Amy and Roger's Epic Detour

Review Time! I wasn’t going to post a review today but my OCD makes looking at my growing Review Pile painful so here I am yet writing another review :P Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson was recently published in the UK and the AUS, thanks to Simon and Schuster for the review copy!

(Goodreads) 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


The Short Story? – An epic detour indeed! I bring you, the cheapest vacation ever! Not going anywhere these holidays? Why not join Amy and Roger on their cross country road trip? A bittersweet novel about dealing with grief and moving on, a funny and touching adventure and an extraordinary novel that was simply beautiful.

The Long Story? – I honestly didn’t know what to expect with this one. No, I lied, I expected an epic-worthy road trip with someone called Amy and another one called Roger. I got more than I bargained for! Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour was fantastic! Really what I expected to be a funny love story but this was better, it’s definitely one for the YA contemporary fanatics!

The plot was the highlight of the novel for me. Matson’s written an exciting adventure that doesn’t include vampires and sword fighting and start-crossed lovers. This is as exciting as a non-paranormal novel can get! It’s not just a road trip, it’s an epic detour :P The novel started out a little slowly and the first 50 or so pages is just for easing the reader into the novel but after you hit that 50 mark it’s an hectic adventure. Filled with laughter, tears, heartbreak and everything in between, the novel definitely has a nice flow to it and I could easily chug along the novel at a steady pace. Well-written and clearly a lot of research went into the novel. That or the fact that Matson is talking from experience. Brownie points for all the references to food, a unique taste for each state of the epic detour! This one is for the Sarah Dessen fans :)

Characterization wise, Matson’s developed some strong characters. Amy our protagonists was on as much of an emotional re-growth journey as much as a real journey. Between all the adventures, Matson’s weaved all these getting over grief scenes and I loved them. Amy was portrayed as a girl who shut herself away from the world, she was lonely, guilt-ridden and grief-stricken. Throughout the novel, she’s coaxed out of her shell by all the people she meets on her epic detour. Roger, her companion in crime was like a ray of sunshine, dealing with heartbreak of his own, he never stopped trying to be cheerful! I loved Roger, he was kind, funny and a total hottie! My favourite secondary characters included Lucien and Bronwyn, two of the nicest characters I’ve met, I’m planning a road trip for the three of us: P In a nutshell, characterization was another one of the strong points about Matson’s debut.

I loved Matson’s writing style, there is this fresh edge to it, it’s so “teen”. You know how you have those sugary sweet narrative voices and then those authentic narrative voices? This one was authentic for sure. It’s got a bittersweet edge to it, in fact, the whole book had a bittersweet edge to it. It was sad but funny, the best of both worlds, not to depressing but not perfect enough that it leaves you thinking ‘wait, is this set on Earth or so new and improved New Earth?’. It’s quite a long read, 350 pages and the text is tiny! Although, I’m not complaining because it was worth every word!

Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour is a bittersweet adventure about a girl dealing with guilt and grief and a boy dealing with heartbreak. It’s a novel about finding yourself and epic road trips. A bonus is that it’s an excellent guide to what to eat when you head to Kentucky, Louisville and a few more places that I can’t name on the top of my head! Beautiful, touching, funny and epic indeed! A cute read for everyone!

Rating – 5/5

Badass Bookie xx.