The characters have matured significantly from "then' to 'now', which gives this second chance romance more depth than many of those relationships in novels just built on confusion in the past. In the 'then' the characters were kind of hard to like. As they mature, they become people you'd like to be around (except Marcus). The drive in a Mini Cooper with 5 people provides a lot of humor which helps when times are a bit darker in the past. I don't think I liked it as much as O'Leary's previous books, but this is still pretty good.

The Road Trip surprised me in yet again being different from previous O'Leary books, The Flatshare, and The Switch. I loved the characters, both main and supporting, likable and deeply flawed. They kept my attention throughout the book. I also loved the present day storyline of the road trip. The flashbacks, however, were hard to adjust to. It was uncomfortable at times, not in content, but in structure and rhythm. This kept me from loving the whole story as much as I wanted to. Now that I know the whole story, I really adore it. But it's like getting a great story from your cousin who can't talk in a straight line to save your soul. I laughed so much during the road trip parts. Hilarious. Definitely pick this one up. It's funny and lovely.

I really enjoyed this novel and the cast of characters. The only thing that rubbed me the wrong way was the obsession with the main character Addie being small - as a woman who has struggled with body image this focus seemed a little triggering.

The main characters in this book once said that summer suited them, and this is exactly that: a summer read. Road trips, beach houses, falling in love for the first time... this has it all. It doesn't quite have the joy and hopefulness of The Flatshare, as this, despite the title, deals a lot with toxicity in relationships, and mental health as well. The romance is sweet, if albeit rushed. Still, you will want Addie and Dylan to get their second chance HEA.

My skin crawled at some many points reading this! It was funny, fresh, and honestly horrifying to imagine. Being stuck on a road trip with any of MY ex's would not have had this outcome! This was a very enjoyable read. I like this author a lot.

The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary
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Two years after Dylan and Addie break up, they end up on a road trip together to a mutual friend’s wedding.

Isn’t this the best premise ever?? I’m a sucker for a road trip AND second chance tropes. This book was like cat nip for me.

What I loved:

💓I’ve been a Beth O’Leary fan since the flatshare and adore her writing style. This one definitely had a more serious tone and made for a touching, emotional read.

💓Loved the past timeline intertwined within, giving us a window into their past together.

💓The side characters made for some hilarious moments and excellent dynamics within the small vehicle 😂

💓I loved the humour woven in with some serious subject matter! So well done.

Massive thank you to Berkley, Netgalley and Beth O Leary for access to this ARC 💗

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I like the writing style a lot but the characters were really hard for me to get into. I found them both really hard to like which killed this book for me. The story itself with different characters or more likes or ones would have made this a much higher rating

There’s a lot to like in this book, and much of it is very well-written, with descriptions that pull you into the setting. The Addie + Dylan relationship was so compelling, and there were many fun side characters.

But honestly, I had a real problem with this book, and that is how male stalkers are portrayed. Yes, stalkerS, plural, because there are two in this book (and on the road trip).

If you want to avoid spoilers don’t read the rest of this.
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One of the men who is a stalker is portrayed as harmless, goofy, and generally comic relief. This despite the fact that he has a) lied about being invited to the wedding b) lied to Addie and her sister about why he needs a ride and c) most importantly, IS STALKING THEIR FRIEND in order to try to prevent her from getting married. But they bring him to the wedding anyway!

The other stalker is actually much more disturbing, and while the characters kind of acknowledge that, he is given a full-fledged redemption arc, without ever actually FULLY apologizing for the harm he committed or attempting to make amends for the damage he caused. (SPOILER) (AND MAJOR TW FOR STALKING).

Dylan’s best friend Marcus has a problem with Addie from the beginning of their relationship. He says horrible shit to and about her, and spends pages telling Dylan she’s awful and he needs to break up with her. Later they discover Marcus has been following Addie. He admits to standing outside of her apartment on the dumpster to watch her through the windows. He admits he has been following her to her work and standing outside for hours watching her through the windows. At one point, he takes photos of her. This is sort of addressed as “he was in love with her and it killed him to see his best friend have her.” Which, sure, maybe that drives someone to stalking, but it doesn’t fucking excuse their behavior. And they act like it does. He gets let off easy. Addie doesn’t even really have that much of a reaction to finding out that her suspicions of two years ago, when she felt like she was going crazy because she thought Marcus was following her and she couldn’t prove it, was correct. Dylan tells her something to the effect of “I can understand if you don’t want him in your life again” when he and Addie reunite, but she doesn’t say anything in response. It’s not really addressed and the finale includes Marcus being embraced by their entire friend group again after his shitty behavior.


And you know what, maybe that’s realistic. Maybe that IS what happens a lot in real life. Social groups tend to take the easy way out, and in this case the easy way out is observing literally 2 days of “changed” Marcus’s behavior and saying “yeah he’s good now.” What about Addie? This man stalked her. For months. He broke up her relationship with her boyfriend due to his stalking. Then he slut shamed her for years. He’s abusive. Men like that, they don’t just do a little light stalking and then completely change their lives in 18 months. Stalking is an escalating behavior and it usually leads to violence against women. The way Marcus talks about Addie is the way male abusers talk about women they want to hurt. He never explicitly threatens violence against her but it is clear that he HATES her for the majority of the plot. This is why it was so disturbing to me for it to be waved off as “oh, he was IN LOVE WITH HER,” and everyone forgives him.

And here’s the thing: when Dylan and Marcus get in the car with Addie & her sister, Dylan is choosing to let this man, who he KNOWS had stalked his girlfriend, back into the car with the woman he stalked and harmed. There’s a lot of stuff in this book about forgiveness and healing and therapy. But there’s no fucking amount of therapy in the world that would allow me to feel it was okay for my ex to bring the man who stalked me into a car with me.

Ultimately, I think I would’ve really enjoyed this book overall had it not been for the TWO stalkers. I don’t know which upset me more, the wedding crasher stalker being portrayed as a nice guy who’s just a little clueless, or the situation with Marcus. I just can’t get over it. I know the author’s intention was probably to show people can be redeemed and grow and change even when they’ve done terrible things. But does it have to all be at the expense of the woman at the center of this story? Why does what happened to her with Marcus get treated without the proper weight as the other trauma that occurs in the book? It feels like Marcus’s stalking is brushed aside because of the other major trauma that Addie endured right around the same time as the stalking was revealed.

Really, it comes down to this: yes, I have a personal reaction to this story because I have been stalked by men who wanted to hurt me. If you’ve ever had a stalker, I do not recommend reading this book. But I can also say that, outside of my own personal reaction, the way that stalking is handled in this book just doesn’t make sense and approaches abuse apologetics (he was in love with her, that explains it all, etc).

Two stars because the writing itself was good and there were lots of funny and swoony parts. Just not enough to make me feel okay after seeing men who stalk women get off so easy in this plot.

I really wanted to like this book. I’ve never read any of the author’s previous books, but I’ve mainly heard great things about them, so I just assumed I would like any of her books. Unfortunately this book really didn’t work for me.

Things I didn’t like:
- The characters: None of the characters were likable. The one exception is maybe Abbie’s sister, Deb, but even she annoyed me at some times. Dylan is one of the wort love interests I’ve ever read in a romance book. His best friend, Marcus, was just absolute trash and I don’t understand how anyone could have stayed friends with him. Abbie, the main character, was someone I originally rooted for, but the more excuses she made for Dylan, Marcus, and all the other shitty men in the book the more I started to despise her.
- The road trip was dreadfully boring: absolutely nothing happens almost the entire time they are on the road. Anytime we we’re in the “now” section, all I would wish for was more chapters from the past because at least those had some drama going on. The only thing that happened on the road was Abbie and Dylan staring songfully at one another. The first few times I could feel the bit of tension, but after chapter 3 it got old real fast.
- There is a scene that deals with sexual assault, and the way some characters handle it literally disgusts me. I know their reactions is what drives their character growth in the future chapters, but all the characters we’re men, so I felt like the conversation about sexual assault and rape were centered around how the men felt and not really around the girl who experiences it.

I don’t really recommend this book to anyone, and the only reason it got two stars instead of one was because I like actually quite enjoyed the first 20%. After that this book was a train wreck.

Dylan and Addie are exes, and their relationship didn't end well. Fast forward two years, and they are both invited to the wedding of a mutual friend. They end up having to share a ride to the wedding together, squished in a tiny car with too many other people, on a road trip neither of them wants to take. Things turn out pretty well for them, however, as they realize how much they still care for one another. Funny and fast-paced, this book is a great recommendation for readers who enjoy upbeat, light rom-coms.

The Road Trip is a novel that I would love to see become a movie. I can see our two main characters- Addie and Dylan- before my very eyes. I can imagine their blossoming romance and then its demise so clearly.

Beth O’Leary wrote The Road Trip from the point of view of both Addie and Dylan from “Now” and “Then”. “Now” is when they run into each other, quite literally, on the way to a wedding in which they are both guests. “Then” is nearly two years prior when they fell head over heels in love with one another. So much so, that you can’t imagine how their relationship ever went wrong.

Jumping between "Now" and "Then" we see how Addie and Dylan grew together and then apart and we see there are so many shades of grey in matters of the heart.

This was the first Beth O’Leary book I’ve read and it certainly won’t be the last.

A very sincere thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for this Digital ARC.

4.5 stars!

While this book took a little longer for me to get into than her other books, this one emotionally wrecked me. This was full of love, heartache, and some heavy topics. I think this was such a beautiful read.

This book was a bit different than Beth O'Leary's previous titles, but similar in that she is exceptionally good at infusing a story with humor and drama in a perfect balance.

The Road Trip switches back in forth between two timelines- then and now, and focuses on the beginning and reconnecting of Addie and Dylan's relationship. As someone in her mid-thirties who has been married to the same person since I was 19, it was a tad difficult to relate to the twenty-something drama of the early relationship. However, as someone who has experience malicious manipulation of a relationship, I understood the progression of the early relationship until the final implosion of Addie and Dylan. It really read true to life to me, and while a person could think "if these two were meant for one another why was it so easy to be apart?" I really did understand how they got to that point. O'Leary really hit the nail on the head with this one.

I loved The Road Trip, and Beth O'Leary has quickly made her way to the top of "will always read it" list of authors.

Don't let the cute cover fool you, this book put me through an emotional wringer. It takes on some pretty serious topics and if you are in the mood for a cute, light romance, this is not it. It was engaging and well written with some very realistic characters. I would recommend it for fans of Emily Henry's books..

Dual viewpoints appear to be O"Leary's go-to literary device. Some funny moments but I didn't enjoy this one as much as her previous two novels.

I loved The Flat Share and The Switch. I didn't love The Road Trip. The characters were not particularly likeable and the plot, which was plausible, seemed to drag. The story picked up a bit when the author took the reader back to the characters' meeting in France but it bogged down as the group drove to a wedding in Scotland two years later.. The two main characters fell in love in France, then broke up, and through a quirk of fate were thrown together to make a road trip along with three other dysfunctional characters, one of which was a stranger to the group. The trip did not go smoothly and anything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong. The story did end on a high note when they finally reached the wedding. If you like this author, it's worth a read, but it's not nearly as good as the two mentioned earlier. There was too much angst, too little fun.

Thank you to Berkley and Net Galley for the ARC of this book! It in no way affects the review and my opinion of the book.

Wow. This book was a lot different than I thought it would be. I don’t know if there were trigger warnings listed somewhere that I missed, but this book definitely packed a lot of darkness that the pretty cover doesn’t portray.

All that being said, I loved the way that Beth O’Leary was able to bring darker elements to the story that really gripped and broke my heart but then left me laughing out loud at different points as well.

I rated this book for what it is: a second chance romance. Knowing that it’s going to be angsty, there’s going to be miscommunication, some flash backs and back and forth and also an instant rush of attraction and emotions at the start of the book. Second chance romance isn’t your typical meet cute romance and you gotta go into it with different gears turned on (at least I do!) With all that being said, this was a great second chance romance! I read this whole book within 24 hours, which automatically gets a higher rating from me because I couldn’t put it down.

The idea of two exes being forced to road trip is so cringey but also wonderful and I was pumped to feel the pain of how awkward this reunion is for everyone involved 😂

The road trip aspect of it was a nice way to keep the book light hearted to balance out a lot of the darker elements. Though, as a frequent road tripper I just had to let go of every part of me that is like, “You don’t stop to get food and eat, you drive through! Why are you taking all these unnecessary stops?! Aren’t you in a time crunch??” And as a person who has also been in multiple accidents, the whole “The car that hit me is totaled but mine is fine, let’s just drive away,” was a little unbelievable. But I mean, it’s a rom com, of course there is going to be some shenanigans along the way of this trip and I just let all that slide. Some of it was absurd and silly, but it was still a funny and enjoyable read!

This book is a great second chance romance with a sensitive and deeply feeling hero. It’s not often that you find a hero in romances that isn’t sure of himself, is fighting depression and other inner demons. I appreciated the inner workings of Dylan and how different he is from a lot of the romance heroes I read.

Overall, I got all the goods that I like out of a second chance romance: heartache, angst, tingles from a happy reunion, and nice HEA along with some beautiful French scenery and Rodney. 🤣 Oh, Rodney. What a wonderful, sweaty, stammering addition to this story!

I loved this book! Beth O’Leary is proving to be one of my favorite authors! This book was fun, laugh out loud, sweet and sad all at the same time. When a book gives you all the feels it’s typically a 5 star for me. The story of Addie and Dylan is sweet and shows how miscommunication can be fatal to relationships! The supporting characters were fun and enjoyable. Although Dylan’s best friend Marcus got on my last nerve throughout the book!

Overall another Beth O’Leary must read! I listened to her others on audio and hope to listen to this one too at some point.

After a slight fender bender causes exes Addie and Dylan to carpool to a wedding together along with their own friends, the two revisit what caused their relationship to implode as other road trip mishaps bring them close together again.

I absolutely loved The Flatshare by O'Leary and enjoyed The Switch, but The Road Trip was not as fun of a read for me. I never really understood the pull Addie and Dylan had toward each other, and the way the flashbacks were told felt too much like skimming and telling rather than showing. It was tricky to track the passage of time in the flashbacks, and I found myself getting lost in the action of the present-day scenes. Characters like Marcus and Deb never felt fully fleshed out, and Marcus in particular felt very rushed and underdeveloped for the twist his storyline eventually revealed.

Overall, a good enough read to finish, but nothing very memorable.

The Road Trip by Beth O'Leary has such a fun concept. Exes invited to the wedding of a mutual friend wind up car pooling for the long ride. Lots of mishaps during the road trip combine with flashbacks of the exes relationship to demonstrate why these two people should give it another go. Okay, I'm in.

Unfortunately, I didn't particularly like most of the characters in this book. The story was darker than I expected and includes sexual assault and substance abuse. To me, the characters didn't undergo enough of a transformation to think that they could be a healthy relationship. There are a couple of lovely characters but there are even more toxic ones. Honestly, it's a well-written book and I could see it making an excellent movie but for some reason, it left a sour taste in my mouth.