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The Road Trip cover art

The Road Trip

Written by: Beth O'Leary
Narrated by: Josh Dylan, Eleanor Tomlinson
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Publisher's Summary

Two exes reach a new level of awkward when forced to take a road trip together in this endearing and humorous novel by the author of the international best seller The Flatshare.

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.

©2021 Beth O'Leary (P)2021 Penguin Audio

What the critics say

"THIS BOOK IS PERFECT.” (Rosie Walsh, best-selling author of Ghosted)

“As with her surprise hit, The Flatshare, O’Leary expertly balances humor and heart while introducing a zany cast of 20-somethings.... Readers won’t want this crazy road trip to end.” (Publishers Weekly)

"The Road Trip is a humorous yet deeply moving journey toward confronting the past, forgiveness, and reconciliation, with a poignant detour to a summer of young love in Provence. I loved the vivid cast and the depth and intimacy in O’Leary’s writing.” (Helen Hoang, USA Today best-selling author)

What listeners say about The Road Trip

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Toxic Romance

The road trip element was fun, but I couldn’t help and think that Dylan and Addie were TERRIBLE together! While the hijinks of the roadie were fun, I dreaded the “before” chapters. Dylan and Addie brought out the worst in each other throughout their relationship and I just didn’t want them to fall back into their toxic relationship. The ending was very rushed and unfulfilling. Usually I like Beth O’Leary but this one fell flat.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

well performed interesting story

not a book I would normally read/ listen but was pleasantly surprised with the story

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Another winner but too much bad language

This is the third book by Beth O'Leary that I've listened to and once again the performance was superb. Both Josh Dylan and Eleanor Tomlinson nail it. They were both great at bringing out the emotions through their voices.

I enjoyed the story too. This initially comes across as a light-hearted story but there is so much more going on and O'Leary peels back the layers as she alternates the story of Dylan and Adi before the breakup and afterward, which is the present time two years later. O'Leary is so good at creating realistic memorable characters.

The only thing that marred my listening (reading) experience was the amount of profanity. F-bombs and religious profanity rained down through this one, many times unnecessarily. It almost made me want to stop listening but the story itself pulled me back. A great listen, minus the language.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

tomlinson is astounding, story lacking

i hated the actual plot of this book, and would NOT recommend under any circumstances, but i loved listening to eleanor tomlinson. she's great narrating and made it a tolerable listen. without her, not sure if i would've continued the book at all

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A plot heavy romance

TW: sexual assault, drug and alcohol abuse, stalking, homophobia

Okay there is a lot to break down here. I want to lead with the fact that this is not a completely funny, light-hearted, rom-com, so if that’s what you’re looking for, check out another book. There’s a lot of issues, there’s a lot of portions worthy of a trigger warning (see above), there’s a lot of heartbreak.

Okay now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the actual review. The main tropes are second-chance redemption and forced proximity sooooo if you love those, the Road Trip is HEAVY on those tropes. What I really, really enjoyed about the Road Trip is that it feels very genuine. The characters seem so real and vulnerable and the issues are real and genuine (it’s A LOT more than just miscommunication!) In general, the Road Trip is incredibly heavy, heavy on characters, heavy on back-story, heavy on tropes, heavy.

Spoilers ahead!

It irritated me how they brushed over some really deep aspects of the story, both stalkers are sort of grazed over like its not a huge deal?? This was my biggest issue with it. MARCUS was my other issue, but I also realize that he plays a really large, important role as does his toxicity.
I listened to this as an audiobook on Audible and I thought the narrators were INCREDIBLE, they did a really amazing job of building the characters. I did have to rewind a couple times because parts were a lot to keep up with and I needed to listen multiple times to understand it.

Overall, this was a really interesting read. Very very heavy, not your typical rom-com, but very enjoyable to listen to!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • IJ
  • 2021-09-10

Good listen

I enjoyed the two narrators. The storyline was interesting and kept me wondering on what would come next.

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