Amy and Roger's Epic Detour

Author: Morgan Matson

Series: Stand Alone

Genres: Travel, Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult

Publisher: Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing

Released: 4 May 2010

Summary: 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.

For Fans Of: Saving June, Fixing Delilah, and Take Me There

My Review:  I adored this book.  I loved Amy, I loved Roger, I loved the layout.  I felt like this book was written by my best friend.  Honestly, I adored all of the pictures, I loved that Matson gives us an ending in the form of receipt, I loved that these character's weren't perfect.  This book made me want to get in a Cherokee and drive across the country, I wanted to see The Loneliest Highway in America and Graceland.  The perfect summer read.  Honest and alive.  To say that I loved Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour is a serious understatement, as a lover of the road and all things involving road-tripping Amy and Roger felt like my own personal travel companion.  Of course all of the relationships are incredible, and solid.  The story makes you feel like your sitting listening to old friends talk about how great their past vacations were.  But the truly wonderful part of this book is the layout.

Matson does an incredible job and literally writes a love letter to America.  That is how I saw Amy and Roger.  With photos, receipts, state mottos, and pages from a travel journal littering this book that held things like playlists, and hand draw pictures this book was practically a picture book for young adults.

I loved reading about how Amy and Roger come together on the road, and how it’s the nature of the road trip that brings them together.  They are both such wonderful characters who seem to understand each other from the beginning.  This is one of few stand alone’s where at the end I was wishing and hoping for a sequel.  I want Amy and Roger to show up happy and healthy in another one of Matson’s books! 

In all honestly, Amy and Roger was the book that I wish I could have written.  It is quintessentially perfection.  Simple and lovely.  It hasn’t left my nightstand since I bought it last summer, and I’m not sure that it ever will.  My copy is dog-eared and well loved.  I hope that if you decide to pick it up you’ll love it as much as I did.