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A review by adelavmb
Where the Road Leads Us by Robin Reul
5.0
When I started reading Where the Road Leads Us, I was expecting a very heartbreaking and difficult-to-read book. What I discovered instead was a fun read, with lots of profound messages, much the same as Unpregnant by Jenni Hendriks and Ted Caplan. They both feature a road trip where all the characters have a different purpose but have gathered in the same car for the ride. While in Unpregnant it was with the purpose of ending an unwanted pregnancy for one girl and meeting a distant father for the other one, in Where the Road Leads Us, we have three characters who at first seem, total strangers, each with their own goal.
Hallie is a cancer survivor who wants to leave Los Angeles to visit a friend she met online who is ending his own life via assisted suicide since he is in a lot of pain and his cancer is incurable. She buys the bus tickets with money she steals from her parents since she thinks they would not approve of her leaving on her own to meet a boy she met online for such a tragic meeting, but the wildfires are making all the buses late and she is stuck.
Jack was just dumped by his girlfriend on graduation day which is also his birthday so he is naturally very upset and leaves a party with a car-sharing service to hang out at a nearby bus station to lose some time because his car is stuck by other party attendants. In the car, he meets Hallie who is going in the same direction, and their car driver Oscar, who also wants to leave LA to stop his ex-girlfriend's wedding and maybe switch places with the groom if all goes according to his plan. Earlier in the day, Jack discovers a letter from his departed father to his estranged brother that he never managed to send before he died. So when the buses don't arrive for Hallie, he makes up his mind for the three of them to use Oscar's car and go together since they have the same destination or general direction anyway.
Now of course there are lots of misfortunes and adventures on the way, but the story didn't feel cliche at all and despite the serious topics it delves into like cancer, death of a family member, overdose, assisted suicide, it manages to somehow be a fun read at the same time as being profound and meaningful.
"I'd always wondered what happened to her in the same way you wonder about a canceled TV series that abruptly ends without resolution. Eventually you make peace with the fact that just because you want answers it doesn't mean you're gonna get them, and after a while you forget about it and move on."
It's a very good coming-of-age story, and probably one of the best I read so far in 2021.
Hallie is a cancer survivor who wants to leave Los Angeles to visit a friend she met online who is ending his own life via assisted suicide since he is in a lot of pain and his cancer is incurable. She buys the bus tickets with money she steals from her parents since she thinks they would not approve of her leaving on her own to meet a boy she met online for such a tragic meeting, but the wildfires are making all the buses late and she is stuck.
Jack was just dumped by his girlfriend on graduation day which is also his birthday so he is naturally very upset and leaves a party with a car-sharing service to hang out at a nearby bus station to lose some time because his car is stuck by other party attendants. In the car, he meets Hallie who is going in the same direction, and their car driver Oscar, who also wants to leave LA to stop his ex-girlfriend's wedding and maybe switch places with the groom if all goes according to his plan. Earlier in the day, Jack discovers a letter from his departed father to his estranged brother that he never managed to send before he died. So when the buses don't arrive for Hallie, he makes up his mind for the three of them to use Oscar's car and go together since they have the same destination or general direction anyway.
Now of course there are lots of misfortunes and adventures on the way, but the story didn't feel cliche at all and despite the serious topics it delves into like cancer, death of a family member, overdose, assisted suicide, it manages to somehow be a fun read at the same time as being profound and meaningful.
"I'd always wondered what happened to her in the same way you wonder about a canceled TV series that abruptly ends without resolution. Eventually you make peace with the fact that just because you want answers it doesn't mean you're gonna get them, and after a while you forget about it and move on."
It's a very good coming-of-age story, and probably one of the best I read so far in 2021.