Review: Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

Plot: Amy Curry thinks her life sucks. Her mom decides to move from California to Connecticut to start anew—just in time for Amy's senior year. Her dad recently died in a car accident. So Amy embarks on a road trip to escape from it all, driving cross-country from the home she's always known toward her new life. Joining Amy on the road trip is Roger, the son of Amy's mother's old friend. Amy hasn’t seen him in years, and she is less than thrilled to be driving across the country with a guy she barely knows. So she's surprised to find that she is developing a crush on him. At the same time, she’s coming to terms with her father’s death and how to put her own life back together after the accident. Told in traditional narrative as well as scraps from the road—diner napkins, motel receipts, postcards—this is the story of one girl's journey to find herself. (Summary from goodreads.com)

My opinion: Oh. My. God! I absolutely loved this book! It is amazing, probably the best one I read all year!

It might have started off a little slow, but once I got into it, it was impossible to stop reading. For me, the proof of how much I like a book is obvious judging by my reading MO. With this one, I really wanted to read every free second because I had to know what happened next, but I stopped myself and forced myself to read slowly--to savor it. I didn't want to miss a single word.

I loved that we got to take part of Amy's traveling scrapbook and whenever I came across one of Roger's play lists I got the urge to listen to them on Spotify. But I always found myself reading the novel rather far away from a computer with an Internet connection to sadly I never had access to Spotify (which might be one of the top inventions ever...) so I just never got around to doing it. I also got this yearning for road tripping through the US... any volunteers?

What I liked best about the novel though were not the fast food receipts but the main characters. They were two people that I as a reader really cared about. Amy is easy to related to, even though you haven't been in her situation and I like the writing technique of letting us get to know her by letting us see glimpses of her past. Roger being calm and respectful is not only a great company for Amy on her journey of self-discovery but finds that he changes too. A road trip is bound to be life-altering and one as epic as this one definitely was, for both characters. 

I'm not gonna say anything more because I don't want to spoil anything, but wow this novel blew me away! You have to read it!