I really enjoyed previous O'Leary books, but this one didn't hit the mark for me. I'm starting to sour on books where the whole time you are thinking one thing happened only to learn that wasn't it at all. The characters in this book were hold grudges about things that happened a few years ago when they find themselves riding together to a friend's wedding. We learn about their past in flashback, but listening to the book as an audio can make the story come across choppy or confusing as each chapter doesn't say now or then. This is a perfect beach read or road trip listen.

Loved it! Getting to know each and every character, and how their stories come together. Beth O'Leary never disappoints.

Addie and Dylan haven’t seen each other since their explosive breakup two years prior, so when on their way to a wedding the cars they are driving collide they are unexpectedly thrown together and begin to reevaluate what happened in their relationship.

I absolutely loved The Flat Share and The Switch by O’Leary, unfortunately this one did not live up to the hype for me. I didn’t hate it, but it didn’t give me the same feeling as her other two. I enjoyed the first bit when everyone had to squeeze together in one car. Also I liked how the timelines moved from past to present, slowly unfolding how Addie and Dylan’s relationship started and how it ended. I didn’t like Marcus, I don’t think we are supposed to, but that part of the story featured too much for me.

Beth O'Leary has done it again! The fun blend of women's fiction with romance produces a highly satisfying read. I though the dynamic between Dylan and Addie was a lot of fun, getting to read about their romance when it first flourished and the will they won't they tension along the road trip was perfection. The only aspect of this book was that I would have loved a bit more of a twist to the triangle that was revealed, but beyond that I encourage everyone to read this latest work from O'Leary!

Enjoyable story but a little confusing because of change in character perspectives as well as changes in time. Disliked some of the side characters.

After two weeks, I gave up on "The Road Trip" a third of the way in. As always, Beth O'Leary's writing feels so readable, but I just wasn't able to connect to the characters in this one, Dylan especially was out of reach for me: rich young poet enjoying a summer fling at a French villa?

"The Road Trip" is a second chance, dual POV, new adult romance with written with an alternating timeline.

I would absolutely recommend picking up Beth O'Leary's "The Flatshare," instead.

Thank you to the publisher & NetGalley for provided an eARC for review.

Beth O’Leary has written two of my favorite romances — The Flatshare and The Switch! Both delightful stories that are written exceptionally well. Unfortunately, The Road Trip missed the mark for me 😭⁣
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The premise of the story is that five people go on a road trip to a mutual friend’s wedding — Addie and Dylan happen to be exes that are finally reunited after they haven’t talked since their breakup.⁣
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The story flip flops back and forth between past and present so we’re given insight into Addie and Dylan’s relationship, but I found Dylan to be rather whiny and uncommunicative & couldn’t forgive him for that for the rest of the book LOL.⁣
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It wasn’t all bad though! I thought their relationship was quite toxic from the start, but as the story progresses, it shows how two people can mature, get help, and own up to their mistakes.

Another great book from Beth O'Leary! I think this one might actually be my favorite novel of hers so far. The road trip scenario was so fun (and it made for a fantastic romance). I can't wait for her next book!

I started this book in April. I’m normally a very quick reader, but this book was way too strange for me! I may have DNF’d many times, but I finished it up for a buddy read discussion. Very few people in my group liked the book either. The past timeline told of the insta-love story of Dylan and Addie four years ago. The current timeline told of a road trip full of random disasters. A few of them were funny. Some were just random. The one thing I wanted to find out was what happened in the past to break up Dylan and Addie and this was eventually revealed. Dylan’s friend Marcus plays a part in both story lines and he is a strange character indeed. There are many content warnings for this book including alcoholism and assault.

If you loved The Switch you have to no look further for your next cozy yet complex read.

This book was so sweet and comforting and gave me an escape while providing complex characters.

I wanted to like it, but it was a miss for me.

Without giving away any plot points I just didn’t believe the connection between the two main characters. There were many storylines that felt unfinished as well.

Bummer, but I hope you like it!

TYSM to NetGalley for my copy of this book.

This was my first Beth O'Leary book, but it certainly will not be my last. In a lot of ways, this felt like two separate stories as we dove back and forth between the "then" and "now." It was clear the characters had grown, the relationships had changed, and the adventures were different. In the end, everything ties together quite nicely and there's a lot of shifts and revelations that I personally hadn't been expecting. This isn't just a story about second-chance-romance, it's a story that dives so much deeper.

Once again, Beth O'Leary has crafted a book that I would love to see become a movie. She is quickly becoming my favorite author of romcoms and a sure thing to get me out of a reading slump. O'Leary writes her characters so vividly that I feel like I know them and her settings are beautiful. I loved this book!

I adored the first two by this author but this was SUCH A DISAPPOINTMENT. I DNF-ed 55% in and could not care less about either main character, their background, or current story line.

Beth O'Leary is one of my favorite rom-com authors. To me, she has the perfect mix of cozy, fun characters, and not too sweet love stories. I loved The Road Trip for its sweet cast of characters and the alternating timelines.

However, this wasn't my absolute favorite O'Leary novel. Because the main characters were young (just out of college), I found their love story to be tedious. Of course, it seems like first love, but as someone who's a bit older now, I found myself getting bored with the drama of their relationship. This one bordered on young adult for me. It was a good story but I wanted more depth from the relationship to feel invested.

I listened to The Switch by this author and absolutely loved it. This author has such a witty, clever way of writing. I love the dialogue in her stories, and this was another good story from her. My only complaint was this road trip got a little long for me.
I enjoyed the now and then, reading about how they met, unfolding the layers of what brought them to the emotions inside the crowded vehicle for the (looong!) road trip.
I own The Flatshare and look forward to reading it as I've read many great reviews for that book.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me a copy of this book.

This was my first time reading anything by O’Leary and it was such a joy! I was hooked right from the beginning and couldn’t put this one down!

Having back and forth moments between the characters and figuring out what happened in their past to bring them to the present was so rich!

I thought the author did a wonderful job at tackling some very heavy issues and topics in this story and applaud their sensitivity around the topics. I’ll absolutely be auto-buying this author and cannot wait to read her other two books!

I have recommended Beth O'Leary's The Flatshare to many patrons as a charming, different, quirky, and funny romance and was hoping for something like that with The Road Trip. Unfortunately this was not the case. I feel like there were too many interesting characters and not enough time could be devoted to each one resulting in less than developed arcs. Seriously, say what you will about tragic, toxic Marcus but he needs the depth of character development from his own book. Add in two timeframes and you've got too much happening in one story.

Book is fun and entertaining, but just not what this author is capable of and it left me disappointed.

The Road Trip was a very brilliant idea to write a novel on: two broken lovers, forced to ride in the car together and eventually fall back in love when they've reached their destination. I am not sure this book was for me however. I found the likelihood of all events, the random car wreck on the way to the same wedding, the stalker, Marcus, the bit at the end where she tells his dad off, all a bit too much of a stretch to completely fall into. I did love the characters personalities though! Thank you very much for the opportunity to read this novel!

REVIEW PART I

Note to readers: While spoilers are hidden in this review, there are big ones under the cuts so click on the view option at your own risk. -Janine

Jennie: Be forewarned, readers – Janine and I had *a lot* to say about this book. This was a very long review discussion that has been split into two pretty long review discussions.

Janine and I reviewed this author’s second book, The Switch, together last year, after both reading and loving her debut, The Flatshare (which Janine turned me on to). The Switch was not quite the winner for me that The Flatshare was, and it was, I think it’s fair to say, a genuine disappointment for Janine. Still, I went into The Road Trip with high hopes.

I’m just going to say upfront that I had some conflicts within myself about this book. I’ve said before: I tend to grade by the heart rather than the head. So if a book moves me, involves me, compels me, it’s going to get a better grade. That’s true with The Road Trip, but I don’t think I often have my head yelling quite so loudly, “BUT….!”

The story is told alternately in present day and in flashbacks, and alternately by the protagonists, Addie and Dylan. In the present day, Addie and her sister Deb are driving to Scotland to their friend Cherry’s wedding. They have a passenger, Rodney, a co-worker of Cherry’s who asked for a lift on the wedding’s Facebook page.

The group hasn’t gotten very far when they’re rear-ended by a car that happens to be driven by Addie’s ex, Dylan. Dylan is headed to the wedding with his best friend Marcus, but now his car is too damaged to drive. Somehow, despite the extreme awkwardness of circumstances, Dylan and Marcus end up in the car (a tight fit!) with Addie, Deb and Rodney.

Janine: They are a motley crew. Addie, a schoolteacher who’s twenty-five, has regained equilibrium and attained a measure of self-confidence in the twenty months that followed a devastating breakup with Dylan. Dylan, a twenty-six-year-old English lit graduate student/aspiring poet from a posh background, is still pining for her. Deb, Addie’s biracial half-sister (all the other characters except Cherry’s fiancé, Krishna, who has an Indian background, are white as far as I can tell), is a new, intentionally single mother who gives zero fucks for anyone’s opinion and can’t stand Marcus. Marcus, Dylan’s privileged, sarcastic asshole best friend since childhood, picks on Rodney, who is awkward, clueless, and has no friends.

Their quirks and patterns of behavior–Deb stops to expel breast milk for her baby at home and is open to picking up strangers on the way, Rodney offers everyone flapjacks he brought with him in Tupperware, Marcus balks at Addie’s country music–create friction and hilarious situations. That was probably my favorite aspect of the book.

Jennie: The story then goes back four years to the beginning of Addie and Dylan’s romance. They meet in Provence during a magical summer; Addie (then twenty-one) and Deb are working as caretakers for the summer at Cherry’s family’s villa (Cherry was Addie’s college roommate and is middle-class Addie’s entrée into an unfamiliar, wealthy world).

Deb, adventurous and confident, goes off to meet up with a fling for a few days (with Addie’s blessing), and the expected guests – friends of Cherry’s family – don’t show up. Or, rather, at first, only one family member shows up – Dylan.

The attraction between the two is immediate and intense. Dylan forgets about the girl he’s been chasing around Europe, Grace, and Addie leans into the “summer Addie” persona she’s cultivating – someone more poised and seductive than she imagines herself to be. The two would consummate their attraction immediately but for the untimely arrival of Dylan’s boorish Uncle Terry; his presence restrains them for a couple of days. But eventually they do fall into bed, and quickly into young love.

Their idyll is interrupted by a gaggle of Dylan’s friends – first Marcus, and later Grace, Cherry, and some other girls from Dylan’s recent university days. Addie, panicked among so many posh strangers, summons Deb back.

By the time Dylan and Addie part a few weeks later – he’s continuing a sort of grand tour with Marcus – the two have said their “I love yous” and made plans to reunite back in England. But the seeds of what are to become bigger problems are already evident.

Most of the issues are Dylan’s. Addie is a little unsure of herself; a little worried that Dylan will lose interest if she doesn’t maintain her “fun Addie” persona. Back at home, she starts her career as a teacher, lives with her family and misses Dylan (who takes a long time to return home; he’s avoiding having to decide what to do with his life).

Janine: Addie wasn’t wholly consistent and understandable but she was much more so than Dylan and Marcus. And of all the characters in the book, she was the most likeable in the common meaning of the word. She was easy to sympathize with and her insecurities only got more relatable. An “everywoman” figure.

Jennie: Absolutely – Addie felt real to me even though she doesn’t have either the eccentricities or emotional/mental health issues that the rest of the characters manifest.

Dylan is considerably more troubled. He comes from a family with money, though there are hints that they were once aristocracy-rich and lost a lot of it, so now his father is very business oriented and insistent that Dylan – who wants to be a poet – go into business with him. Dylan’s relationship with his father is tense; his father is ultra-critical and dismissive of Dylan.

Janine: Incidentally, I felt that Dylan’s father was a cliché. He was very much the haughty/cold/disapproving rich/upper-class father.

Jennie: He is not a very complex character, I agree. But I felt that the way he’d raised Dylan created some believable insecurities in his son.

Dylan’s mother is more loving but cowed by his father. Circumstances are not helped by the fact that Dylan is dependent on the allowance he still receives, even though he’s 22.

Spoiler: Show

But Dylan’s biggest problem, and in a sense the book’s biggest problem, is Marcus. Dylan’s best friend since early school days, Marcus is allegedly charismatic and allegedly can be a good guy. But what Marcus mostly is: alcoholic, chaotic, self-indulgent, erratic and very nasty, especially to Addie.

Marcus’ friends, chief among them Dylan, cater to his moods in the way you might a terrifyingly powerful baby in a horror story. “Oh, Marcus acts like that when he’s bored.” “You can’t let Marcus get hungry or bad things will happen!” It’s puzzling and frustrating to Addie, and I felt the same as a reader.

Janine: The depiction of this dysfunctional three-way was by far the worst thing about the book, and since it’s what the book is in essence about, that’s a huge problem. Part of the issue is that nobody’s motivation here makes sense, and another is that it made me despise Dylan. I’m about to let forth an epic rant, so just jump in wherever you feel like.

I don’t understand why Addie can’t get over Dylan for twenty months or why she takes him back. Why??? For the bulk of the time they are together, he treats her like crap.

Spoiler: Show

I think the behaviors I mentioned should have been red flags to Addie, which means her motive for not recovering from her heartbreak and moving on in close to two years is almost as weak as Dylan’s for his actions. She should be counting herself lucky to have seen the light and bailed.

Jennie: She seemed to have a lot of guilt over her (in my mind, relatively minor) part in their breakup.

Janine: Guilt and yearning are very different emotions.

Spoiler: Show

Janine: Marcus, though an antagonist for most of the book, is–at least in the flashbacks of the first half–a far more vibrant and engaging character than Dylan. He makes choices and takes actions to change his situation whereas Dylan is passive. He cracks a lot of jokes. Sarcastic, biting ones, but at least he has a sense of humor, something Dylan could have used a hefty dose of.

In fact, Marcus drives the plot more than anybody else. So much attention is paid to him by the novel that it is possible to make a good argument that he’s the book’s central character. This term doesn’t always mean protagonist—I mean that if this were a movie, then I can’t decide which role would be at the top of the credits.

The Marcus of the flashbacks in the book’s first half was interesting enough that I’d have much preferred to read an edgy menage novel with early Marcus, future Dylan, and Addie a couple more years down the road, or a twisty thriller that also included the chic, ironic Grace.

Jennie: I think, honestly, that this weird triangular relationship, as dysfunctional as it was, felt new and different in a way kept me very engaged. Marcus is a villain, but he’s an interesting one.

Janine: Agreed. But isn’t it a problem when the villain is more engaging than the hero?

Jennie: It is.

On the positive side, I really love the structure of alternating flashbacks with present-day events in a romance (I feel like some readers don’t?). I find it allows me to have my cake and eat it too. I’m not just turning the pages getting through drama and conflict for the good part of a relationship – I get to have all of the elements mixed up in a satisfying way. In this story events in both timelines converge as we learn what tore Addie and Dylan apart the first time, and the tension between the characters comes to a head in the present.

Janine: I like this structure too and it’s the right choice for the book. Goodness knows I could not have put up with the middle of the book had this story been told linearly.

Jennie: Absolutely agree.

In the present timeline, events conspire to cause the road trip to stretch hours and hours beyond its intended length. There’s a breakdown, unexpected traffic, a trip to the emergency room – everything that can go wrong does. Meanwhile, Addie and Dylan are circling each other, still feeling the pull of attraction but also caught up in their feelings about the way and the reasons they parted. And Marcus is there, allegedly “better” and working on himself, but still acting like a total ass to Addie and everyone else.

Janine: The present timeline was stronger than the one set in the past. O’Leary has a stronger command of her material when she’s writing gentle or lighter material than when she’s attempting strum und drang.

Jennie: In my “heart”: I really like the author’s prose style and humor, and I liked Addie and Dylan (the latter with some reservations). I was rooting for them and anxious to get a fuller picture of what devastating event caused Dylan to walk out on Addie.

Janine: When she’s not writing cheesy poetry, O’Leary’s prose style is very good. The descriptions of Provence were gorgeous and she crafted an evocative atmosphere for the villa. I too love her humor (Deb especially cracked me up); it can go from wry to snarky to satirical. Like you, I started out rooting for Addie and Dylan and turning pages fast. But by the end I was so disgusted by their “love” that the last chapter or two dragged more for than four hours at the DMV.

Jennie: In my “head”: there are a lot of issues. The story gets darker and darker towards the end, as both Marcus’ and Dylan’s self-destructive tendencies come to the fore, and Addie endures a traumatic event that came out of left field for me.

Spoiler: Show

The darkness made the book feel unbalanced to me – what was the story of a young, somewhat immature couple who had a big blowup and are now forced to confront their feelings after a year and a half apart, all in the confines of a small car and the stress of the road trip from hell, becomes something else.

Janine: Yeah. The humor and angst are poorly balanced. The present-day trip to the wedding plays out like a movie comedy, while the flashbacks quickly turn angsty and even grim. The two storylines are so markedly different in tone that they don’t mesh. Some amount of contrast is good and necessary in a dual timeline story, but given that these were still the same three people who had spiraled into such a dysfunctional dynamic together it doesn’t work well here. The jumps back and forth from the comedic present to the grim past gave me whiplash once I reached the darker parts.

PART II to come Wednesday…

REVIEW PART II

Note to readers: While spoilers are hidden in this review, there are big ones under the cuts so click on the view option at your own risk. -Janine

Jennie: Part I of the review can be found here.

Back to the discussion! There was also such a lack of balance in terms of each character’s issues. I think I’m more forgiving of that sort of thing in a historical romance – I can view one character “saving” the other with more detachment there. In contemporary romances I tend to have more of a “girl, run” attitude, because it feels more real; you can bet that in real life I would not think that Addie should get involved with Dylan again.

Janine: “Girl, run” sums up this book for me. And I don’t think that their relationship patterns would work even in a historical, at least not if Dylan was as passive and spineless as he is here.

Jennie: Maybe not. I know I’ve read and liked (back in the day, to be fair – not recently) historical romances where the hero behaved much worse than Dylan did.

That said, I guess what it comes down to is that I started to doubt whether I really wanted a HEA for these two. Which isn’t great, in a romance.

Janine: Given the starring role Marcus plays in the story, I’m not sure if this is meant to be a romance or women’s fiction. Either way, though, the book is about Addie and Dylan’s relationship and we are supposed to wholeheartedly root for their romance to work out. This what the book is primarily about. The fact that neither of us did root for that at the end of the book is a huge fail.

Jennie: You’re not wrong. I would say my feeling at the end was more like, well, they still have a lot of work to do. I just never blamed Dylan as much for his failings – maybe because he (and Addie) seemed so young to me. Being young isn’t an excuse for being horrible, but I judge young characters a lot less harshly because I feel like they still have time to get their shit together.

Janine: You’re right that many of us make huge mistakes as young people. But I was in a similar dynamic when I was nineteen and the others not much older, and here are my thoughts from personal experience.

Spoiler: Show


Jennie: I definitely get how personal experience can play into how you feel about unhealthy relationship dynamics. In the case of Dylan and Addie, I can’t really relate on a personal experience level, and I can’t relate because that – that youth and all that went with it, including bad decisions and messed up thinking – was a whole other era of my life. It allows me to be a lot more detached and thus, I think, forgiving of things that you’re right, are not necessarily forgivable. (Or at least things that should make the possibility of reconciliation a non-starter.)
There was a relatively short timeline between the two meeting and the present day – about four years, almost half of which they’ve been split up for. I don’t generally like reunited lovers stories with long separations (say, 10+ years) because all that wasted time often feels bittersweet to me. But in The Road Trip, they are both still so young at the end of the story, and Dylan particularly is still not, seemingly, where he really needs to be in order to be in a healthy relationship.

Janine: Yes. Another timeline problem is that the “Then” part of the storyline stretches out for two years while the “Now” sections add up to two days. It’s impossible to give two days of improved behavior the same weight as two years of fucking up.

Jennie: Another good point.

There was an entirely unsurprising twist late in the book that I didn’t care for.

Spoiler: Show


Janine: We haven’t talked about Deb, Rodney, Cherry, and Grace at all. What did you think of them? Deb might have been my favorite character in the book. Such a straight shooter and so funny. She suffers no fools and makes her choices without caring what anyone else thinks. Her self-sufficiency and confidence make her a foil (deliberate contrast) to Addie and Dylan and to some extent even to Marcus (hers is a healthier way of taking charge of situations and wielding force of personality) but I never felt that she was only that.
Jennie: I loved Deb but felt slightly uncomfortable about the only biracial character being depicted as sexually free and unconcerned with what others think. I think it was because she was such a contrast to Addie, and since they were raised together it pointed towards nature rather than nurture. I’m probably being overly sensitive about that, though.

Janine: No, I agree. It was discomfiting to me because she is the only character of color of any significance and because of the slut-shaming stereotypes that women and girls of color are tagged with.

Rodney—I’m not sure what to say about him. He is a lackluster character but he is intended to be. He’s also the punchline for a lot of the jokes. I won’t spoil the late developments but I started out feeling vaguely sorry for him. He was a bit pitiful.

Jennie: I felt sort of protective of Rodney early on – his awkwardness and the way the others treated him were simultaneously funny and a bit disturbing to me. The later developments were…not a great choice by the author, I felt.

Janine: Agreed.

For two-thirds of the book Cherry wasn’t given a personality so I spent a long while thinking she was a convenient device. I was even confused about who she was and how Addie, Dylan, and Marcus knew her. It’s a shame because once I got to know her, I really liked her.

Jennie: I liked Grace and Cherry a lot but felt that both had a whiff of “rich manic pixie dreamgirl” – not that they were identical but they both felt a little unreal (even though I liked them, if that makes sense).

Janine: I adored Grace. She is a minor character, glamorous, ironic, slightly jaded, and O’Leary took some unexpected and gorgeous turns with her. I would read an entire book about her, or someone like her, but not one based on her hinted at her future.

Spoiler: Show


Jennie: There really was (believe it or not!) a lot that I liked about The Road Trip
I liked the way that Addie and Dylan’s class differences were handled.

Spoiler: Show


Janine: The trope of the wealthy/aristocratic man who captures the less well-off heroine, which runs through a kazillion books, was, I thought, part of the subtext for why Dylan might be a find for Addie. I wanted to see qualities that made him genuinely worthwhile instead. By this I also mean more than cute looks and quotes of Edmund Spenser. And bad poetry. Those are all trappings, and I wanted the man himself to have character and integrity so I could view him as worthwhile for her.
Jennie: Honestly, Dylan’s fondness for The Fairie Queene was one of his least attractive qualities, IMO. I HATE The Fairie Queene.

That said, I felt that Dylan and Addie had chemistry as a couple and could believe they were in love.

Janine: They did, especially when they first met. The dynamic that subsequently developed tainted it for me.

Jennie: Again, I really do love O’Leary’s writing and humor, as when Dylan muses:

I have a feeling that if this journey had been any longer, it would have become progressively more Lord of the Flies, and Marcus probably would have eaten somebody.

So my grade is going to be an unsatisfying mishmash: heart A-, head C-; averaging out to a B-.

Janine: I completely agree on the turns of phrase and the humor. They’re two of O’Leary’s strong suits without a doubt.

But her trajectory as an author has not been great, I feel. She seems to be losing mastery over her considerable skills. I gave The Flatshare an A-, The Switch a C, and frankly, I feel I am being generous in giving The Road Trip a D.