Amy and Roger's Epic Detour

Amy & Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson

Published: May 3,2011 by Simon & Schuster

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 May 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.

The summary makes this sound like a really emotional book with heavy subject-matter. It really wasn't like that at all for me though! I thought this book was the perfect sweet Summer romance. It's full of road trip goodness, quirky characters, and quotes that made me laugh.

Why I love this book:

• pictures -  Every chapter there's a page full of pictures, receipts, and ticket-stub type things from Amy and Roger's trip. I believe the author actually went on this trip to prepare / write this novel and these things are from her trip. All of these things are great and really made the characters pop off the page. All the random things you pull out of your pockets after a trip are always fun.
• detours - Amy and Roger's adventures are always entertaining, sometimes twice as much because they force the 2 of them closer together. Like having only 1 bed in Yellowstone!
• Amy & Roger - They get along so well! It's like watching a movie where the 2 leads have amazing chemistry. I love the slowly developing romance between these 2 quirky people. It's the little things that make them real, like the refusal to wear sunglasses and their preferred travel snacks.
• secondary characters - Most of the other characters are awesome. I especially love Leonard, the video game addict, who is so geeky and sweet. All of the people Amy and Roger meet along the way have their own problems, but each of them helps Amy, Roger, or both of them in their journey.

Huh, what?:

• Hadley - What's worse than being stuck on a cross-country road trip with a boy you barely know? Being stuck on this road trip with a boy you barely know who is still all gaga over his jerk of an ex-girlfriend. Yikes!
• that one guy who likes Amy - I won't spoil who it is that crushes on her, but I don't dislike him or anything. He's an ok guy. It's just that his crush comes at a really bad time for Amy and complicates things for her and Roger. The timing just had me going crazy!

Favorite quotes:

• After I'd given Roger the brief tour of my family history, we ate breakfast. Or, more accurately, I ate breakfast. Roger ate the kind of meal usually reserved for holiday dinners and people with tapeworms. Luckily, it was a buffet, and all-you-can-eat, a policy I had a feeling they might be revising after our visit.             - pg. 58
• "Um, what?" he asked, face slightly flushed as he fiddled with the iPod. "Oh, look, the interstate."   "Roger!"   "I don't know anything," he said. "I swear. I am merely a pawn in all this. She brought down your suitcase this morning and told me not to open it, or let you open it, until we were on the road."          - Amy and Roger   pg. 149

5 robots

If you're going to read a road trip book, I highly recommend this one! Sweet, quirky, and not as depressing as it sounds from the summary.

Acquired: Received as gift