why... might have been the characters who could be very off putting at times.

their actions and decisions were almost irredeemable sometimes...

the writing isn’t the issue, and neither is the plot...i just think it’s mainly the characters.

however, there were plenty of moments that i thought were lovely and cute and funny.

What a roller coaster!

Honestly, part of me really did not like the storyline but it was so cleverly written that it was hard to not like it. The characters felt really real and so did the entire story. I thought the way it was told, slowly unveiling what led up to the current lives of Addie and Dylan, was masterful. That being said, I may be one of the few that was not rooting for Addie and Dylan to get back together. However much they may have grown in the nearly 2 years they had been apart, that was one hell of a weird codependent situation.

Another ARC by another author that I am coming to love! The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary is her third book, but the second one that I’ve read (The Flatshare brought me much joy). I did really enjoy this book (read it verrrry quickly which is always a good sign), but there were parts that fell flat for me. The back and forth of each chapter between past and present as well as the view points from both Addie and Dylan I think is what made the book so easy to read. It didn’t drag on at all because of these varying components. I also am slightly obsessed with Addie’s sister Deb - she’s who I want to be when I grow up. That being said without spoiling anything, I did find it to be somewhat predictable at times. I had a hunch about what was going to happen with one of the storylines, and was kind of disappointed when I was right. I was secretly hoping for an unexpected twist, but that twist never came. That being said, I still need to read O’Leary’s 2nd book The Switch, and I definitely still will. There were more things I liked about this book than I didn’t like so it’s a win for me!

I really enjoyed the storytelling style of this book that bounced from past to present. The characters were excellent and the complexity of their relationships was excellent and what I've come to expect from O'Leary's writing. I loved this book and highly recommend it!

I love Beth O'Leary. The Flatshare and The Switch are two books I can't stop recommending to readers. I was excited and delighted to get this one to read.
I will say, this one took me a bit to get into it. At first, it didn't seem to have that same feel as O'Leary's other books. I can't say that I really LIKED any of the characters at first. And then, it changed.

Addie and Dylan had a whirlwind relationship that ended in devastation for both of them. Now, forced together on a long road trip on their way to a friends wedding...Addie and Dylan are confronting some of their feelings and the untold truths of their breakup. Unfortunately, Dylan's bff Marcus is also in the car and Addie just can't stomach him for what he did.

As with all of O'Leary's works, there is more to this one than meets the eye and as readers progress truths are told and feelings surface.

I think the title on this one doesn't do the story justice, it almost lessens the story being told. To me, The Journey would have worked better (and still fit with O'Leary's other titles) and given the whole of this one more depth. That said, still a great read that I will definitely be recommending.

Unfortunately I’ll be unable to leave a review for this book. While I was enjoying the authors writing style and characters I didn’t realize going in that the book jumped from present to past storylines. This unfortunately is not something I enjoy, nor can I stay engaged in the story when this happens through the entirety of the book.

What a cute, sweet, fun, funny story about a road trip. Friends, lovers, ex's and even a stranger take off on a road trip to a wedding and second chance romance blooms and heartbreak happens. It was emotional, sometimes funny and it dealt with other issues that are hard to talk about. At times I rolled my eyes as I thought some things were far fetched and at other times I could hear myself saying, "been there, done that". Overall, it was an enjoyable read and I look forward to reading other books by this author.

This is not what I expected. It was even more. The Road Trip by Beth O'Leary is the first book I've read from this author and now a fan. This book is the ultimate 'road trip' book - it's a fun, humorous with an unexpecting twist to it! What I enjoyed is the present and past story about Dylan and Addie's relationship - the way the author wrote their story, really worked and made you feel how they fell in love since day one and ended up breaking up.

Road trip to forgiveness. A group of five are stuck together on a long road trip to a wedding. One stranger, two sisters, two lovers and two life long friends. The path to forgiveness and the wedding is repeated blocked and redirected. The story repeatedly take the audience back in time for contextual references. Made me realize that not every situation is black and white and sometimes forgiveness needs to happen from all parties involved.

The characters have matured significantly from "then' to 'now', which gives this second chance romance more depth than many of those relationships in novels just built on confusion in the past. In the 'then' the characters were kind of hard to like. As they mature, they become people you'd like to be around (except Marcus). The drive in a Mini Cooper with 5 people provides a lot of humor which helps when times are a bit darker in the past. I don't think I liked it as much as O'Leary's previous books, but this is still pretty good.

I really enjoyed this novel and the cast of characters. The only thing that rubbed me the wrong way was the obsession with the main character Addie being small - as a woman who has struggled with body image this focus seemed a little triggering.