Review: Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour

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Title: Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour
Author: Morgan Matson
Series: None
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers
Release Date: 5/4/2010
Format: ebook(Kindle format)


Synopsis:
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 Amy 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.





I wasn’t planning on writing a review on this one, but after contemplating the morning after I read this I realized it’s ok to let go of the feels and share it with people, just like what Amy did.

“I’d found out that if you pushed people away hard enough, they tended to go.”

The story started with Amy Curry leaving California and moving to Connecticut with her mom. She has a twin brother, Charlie, which has been staying in rehab. The book introduced her as a quiet and withdrawn girl that was a result of a car accident involving her dad. Unfortunately, her dad died and she survived carrying all the trauma not just from the incident, but also the trauma of being left alone by her family. She believes that it was her fault her dad died, and neither her  brother and mom comforted her about that. Due to her resistance to driving, her mom’s friend’s son which was a childhood friend(but she can’t remember) was to join her move to Connecticut and  be the driver, Roger Sullivan. It was an awkward road even before they started to move, but both of them didn’t know that this road trip would bring them some thing else. All they had was gas money, a bag of snacks, and a never ending game of 20 questions.

“There are lots of things still to be discovered. You just have to be paying attention.”

I just wrote a small summary of the book because I don’t want to spoil you people. Honestly, I am still a bit feeling emotional with this book. This book was released 2012 and because Morgan Matson’s releasing a new book I decided to try some of her works. She did not disappoint. I was so immersed with Amy’s character because I know how it feels like to lose someone you treasure a lot and think about what you could have done to save that person. I understood why Amy decided to throw her mother’s plan for their road trip and decided to make their own journey. It was like you want to go back to that person who you were before everything crashed down. This road trip they had was not only an eye opener for Amy, but for Roger as well.

“Saying goodbye is basically an invitation not to see a person again. It’s making it okay for that to be the last conversation you have”

Roger had his own struggles as well, but not as big as Amy’s, and he played a big part in Amy’s recovery. I liked his character because he’s not perfect. He was not the knight in shining armor that erased Amy’s wounds he was a catalyst, he was honest and considerate and understood that it’s up to Amy’s decision whether she would confide in him or not. Of course he was good looking, and even though Amy doesn't remember the playmate she used to play Spud with, she developed a crush on him. Who wouldn't crush on a tall man with broad shoulders that has smiling dark eyes with an unusual liking to 20 questions? Roger wasn't the only person who helped Amy through this journey, the people she met and never thought would welcome her, brought back the Amy she missed after the accident. This road trip wasn't just a road to a new place, but also a road to a new life for her and her family.

“You can do something extraordinary and something that a lot of people can’t do. And if you have the opportunity to work on your gifts, it seems like a crime not to. I mean, it’s just weakness to quit because something becomes to hard.”

I didn't actually cried buckets of tears as I was reading this book, but it felt like this book punched me in gut. The reason I was struggling on writing this review is I don’t want to put people’s emotions down on a Monday. I want to write reviews that would make people happy and would like to read the book I enjoyed very much. However, this review feels like I am so sad with this book when it did end on a happy note. Moving on and letting go isn’t easy, and I liked that this book didn't end with “they lived happily ever after” because that can’t be true. The pain of losing someone will always stay with you no matter what moving on or letting go you strive to do. But with aside from all this sad emotions I am sharing, I am telling everyone that I loved this book. It was true and heart wrenching and relatable and apart from all the feels I am feeling right now I do not regret reading this book at all. Another thing that I found cute with this book was it include some snippets of their journey, their receipts, notes.

5 out of 5