Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

Warning: This post contains some marked spoilers and language not appropriate for children.

This blog is turning more and more into book reviews. But do not fear! Classes are really starting this week, so I can only hope that I will have more interesting things to talk about.

Review time! This post it is Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson. (http://www.amazon.com/Rogers-Epic-Detour-Morgan-Matson/dp/1416990658) I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would. I started this the day after I finished TFiOS (that post will come later, once I’ve reread the book) so I was not hoping for anything close to the brilliance that is encompassed in John Green’s latest novel. But, A&RED did not disappoint me.

The plot is simple enough. Two complete strangers (Amy & Roger) are forced to drive across the country from California to Connecticut together. But, they decide to deviate from the itinerary and have their own adventure. The story itself though is more complicated. I found Amy and Roger to be very believable characters with believable struggles. Amy’s father died three months before the beginning of the book, and that is addressed throughout the book.

I knew that this book would be enjoyable from the beginning when Amy thinks “But not so nice if it was the house you were moving out from. I could practically hear Mr. Collins, who had taught my fifth-grade English class and was still the most intimidating teacher I’d ever had, yelling at me. ‘Amy Curry,’ I could still hear him intoning, ‘never end a sentence with a preposition!’ Irked that after six years he was still mentally correcting me, I told the Mr. Collins in my head to off fuck”. This story features a narrator that is intelligent, witty, and is still a typical teenager. Matson got damn-near close to creating a character that would fit in with John Green’s. (If you can’t tell, John Green is near-God to me at this moment. If you don’t feel the same, go read The Fault in Our Stars and get back to me.)

I particularly enjoyed the local culture featured within each of the states they visited. I’m surprised that they don’t have Sonic in California, but the experience of Chick-fil-a is pretty accurate. Matson infused local culture and it was obvious that her research into this book was extensive.

Finally, there’s the romance. One of the things I didn’t like about this book was the cover. It features a male and female holding hands with a road stretched out in front of them with the dividing line running down the center of the cover, right in line with their hands. This misrepresented the book to me. SPOILER I thought it would be all romance from the beginning. But, they didn’t get together until almost the end of the book. Which, I actually liked a lot better than romance wasn’t the focus, like I thought it would be. It ended up being a story more about this trip and how it changed them as people. This is also shown by the method Matson takes in developing and demonstrating the relationship. When they finally get together, there’s no adjective heavy description. It is simply glossed and the reader is left with only their imagination. The same is true with the big question of Will they stay together? at the end of the book. All she gives us is a receipt for a restaurant dated a month later that obviously belonged to them. END SPOILER This could have been a romance heavy book, and was certainly was marketed as such. But, I like the themes that Matson chose instead.

Overall, I would rate this book 4.5/5 stars. I would have developed a few quirks more and not thrown so many shallow details into the novel. There were some that seemed not to have a purpose. But, it still made me laugh out loud and hold my breath and smile. Honestly, there is very little more I ask for in a novel.

Non-YLC: 4

YLC: 0