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A review by oliviaclaire
The Road Trip by Beth O'Leary
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I had seen a lot of backlash against this book on review sites (albeit after I made my purchase) and, to be honest, I can understand why. The book itself is well written but I think there's a certain expectation that now comes attached to seeing Beth O'Leary's name on a book cover. You're assuming that you're going to be picking up an engaging, witty romcom that touches on personal and difficult topics through its characters (emotional abuse in The Flatshare and grief and loss in The Switch ).
From the cover style and blurb offered by The Road Trip, you wouldn't expect any different. Two exes who haven't seen each other in a year are forced to drive across the UK together to attend a friend's wedding, tension and hilarity ensues surely? And it does, in places, but the majority of The Road Trip is much darker and heavier than O'Leary's previous titles. I would consider the comedy (generally set in the 'Present' sections of the book as we continue our cross country caper) as elements of mild comic relief between much longer episodes of some really quite depressing situations in our characters' 'Past'. Instead of picking perhaps one difficult circumstance and exploring its effect on our cast while a love story develops eg. the intersection of love and loss or finding your confidence again after negative relationship experience, O'Leary hands out as many heavy hitting handicaps as possible to our motley crew ( including but not limited to alcoholism, substance abuse, strained familial relationships and sexual assault ).
Addie and Dylan also don't have a particularly enjoyable relationship. There's definitely a sense of infatuation that is relatable towards the beginning of their romance (both characters are roughly 21-23 so I understand them falling fast) but I don't feel like enough is built on that foundation for this to be a sound and strong relationship moving forward. Both of them are immature, understandably, and make some terrible choices but I'm just not sure why they're so affected by the bond between them when it seems to be built on nothing but an obsession with how hot and out of their league the other one is. By the end of the book, I honestly don't know if I would have cared if they had rekindled their romance or gone their separate ways. I wasn't rooting for them like I often do for my fictional couples.
While this book isn't by any means poorly written and definitely includes some genuine laugh out loud moments it also definitely isn't quite as advertised. To be fair, this may be on the publisher Quercus rather than the author, as I'm sure they have a hand in the covers and blurbs and didn't really give typical O'Leary readers any warning of what was coming for them with this title. It isn't a bad book (although arguably I wouldn't say it's as good as either of her previous stories) and it won't put me off giving the next title, 'The No Show', a chance but it certainly wasn't the relatively light romcom gold I had been expecting when I picked it up.
From the cover style and blurb offered by The Road Trip, you wouldn't expect any different. Two exes who haven't seen each other in a year are forced to drive across the UK together to attend a friend's wedding, tension and hilarity ensues surely? And it does, in places, but the majority of The Road Trip is much darker and heavier than O'Leary's previous titles. I would consider the comedy (generally set in the 'Present' sections of the book as we continue our cross country caper) as elements of mild comic relief between much longer episodes of some really quite depressing situations in our characters' 'Past'. Instead of picking perhaps one difficult circumstance and exploring its effect on our cast while a love story develops eg. the intersection of love and loss or finding your confidence again after negative relationship experience, O'Leary hands out as many heavy hitting handicaps as possible to our motley crew (
Addie and Dylan also don't have a particularly enjoyable relationship. There's definitely a sense of infatuation that is relatable towards the beginning of their romance (both characters are roughly 21-23 so I understand them falling fast) but I don't feel like enough is built on that foundation for this to be a sound and strong relationship moving forward. Both of them are immature, understandably, and make some terrible choices but I'm just not sure why they're so affected by the bond between them when it seems to be built on nothing but an obsession with how hot and out of their league the other one is. By the end of the book, I honestly don't know if I would have cared if they had rekindled their romance or gone their separate ways. I wasn't rooting for them like I often do for my fictional couples.
While this book isn't by any means poorly written and definitely includes some genuine laugh out loud moments it also definitely isn't quite as advertised. To be fair, this may be on the publisher Quercus rather than the author, as I'm sure they have a hand in the covers and blurbs and didn't really give typical O'Leary readers any warning of what was coming for them with this title. It isn't a bad book (although arguably I wouldn't say it's as good as either of her previous stories) and it won't put me off giving the next title, 'The No Show', a chance but it certainly wasn't the relatively light romcom gold I had been expecting when I picked it up.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Alcoholism, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, and Sexual content