I enjoyed reading The Group Trip by Audrey Ingram. You will fall in love with all the characters. I received an ARC of this book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and given freely. Happy Reading!

I recently read this book thanks to Netgalley and Alcove Press. It's a story with multiple timelines about a group of college friends and the various trips they take together. The story jumps back and forth, focusing on Chloe, who breaks up with her seemingly perfect boyfriend Luke at the beginning. This threatens the dynamic of their friendship group consisting of Chloe, Luke, new mom Marianne, Wyatt, and the married couple Sloane and Alden.

What I loved about this book is the authentic portrayal of friendships and the impact relationships can have. It resonated with my own college experiences and felt like a nostalgic peek into the past. I connected with Chloe's fears of abandonment and self-worth, having been in her shoes. The characters were all hiding something from each other, but most secrets stemmed from genuine love for each other. Going back in time and understanding why Chloe would reject the 'love of her life', and the introspection on how one can lose themselves in a relationship, was insightful and well done.

While the ending is overall cheerful and perhaps a bit too sunny, it makes for a great summer read.

This was cute - I read it at the airport and on the plane and honestly it was a delightful plane book.

It;s the story of a group of college friends and their journey through the years - particularly the romances that bloomed and ended and how they defined the group.

I had a pretty idea of where this was going from the jump, but still enjoyable!

Thanks to NetGalley and Alcove for the ARC

The Group Trip by Audrey Ingram was such a captivating story!
The relationships that were formed and written in this book was utterly amazing.
This story, the heart of it is a beautiful journey!
This is a fabulous book, it will center you and remind you of what is most important once you strip everything back ……. Love, family and laughter.

Thank You NetGalley and Alcove Press for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

I absolutely adored this book. I knew it was going to be a five star read before I even finished which is always exciting. It delves into the deep, relatable challenges that friend groups face as they journey through adulthood. Each character and their individual story captivated me completely.

The narrative alternated between the characters' college years and their late 20's, a storytelling technique that I always appreciate, especially when the plot is as compelling as this one - I didn't want to put it down.

By the time I finished, I felt like I was part of the group, or at least I had grown to love these characters as if they were my own friends. If only all college friendships endured as theirs did.

This novel is a reflection on the highs and lows of life and the impact it has on close friendships. It's like Happy Place, by Emily Henry, but in my opinion, even better.

4 ⭐️ wow did I truly love reading this book! I loved the premise of a strong friend group who navigates becoming adults together! I really liked the dual timeline and getting to see how all the friendships progressed and relationships progressed along the way. It definitely felt more to me than just in normal romance. I will say the one thing that really kept it from being a five star was I felt like there were some plot points that needed to be developed more. I wanted more from the relationship of Wyatt and Chloe, rather than going from 0 to 100 on Chloe’s side. I also really didn’t want Luke to have a happy ending. Like he did not deserve a happy ending. But overall, it was a fun read, and something I would definitely recommend to others!

This was an advanced read copy I received through Netgalley so it’s not going to be officially published until August 13, 2024! But this is my honest review!

Add this book to your to read list, I promise you won’t regret it! & then let me know what you thought!

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I was captivated with this book from the very beginning. Ingram weaves in the background of each character in the friend group while building sympathy for Chloe, who recently rejected her longtime boyfriend Luke's proposal. When the six reunite for a vacation at one of the other couple's homes, tensions are high. Readers quickly realized there is a new budding romance and it is easy to root for this one, too. Add this to your to-read list for the dog days of summer!

Friends since freshman year of college, Chloe, Luke, Wyatt, Marianne, Sloan, and Alden have been through all the ups and downs post college together. Once a year they get together for a group trip until Chloe says no to Luke’s marriage proposal and fractures the group. Secrets are kept, struggles are had, paths diverge, but now it is time to clear the air.

This is reminiscent of “Happy Place” or “The Celebrants” with a tight knit group of friends who have reunited. Told through a dual timelines: a current and a forward moving past timeline, history slowly reveals itself to keep the book moving forward. Between this writing convention and guessing the ending pretty early in the book, the pacing felt a little slow, but definitely kept me reading well into the night. The characters were well developed and most showed growth throughout the book. I did get a strong millennial vibe from this book from the characters, which was odd nuance that helped me understand the book a little better. Overall a great, easy to read book for fans of found family, FRIENDS, or ensemble cast books.

Audrey Ingram's THE GROUP TRIP gripped me from the start with a powerful sense of place, glorious language, phrases I will never forget -- never mind the characters, so well drawn and fluid in time and in relationship with one another. I truly felt an honored guest on this transformational trip for a group of old friends with memories and motives and agendas roiling beneath every conversation, twist and turn of this well-plotted story. I received a copy of this book and these thoughts are my own, unbiased opinions.

Rounding up from 4.5 stars

The cover of this book makes it look like a light, beach read. However, this contemporary romance novel also has quite a bit of drama and a dash of comedy. I actually cried a few times.

The Group Trip follows 6 friends through college up to the present day. The chapters go back and forth between past and present detailing the ups and downs that each member of the group experiences over the years and their relationships with each other as they evolve and change. As the friends grow and move on with their lives they struggle to keep the same dynamic they had in college and not grow apart while keeping secrets from one another.

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Absolutely loved this book. What a cute little summer read. Loved the characters and relationships that were written here and just really don’t have anything bad to say.

About a third of the way through this book, I realized I am definitely not the target audience. Self-absorbed twenty-somethings fixated on their narcissistic needs just does not resonate with me. I just didn't relate to Chloe, Luke and the lesser characters.

I try to be an objective critic, and I truly thank NetGalley and Alcove Press for the ARC and the opportunity to review this book. I’m sure it will appeal to a younger audience.

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for early access to this title in exchange for my review. This book was a story of long-time friendship. A group of friends have continued their friendship since college and continue to do group vacations together. Some of the friendships have turned romantic and some of the romance has ended. The question is whether their friendship group can continue after the broken hearts. I do recommend this book as a fast, fun read!

Thank you NetGalley and Alcove Press for the opportunity to read and review The Group Trip by Audrey Ingram.

Six young adults become friends in college. Our main character Chloe and Luke begin dating which brings Chloe into a ready-made friend group. They all stay close through college, graduation, and beyond; until Chloe and Luke break up. The main premise of this novel is what happens to the friend group once two participants are no longer together or are awkwardly staying away from outings and group related events. Each individual in the group has a problem that needs solved. They all finally agree to take a one-week vacation together to smooth everything over. This is where the meat of the story will take place.

I liked the characters, some more than others. This is a dual timeline story, but I really enjoyed one timeline much more than the other. I would have loved to just stay in the present-day timeline and less of the history of the group. All that to say, I really enjoyed the last 20 percent of the book the best, but you will have to read it to know what I am referring to in the book. The Group Trip will be available for purchase on August 13th. Happy Reading !!

The Group Trip follows a group of 6 very different best friends who have to learn how to navigate life after college. Their latest group trip is brought on by the secrets each of them has kept. As they start to see each other with changing perspectives, years of animosity between friends and ex’s is brought to the surface and tensions rise as the week continues. The jumps between past moments among friends to the present gave me such insight into each character.
It was easy to fall in love with not only the friendships the characters shared, but the characters themselves, especially Chloe. Her struggle with the messiness of transitioning into adulthood makes her relatable to everyone who has ever struggled to determine who they want to become. The Group Trip is a captivating story of friendship and love that explores the effects of making life altering decisions based on someone else’s or a whole group’s desires instead of your own.

Thank you to Alcove Press and Netgalley for the arc!

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC of The Group Trip by Audrey Ingram
I loved this novel. I loved the plot, the characters, the setting, the descriptions!
This novel flowed so well and was so easy to read, but had so many layers. The author created amazing relationships between a group of friends, I absolutely loved the main character, Chloe. I enjoyed how the story was told both present and past.
I've got this author's other book on my to be read list.

A decent story and plot with a nice range of diverse characters. The non-linear narrative style works really well in delivering key elements and facts, and these are delivered in a practical fashion to contrast the past with the present. The narrative spans over many years and follows college friends throughout the lives, and I feel like the exploration of how their lives grow and develop is done really well.
I did find some elements in the writing style repetitive, but the well-developed plot did make up for that.
Diversity of the characters was interesting, although I didn't find myself liking some of them the way that I wanted to.
It's a nice, light, and easy read.

Thank you NetGalley and the author for giving me a copy of this book for my honest review!

I love a dual timeline book. I also love how it felt like Happy Place but didn’t feel like it was coping or at all. It was a perfect example of how you can have a book that is the same trope but has a different spin on it at the same time!

The Group Trip was the book I have been waiting for. Inexplicably, I have read a handful of "college friends get together a decade later" books this year and The Group Trip is far and away the best of the bunch. It is a shorter book, coming in at just over 300 pages, but I couldn't put it down and finished within 24 hours. I really enjoyed reading about Chloe's character growth and her understanding of how she had tried to fit herself into this box of what other people felt was acceptable. All of the characters were compelling and while their secrets weren't exactly mind-blowing, they were real. I think thats what it comes down to the most--all of the characters felt completely authentic. If you love character driven stories about friendship, The Group Trip is for you.

The Group Trip is one of the best books I have read in 2024. In chapters alternating between current time and years prior, we get to know a group of six friends from colleges. Luke and Chloe have pretty much always been together, while the other four in the group hold steady. When Chloe declines Luke’s proposal, the entire dynamic of the group changes and shifts, as friend groups do. Sloane is determined to keep the six of them intact by inviting them on their annual vacation, but not all goes as planned.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.