When you get to the 50 percent mark of a book and ask yourself why are you reading it that is not a good thing.

I just didn't care about Amy her dumb detour with Roger and just rolled my eyes since I assume they are going to be all in love by the end of their road trip.

It doesn't help that reading this via Kindle does not allow you to blow up some of the graphics/pictures that the author includes in this book either. I think the whole thing was just a bit gimmicky and then I started to nitpick how far they could drive realistically on tank of gas and how they seemed to avoid certain states and then just gave up any urge to keep reading this. 

"Amy & Roger's Epic Detour" is about one woman's totally messed up idea to force her daughter to drive across the country with some random dude she (the mom) and the daughter have not seen since he was 5, or maybe it was 6. Seriously, I just had a hard time believing the circumstances that popped up in this book. I think I was supposed to feel sympathetic towards Amy while reading this book, but I was too busy thinking how selfish and not realistic the mother was in this book and how much Amy was working my nerves. 

We have the book starting off with Amy watching two people sitting in a car. You don't know what is going on but you get enough details that Amy is not happy. Then the book jumps around a bit and then you jump back in time (get used to that a lot) Amy is home alone eating pizza on the one plate she keeps reusing. Cue sad violin. And then she gets a call from her mother telling her that due to expenses, she can't have the car flown out to Connecticut (where the mom and now Amy is going to have to get herself moved to) and so she plans on her daughter and a friend's son to drive the car across country since circumstances have Amy no longer driving. 

BTW I already guessed the circumstances and so would any reader within the first few pages. I honestly started hating the back and forth timeline that Matson does with this story. We get what happened (no spoilers) and if it was supposed to be some big revelation it didn't work. If anything, it just made me dislike Amy and her mother even more. I just got sick of reading a story about two people who just don't have any sense to talk to each other and get their issues out there. And there's random throwaway lines about Amy's twin brother Charlie that is in rehab in North Carolina. 

I ultimately didn't get a sense of any character in this book and I was tired of reading about Roger and his fixation on his ex-girlfriend that even though she broke up with him he decided he was still going to go and see cause hey, why not be a cross country stalker. 

Bah. 

When I picked this book up I had high expectations as it came highly recommended and while I largely enjoyed it (I love road-trip stories), I did have a few problems with it.

Our protagonist, Amy Curry, is moving with her mother and brother to Connecticut. She’s been given the responsibility to get their car from their current home in California to their new home. It sounds simple enough, but given that Amy’s father recently died in a car accident (which the reader doesn’t find out the details of until the end of the book) she’s reluctant to get behind the wheel. Enter Roger, the good looking guy from across the street who offers to drive her to Connecticut at the request of her mother. Amy knows Roger a little, but this trip will be the first time they’ve gotten properly acquainted with each other. Straight away it seemed odd that Amy’s mother had organised for her to go on a trip with a virtual stranger. All the more inappropriate that someone she barely knew would be driving when she was so vulnerable.

Amy’s mother has mapped out the route that her and Roger will take to Connecticut, booking the hotels they’ll stay in and the towns they’ll visit, but they both want a bit of spontaneity, so abandon this plan and decide to make their own decision about which route they’ll take.

The narrative was interspersed with notes and photos Amy had taken on the trip and recorded in a travel diary her mother had given her. I loved this unique edition to the narrative.

Although this was essentially a road-trip story that utilised music and travel, it was underscored by more serious themes, such as death and the somewhat illusive search for acceptance. Amy was understandably traumatised by the death of her father and much of the story was centred on her trying to come to terms with it. By subsequence of her grief Amy was quite reserved and while I understood this, it made it hard for me to connect with her. Her actions gave more of an insight into her than her words, which meant that I felt my understanding of her was quite limited. She was either generally passive or rendered passive by her grief because her reactions didn’t always make sense to me, like when a girl she’d only met ditched all her clothes and gave her new ones. This incident didn’t bother Amy at all and she didn’t find it an infringement of her boundaries.

Roger was a nice enough character, although he did spend the majority of the book obsessing over his ex. This got a bit boring, but is what you come to expect when reading YA.

Apparently there was an attraction between Amy and Roger, but there didn’t appear to be any chemistry between them. The attraction was mostly told rather than shown which made it hard for me to invest in the will-they-won’t-they theme. The characters themselves weren’t very diverse in general and were one of the weaker points for me.

What saved the book was the road trip and of course the music in the form of mixes that accompanied every leg of their trip. I loved being on the open road with Amy and Roger and considered these moments the best of the book.

I love road trip stories so much, they make me feel like I'm getting away from everything and even though there's been a bit too much showing rather than telling, overall I've quite enjoyed it.

Date Published: May 4, 2010

Dates Read: 1/6/15 to 1/8/15

Rating: 5 stars

Synopsis: Amy Curry is not looking forward to her summer. Her mother decided to move across the country and now it’s Amy’s responsibility to get their car from California to Connecticut. The only problem is, since her father died in a car accident, she isn’t ready to get behind the wheel. Enter Roger. An old family friend, he also has to make the cross-country trip – and has plenty of baggage of his own. The road home may be unfamiliar – especially with their friendship venturing into uncharted territory – but together, Amy and Roger will figure out how to map their way.

My Thoughts: This book was amazing and is now one of my favorite books that I have read! The way things go with Amy and Roger is so natural and there is NO instalove thank goodness. The road trip aspect of this book was so cool. I have always wanted to go on a cross country road trip! I can relate to Amy in a lot of ways having lost my father myself, so it was nice to have normal main characters in this book. This book is really easy to get absorbed into. I was reading and before I knew it had read over 100 pages in no time at all. I love books like that and I can’t recommend this enough, honestly.

Publication: May 4th 2010 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Goodreads Synopsis

Amy Curry is not looking forward to her summer. Her mother decided to move across the country and now it's Amy's responsibility to get their car from California to Connecticut. The only problem is, since her father died in a car accident, she isn't ready to get behind the wheel. Enter Roger. An old family friend, he also has to make the cross-country trip - and has plenty of baggage of his own. The road home may be unfamiliar - especially with their friendship venturing into uncharted territory - but together, Amy and Roger will figure out how to map their way.

Review

4.5 out of 5 stars!

I guess I started my 2015 right.

This book was pure perfection! Throughout the book, I felt like I was really having the time of my life travelling to different places in America. It made me want to go out and see the world. The little scrapbook added to the book was my favorite thing to look at; I think it was a really cute touch to the story and added more life to their trip.

The characters, Amy and Roger, were easy to love. They had some issues of their own and it was so great to see them gradually get out of it and see them develop throughout the book. It was very exciting to see their relationship build up from kinda strangers to friends to something more than that in just a matter of a couple days.

The only problem I had was things were becoming better for Amy and then before I knew it, I was on the last page. Why did it end that way? NO! JUST NO! I wanted it to be longer. I DEMAND FOR A SEQUEL! *hi, Ms. Matson :’) *

This book made me feel good. It was just great; the kind that you would never expect to fall in love with. Just the book I would recommend to anyone.

Now I really want to go on a road trip with a cute boy and get stuck in the middle of nowhere so we’d be on a trip forever.

Review also posted on my Goodreads account