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Listen, no one told me Elinor Tomlinson narrates audiobooks and I’m mad about it! I enjoyed her reading of One Day in December, so I was super excited to find out that she and Josh Dylan narrated The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary. I loved The Flatshare and The Switch, so I’ve been looking forward to getting my hands on The Road Trip since it came out. I’ve got some feelings about it, so let’s talked about what I liked and what didn’t work for me. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Marcus/Dylan gave me MAJOR Finn/Logan from Gilmore Girls vibes: Marcus is this super wealthy party boy, while his best friend Dylan is the lost boy with the disapproving father who cuts him off. Enter Addie: your teacher next door whose whirlwind romance with Dylan leads to all kinds of drama. Years later, the two cross paths while traveling to a mutual friend’s wedding, and all kinds of truth comes out. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I’m not a fan of second chance romance, but I also felt confused by the plot: there are moments that feel torn from a comedy (accidentally leaving someone on the side of a highway, tying up a wedding crasher) but also deeply troubling moments (drug abuse, the revelation of a character’s assault) that left me whiplashed and frustrated. That’s not to say romance can’t address serious themes: O’Leary writes about domestic violence in The Flatshare and grief in The Switch, but I couldn’t figure out what kind of story The Road Trip was trying to be. I could have gotten past it if I had been invested in the characters, but Dylan and Addie felt stereotyped and flat, missing the sparkle I loved so much in O’Leary’s first two books. The chapters alternated between Addie and Dylan, but I ultimately felt like the story was about Dylan and Marcus. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ *review and TWs continued in comments* ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ID: A kindle displaying the ebook cover of The Road Trip sits on a white shelf. I’m reaching out to touch the kindle with one hand. via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/CQqnbrGrJd6/