amy and roger's epic detour by morgan matson | book review

Book Title: Amy and Roger's Epic Detour
Author: Morgan Matson
Genres: Contemporary YA
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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.

I'm currently listening to some musics from Roger's playlists! I'm totally in the mood for writing this review! Here we go:

Amy and Roger's Epic Detour is about a girl named Amy and she has lived in California all her life. Due to some problems, her mother moves to Connecticut and now Amy needs to get their car to her new house, all the way in Connecticut. However, Amy doesn't want to drive after a tragic event that happened 3 months earlier. Her mother arranges everything and Roger, an old family friend which Amy doesn't seem to remember, ends up driving her all the way to the other side of the USA. Despite the route left by her mother, they decide to take a little detour.

I bought a Morgan Matson book (Second Chance Summer) about a year ago, but I wasn't really in the mood for it once I started reading it, so I put it aside. But I recently had this urge to read (and own) several Morgan Matson books, so I bought this book and Since You've Been Gone. As soon as they arrived, I started reading Amy and Roger's Epic Detour and I was instantly hooked.

Amy and Roger's Epic Detour was nothing like I was expecting it to be - except the road trip thing, obviously. I didn't pay much attention to the summary of this book, therefore, I didn't know the main character had suffered a major traumatic event in her life. To be honest with you, I thought this was going to be a cutesy and happy contemporary where the two main characters meet and fall in love during the road trip and all that fluffy and sweet stuff. But it's not. It's actually so much more than that. This book is so realistic and I now understand why everyone loves Morgan Matson.

Morgan Matson doesn't make the romance between the two characters the main plot of this book, like many other contemporary novels. She wrote a realistic novel about two people getting to know each other and noticing specific traits about one another because of the amount of time they spent together. But this book focuses of the main character's problem and how she copes with it during the road trip.

I liked the fact that the main character wasn't constantly looking for Roger's comfort and that she started opening up to strangers because it was easier.

I also liked that you could tell that the two main characters were starting to have feelings for each other as the time passed but everything was so well written and so subtle that it made me keep on reading the book to find out what was going to happen. I actually thought the romance was going to start a lot sooner than it did, but now that I think about it, I'm really glad it didn't. It made the book more realistic and relatable. I just wish we could have seen more of Amy and Roger together after the road trip.

The ending seems to be the only real problem I have with this book. I wish that a lot of contemporaries could be longer and this is one of them. I wanted to see relationship development between Roger + Amy and Amy + her mother. I feel like we didn't get to know her mother and we didn't get to see her point of view on certain aspects. Albeit, I really liked this book and I'm so glad I finally got to read it!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/noseinabook-/6979791940/in/album-72157629927853901/

This is a story of self-discovery and forgiveness. It also teaches you to value all your loved ones and never take things for granted. I really enjoyed this book and I learned so many new things from it. DID I MENTION THIS BOOK HAS A LOT OF AWESOME PICTURES AND PLAYLISTS?!? It just made the book so much more fun and awesome! (clicking on the image of the playlist will redirect you to its source and you'll be able to see it more clearly).

I feel like everyone who loves contemporary (and even those who think they don't like it) should read this book because it really stays with you. It's also a great motivational read for those who love road trips and want go on one ;). And there's the AWESOME PICTURES AND PLAYLISTS!!!! You can see that Morgan Matson really took this road trip. She put so much effort into this book but it was so worth it! I can't wait to read more of her books. I started Second Chance Summer but I never finished it and now I really want to!