Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

by Morgan Matson

[Nessa Luna]

Read this review, and many more on my blog October Tune!

Every time I read a book about road trips, I feel like going on a road trip myself. After Saving June I wanted to go, and after Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes I just hoped someone would do that to me too, leave me little blue envelopes to tell me where to go and what to do. The fact that I don’t have a driver’s licence, or a car makes it a bit more complicated. Oh well, perhaps in the future!

This is why I was really enthusiastic about reading Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour, because it was about a road trip, and I just wanted to read more road trip books. This book also has a little extra something; it has receipts, pictures, postcards, and information about the states they went through in between the pages of the book. At the beginning of the story, Amy had gotten a sort of scrapbook from her mum, to use during the trip. Her mum had also given her directions on how to drive, and how to get from California to Connecticut in four days, but this book wouldn’t have been called ‘Amy & Roger’s Epic DETOUR’ if they hadn’t decided to completely ignore those instructions, and make up their own route instead.

Throughout the story, Amy and Roger meet new people (mostly Amy’s the one meeting new people, aka Roger’s friends), eating local food, spending a lot of money on snacks, burger, fries; and they just have a lot of fun. They spend a night at Yosemite park, drive all the way through Nevada on the Loneliest road in America, and eat in one of the most expensive restaurants in Louisville. The receipts, playlists and pictures just complete the story, in my opinion.

Out of all the characters, I could relate to Amy the most. She is probably just as ‘awkward’ around people as I am. Not knowing what to say, how to say it, not knowing what to do in certain situations, feeling awkward when strange people hug you out of nowhere, yeah I felt like I was reading a story about myself to be honest (except for the whole awesome road trip part, oh I would have loved that to be true).

Like I said earlier, I liked the playlists that Amy and Roger listened to during driving, I recognized some of the songs, and I saw that there were two songs by Jack’s Mannequin in two of the playlists, and I just really love Jack’s Mannequin! I am thinking about making a playlist with all the songs from this story, so I can listen to them when I reread the story, and actually pretend I am in the car with them!

This story also had some flashbacks, in which you found out more about Amy’s family, and about the accident her dad died in. Though I normally don’t like flashbacks (especially if they’re just randomly thrown into the story, with no proper announcement), I kinda liked it in this book. Normally, it would take you out of the story completely, but I was just so curious to find out what happened to Amy’s dad, that it didn’t bother me at all.

If there was one thing I didn’t like, it was the way Hadley treated Roger throughout the story (Hadley is Roger’s ex-girlfriend). And the way the book ended, I kinda wanted to find out what Amy’s mum thought of the whole detour, and I just wanted to read more about Charlie, Amy’s twin brother. Other than that, I really enjoyed the story, and I recommend it to everyone who wants to read a nice road trip story!