The other day while I was paying a
visit to chapters I came a across an interesting book. Originally, I
had planned to pick up Sever by Lauren Destefano, but since I
wanted to be able to afford a drink at Starbucks, I settled for
another. This other book happened to be Amy And Roger's Epic
Detour.
Morgan
Matson's Amy And Roger's Epic Detour
takes place in modern day California during Amelia's trip to her
mother's new house located in another state. However, Amelia
(referred to as “Amy”) hasn't driven since the death of her
father, and therefore her mother enlists the help of an old family
friend: Roger Sullivan. During the course of the trip Amy starts to
let loose and break down the walls that she's built up since her
father died.
I actually enjoyed this book quite a bit, the writing was well done,
the characters three dimensional, and the overall plot line was
riveting. I love it when characters are just a little imperfect, it
gives them more dimension and resonance with the reader, and this
book definitely didn't disappoint in that respect. Amy was awkward,
broken, and a little depressed. Not all of her thoughts are super
happy ones, but instead they were bittersweet and realistic. On the
other hand, Roger was a bit like a lost puppy searching for his
owner, and this same behaviour continues for most of the book.
Roger's lost puppy attitude was one of the things that bothered me
about the book. I of course realize that his demeanour was realistic
to the situation, but the kind of person that he was became a bit of
an annoyance at times. However, this never deterred me from reading
the book, so I guess that's a thumbs up for Matson.
One of the things that I enjoyed the most about this book was it's
use of musical references, you rarely see a book that actually uses
this, and it was nice to see it utilized so well. If you look up the
book's title on youtube you can actually find the playlists that were
used in the book, which I thought was super cool. I would definitely
recommend reading the book while listening to the playlists, because
I know that's definitely what I'm going to do when I re-read it.
I'm giving Amy and Roger's Epic Detour a 3.5 out of 5. The
writing style was fun, the plot line accurate, and I loved the use of
the playlists, but it definitely isn't world class literature. Roger
was rather bothersome, and the characters end up doing exactly what
you expect of them (minus a couple of surprises that I hadn't seen
coming). Overall though, it was a pleasant read, and I'll definitely
re-visit it.
-Ally
