A review by theladysparks
On the Way to You by Kandi Steiner

3.25

 When Emery asked Cooper what made her happy on the day they met, she couldn't give him a single answer. She could have said her dog, her books, or yoga, but instead, she just stared. Despite this, she decided to get in his car and take a road trip with him, a complete stranger who just happened to be traveling to the one place she wanted to be. After years of standing still, Emery was her one-way ticket to a new life and Cooper wasn't going to miss it. They shared the same space, the same car, and the same hotel room, yet they were still strangers. One day they would be laughing and the next, they wouldn't speak. Emery was surrounded by impenetrable walls, but Cooper wanted in.

Everything changed when she discovered his journal. Reading his thoughts, words not meant for anyone's eyes, made her fall harder for him. It turned out nothing made Emery Reed happy, and she wanted to change that. Cooper earned his trust by violating his privacy, and as wrong as it was, it worked. However, one entry revealed a darkness she never knew existed, a timer she never knew was ticking. Suddenly, what made her happy was saving Emery from himself. She just didn't know if she could.

“He kissed me like it was a privilege, like he didn’t want to rush, like we had forever. I think I knew even then that we didn’t.”

I went into this book excited and very quickly fell in love with the writing style, unfortunately towards the second half of the book it fell short for me. I’ll start off by listing all of the things that I really loved about it and just quickly note the things that I felt were lacking. Except for the notice that there weren’t any trigger warnings or content warnings in the book itself and I feel like this book handles a lot of triggering content so it’s a huge disservice to any reader that potentially picks this book up. So go into this knowing that there is a whole lot of talk about depression, suicide attempts and not wanting to live. I wish this would have been included in the book because it would have changed a bit of it for me, personally.

I’ll start with just talking about the writing style. This was my first book by Kandi Steiner and I wasn’t sure what to expect so it was really nice to discover that her style is one that I can vibe with. Everything flows really well, the pacing is perfect and she adds a lot of dimension to all of the characters, even the ones we only get to briefly experience. There were a handful of quotes that just felt really powerful and I love when I come across them while I’m reading. 

Cooper, the FMC, I absolutely adored. I loved her sunshine outlook on life and how it wasn’t portrayed in some naive sort of way and just that she’d been dealt a rough hand and despite it all she held onto an optimistic outlook on life. To just generally keep on the topic of Cooper I will say it really bothered me that she just continued to read through his journal (but also understand that it essentially made her feel more real because although it’s a gross thing to do, it’s also something I can see people doing). I also loved the amputee representation throughout the book and how it was talked about!

I think that the road trip setting made for a really fun and unique storytelling experience, especially between Cooper and Emery. I am a sucker for forced proximity and nothing like a road trip to really drive that home especially when they are staying in the same hotel rooms together and grabbing dinner and just spending time with each other over the entire course of the trip. Their banter back and forth was top-tier, especially in the beginning and despite the fact that I didn’t absolutely love their relationship as a whole, that was an aspect I really enjoyed. 

My favorite part of the book would probably have to be the epilogue itself which I think surprised me because of how meh I felt about the wrap-up at the end of the book.

Now to talk about some of the things I didn’t enjoy. (Feel free to skip if you don’t like negative stuff in reviews.) Emery as a whole, especially as the story progressed, wasn’t my favorite character. It was difficult for me to root for them to end up together especially when we got to the Vegas part of the road trip (which is about halfway or a little over halfway) because of his behavior. It wasn’t the aspects of him shutting down because of his depression, it was the territorial outburst he had that really just turned me off of him because of what was going on literally moments before he started acting that way. I just didn’t click with him and didn’t feel much of anything towards him in general until the very end. 

Overall, this book just didn’t vibe well with me personally. I can understand why other people would enjoy it and am going to definitely try reading some of Kandi Steiner’s other books in the future because I really did enjoy her writing style.

- road trip romance

- forced proximity

- disability rep / fmc

- depression rep / mmc 

- she’s sunshine

- fast burn