Format: Hardback (UK Version)
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Page Length: 400 pages
Publisher: Quercus (April 29, 2021)
Star Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Mr. Darcy‘s Rating: “You have bewitched me, body and soul.”
A Chasing Mr. Darcy Review
I ordered The Road Trip UK version because I had to have this cute book cover. Plus, I really liked the hardback edition, and the book was only released in paperback in the US to my knowledge. I absolutely loved The Flat Share earlier this year, and I had high expectations this new release. I’ve seen a lot of mixed reviews on The Road Trip, and I don’t know why. This book is a winner winner chicken dinner!
Here’s a plot synopsis from Amazon: What if the end of the road is just the beginning? Four years ago, Dylan and Addie fell in love under the Provence sun. Wealthy Oxford student Dylan was staying at his friend Cherry’s enormous French villa; wild child Addie was spending her summer as the on-site caretaker. Two years ago, their relationship officially ended. They haven’t spoken since. Today, Dylan’s and Addie’s lives collide again. It’s the day before Cherry’s wedding, and Addie and Dylan crash cars at the start of the journey there. The car Dylan was driving is wrecked, and the wedding is in rural Scotland—he’ll never get there on time by public transport. So, along with Dylan’s best friend, Addie’s sister, and a random guy on Facebook who needed a ride, they squeeze into a space-challenged Mini and set off across Britain. Cramped into the same space, Dylan and Addie are forced to confront the choices they made that tore them apart—and ask themselves whether that final decision was the right one after all.
Reading The Road Trip wasn’t the typical rush of a romance book where I fell in love with the characters. My love for these characters was a slow bloom as they battled all the challenges life threw at them. By the end of the book, though, I could not get enough of Addie, Dylan, and Marcus (yes, that’s right, even Marcus!). I enjoyed the dynamic of these three characters, and I felt like their emotions and personalities played off of each other nicely. Addie was a free spirit with concrete goals in life; Dylan was a sad little rich boy with no purpose. Marcus was an entitled rich boy not caring that he had no purpose.
I loved Addie and Dylan together, but every time they let Marcus get between them, I wanted to throw my book. I still don’t see how Dylan didn’t know what Marcus was doing as far as sabotaging his relationship with Addie. It was a weird little throuple without all the headache and none of the benefits. I liked that Dylan slid easily into Addie’s life; her family was welcoming, and she really tried to be the support system he needed. At times, though, it was like Dylan didn’t want Addie to fit into his life, and he sabotaged their relationship. Dylan’s family was emotionally abusive to him and Marcus was manipulative to the point of abuse, and it took a lot of work on Dylan’s part to overcome those struggles. Dylan’s betrayal of Addie at the hands of Marcus was heartbreaking and very hard to read, and could be triggering for people re: sexual assault.
I loved the setting of the book and how the content flip flopped from present to past, revealing the layers of Addie and Dylan’s story slowly. It gave context to the interactions in the car while also highlighting how deep their affection for each other was. Both characters had a great capacity for love, though, and the story really shows how that love evolved but never went away. Even Marcus learned to change before the book was over!
While I did find this story a bit darker than The Flat Share, I enjoyed it just as much, if not more, because the setup of the love story seemed a lot more realistic to me. Two thumbs way way up from this reader!
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