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A review by jvharten
The Road Trip by Beth O'Leary
3.0
An easy summer holiday read. The book tells a story by alternating chapters of ‘now’, when exes Dylan and Addie are forced to go on an eight hour road trip to a wedding in Scotland, and ‘then’, the story of their meet-cute in France and the start of their relationship.
It gets 3 stars from me because I found the characters… annoying to say the least. You could definitely tell the author put a lot of thought into them. There’s a clear difference in their behaviours ‘now’ and ‘then’, but most of them are still entitled and toxic. Especially Marcus. Damn, I hate that guy. He didn’t really redeem himself in my honest opinion - what a saboteur.
What really grinded my gears as well was that there was no real communication between Addie and Dylan in the flashbacks. They didn’t speak of anything substantial - what kind of relationship is that? They’re both dealing with so much angst and insecurities and it gets very tedious them trying to handle this on their own. And expecting the other person to understand without ever telling them anything?
Also, the continued description of Addie as a petite/small/tiny person who was a perfect fit for Dylan was a very annoying to me. It’s just such a cliché - big guy wants a little girl he can pick up easily blah blah blah. Cringe.
And can we talk about the toxic relationships between Marcus & Dylan and Addie & Debbie? Debbie was the best out of the four, but all the others are so self-conceived and absolutely co-dependent.
I did enjoy reading the book, but would I recommend it? With caution, maybe. Be prepared for a bunch of rich, entitled kids making terrible life choices and not communicating anything. At least not until all’s gone to shit and it’s their very last option.
It gets 3 stars from me because I found the characters… annoying to say the least. You could definitely tell the author put a lot of thought into them. There’s a clear difference in their behaviours ‘now’ and ‘then’, but most of them are still entitled and toxic. Especially Marcus. Damn, I hate that guy. He didn’t really redeem himself in my honest opinion - what a saboteur.
What really grinded my gears as well was that there was no real communication between Addie and Dylan in the flashbacks. They didn’t speak of anything substantial - what kind of relationship is that? They’re both dealing with so much angst and insecurities and it gets very tedious them trying to handle this on their own. And expecting the other person to understand without ever telling them anything?
Also, the continued description of Addie as a petite/small/tiny person who was a perfect fit for Dylan was a very annoying to me. It’s just such a cliché - big guy wants a little girl he can pick up easily blah blah blah. Cringe.
And can we talk about the toxic relationships between Marcus & Dylan and Addie & Debbie? Debbie was the best out of the four, but all the others are so self-conceived and absolutely co-dependent.
I did enjoy reading the book, but would I recommend it? With caution, maybe. Be prepared for a bunch of rich, entitled kids making terrible life choices and not communicating anything. At least not until all’s gone to shit and it’s their very last option.