Meggie's Reviews > The Road Trip

2.5 stars, rounded up.

I read and enjoyed Beth O'Leary's first novel, The Flatshare, and also heard good things about The Switch, so I was excited to read her third novel. Five people jammed into a Mini Cooper for a multi-hour road trip sounded like loads of comedy potential.

The Good:
--I really liked Addie, and thought she was a very sympathetic heroine. She has a great relationship with her sister and her parents, she's a teacher, and she's genuinely kind and caring.
--The first third of the book, both present timeline (everyone jammed in Deb's Mini) and past timeline (Addie and Dylan meeting and falling in insta-love), was amusing and fun to read.

The Meh:
--There's a lot of heavy stuff in the latter half of the book, which came as a bit of a surprise! The Flatshare also had more serious content later on, but I felt like the past timeline here became much darker than the cover and initial premise suggested.
--Rodney...once everyone found out about his motivations for attending the wedding, they treated it as a joke, but what he was doing wasn't funny??? Tonal disconnect like whoa.
--Marcus was dreadful--we're not supposed to like him, but he was so abrasive and rude that I grew weary of the present timeline scenes (which I initially enjoyed) because he was present to drag everything down.
--While Addie was lovely, I didn't like Dylan even half as much. He felt too passive and pretentious, and while we learn more about his mental health struggles, I still didn't feel he was right for Addie. In the past timeline, she made loads of accommodations for him that I didn't feel he always deserved.

In short:
The Road Trip grabbed me at the beginning, but I wasn't as keen on the remaining 2/3's. The past timeline dealt with a lot of heavy subjects, and the present timeline lost its charm.