Addie and her sister, Deb, are on their way to a friend's wedding in Scotland when they are involved in a minor car accident. Unfortunately, the other car is being driven by Addie's ex, Dylan, also on the way to the same wedding. As a result of the accident, everyone is forced to travel to the wedding in the same car.
I've lost the habit of listening to audiobooks over the last couple of months. This is mainly down to a change in my routine but I've also had some fantastic books to read so I've tended to read rather than listen. Having enjoyed the previous two Beth O'Leary audiobooks I've listened to I thought The Road Trip would be a great choice to get me back in the habit of listening.
The story begins with pure coincidence, Addie and her sister are on their way from Chichester to Scotland for a friend's wedding. They're also giving a lift to Rodney, a complete stranger on the way to the same wedding. Another car drives into the back of Deb's mini. The other car just happens to contain Dylan, Addie's ex, and his best friend Marcus. The pair are also on their way to the wedding but as a result of the accident their car is undriveable. Simple logistics means that all five end up squeezing into the mini for the long journey to Scotland.
From the outset, it is obvious that the break-up between Addie and Dylan was not entirely amicable and this is the first time in almost two years that they've seen each other. The enforced closeness is uncomfortable for everyone but compels Dylan and Addie to reconsider what went wrong with their relationship, particularly as they both still have feelings for the other person.
It's at this point that the story jumps back in time and we learn about how Addie and Dylan met. A whirlwind holiday romance, which, against all odds, survived longer than the summer. As the story jumps backwards and forwards between now and the past we slowly learn about how the relationship developed. I found that I was more interested in how the couple met, the now element of the story was more comedic, focusing on everything going wrong on the trip and I found this distracting and not particularly funny.
The narrators, Josh Dylan and Eleanor Tomlinson, are excellent at giving voice to Dylan and Addie, along with a host of other characters. There are a few eccentric characters that do add a lighter tone to the story and make you cringe at times.
The inevitable happens by the conclusion but along the way we discover that the break-up of the relationship was down to a lack of communication, jealousy and meddling. This was probably my least favourite of the three Beth O'Leary audiobooks I've listened to (The Flatshare set a very high bar) but it hasn't put me off listening to more.
Author Details
Beth O’Leary is a Sunday Times bestselling author whose novels have been translated into more than thirty languages. Her debut, The Flatshare, sold over a million copies and is now a major TV series. Her subsequent novels, The Switch, The Road Trip, The No-Show and The Wake-Up Call, were all instant bestsellers. Beth writes her books in the Hampshire countryside with a very badly behaved Golden Retriever for company. If she’s not at her desk, you’ll usually find her curled up somewhere with a book, a cup of tea and several woolly jumpers (whatever the weather).
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