Best Book Ever: Road Trips!
Summer's pretty much over, so we're looking back on that magical time of road trips and vacations on Best Book Ever. We've got some great picks this week, check them out!
This is another tough choice for me to just decided on one. So I'll mention a YA and Adult book. As far as YA goes, The latest road trip book to seriously win me over big time is Jessi Kirby's IN HONOR. This story is just so moving and inspirational. The fact that a sister wants to complete her brothers last wish to her while traveling cross country with the brother's pain in the butt friend is a treat to read for all those who love a sweet, romantic story. Then when it comes to my adult choice, I have to go with Tracey Garvis-Graves ON THE ISLAND. What a powerhouse of a story. It starts off like a vacation, but ends in tragedy. So to read how these two people survive day after day without hope to be found and what blossoms from all the struggles, just took my breath away. It teaches you to never loose faith! So there ya have it folks, My choices are IN HONOR and ON THE ISLAND. Yara @ Once Upon a Twilight
Stephen King’s The Stand is, for me, the ultimate road trip book. Set in a post apocalyptic USA destroyed by a killer flu, survivors set out on the road in the hopes of finding others. Multiple road trips taken by multiple characters, paths crisscross as well as collide. King does an amazing job weaving everything together, and each character and journey manages to remain significant towards the main arc of the book. And what’s brilliant is the book actually ending exactly the way it should have—with another road trip.
Elsie Chapman, debut author of Dualed (2013, Random House)
My favorite road trip book is THE DISENCHANTMENTS by Nina Lacour. It follows Colby, his best friend/crush Bev, and his friends Meg and Alexa as they tour with the girls' band (unsurprisingly called The Disenchantments) the summer after their senior year. I've always thought it would be fun to write a road trip book because I'd get to trap a buch of teenagers with volatile emotions in a very small space and wait to see who exploded first. Plus, a story that's based on constant motion provides the opportunity for a wildly diverse cast of secondary characters and locations. Nina Lacour gives her readers all these things, and she does it with such skill and humor and grace. I love how flawed all the girls are—instead of making them gorgeous, talented superstars of rock and roll, their band is absolutely terrible, and even Colby, who's in love with Bev, can barely stand to listen to them sometimes. There are scenes in tattoo parlors, hot tubs, random strangers' basements and living rooms, and fleabag motels. And somehow, Lacour allows all her characters to change and grow over the course of the short tour, but never in ways that seemed unrealistic or out of reach. This book is absolutely unputdownable. Alison Cherry, debut author of Red (2013, Delacorte Press)
I'm going with a great book I just finished, which is kind of a road trip book: Immortal Lycanthropes by Hal Johnson. I've never read anything quite like it, and I can't quite classify it. It's marketed for ages 12 and up, so technically it's older middle grade, but it has some YA sensibilities and an adult voice, so I guess it's more of a crossover book. I guess "12 and up" really is the best description, but you have to shelve it somewhere, right? Everyone should read it! Anyway, it's about a boy named Myron Horowitz, by all appearances a 13-year-old boy with a face as ugly as his name. He falls in with some shapechanging animals: so-called "immortal lycanthropes" who can assume human form. Some of them are kind of after him, and he's after some of them, and there are secret societies coming out of the woodwork, and there's even a doomsday device. Everyone wants to know who he is, especially Myron. He has lots of questions, most of all who he can trust and what his destiny is, as he travels the country encountering quirky and sage characters like an immortal gorilla, an immortal moose, an immortal red panda, and so on. And the answers to those questions will surprise you, dear reader. This is a trippy road trip with plenty of humor tempered with tragedy and philosophy; as Myron learns, sometimes all you can do is hold on for dear life and see where it all ends up.E.C. Myers, author of Quantum Coin (2012, Prometheus Books)
As for us...
My favorite road trip book is Perfect Escape (I reviewed this a few weeks ago on the site). It is a book about a brother and sister dealing with the brother's significant OCD issues. She essentially kidnaps her brother with the goal to drive to California to see a friend that was ripped away from them both. It was a journey of self-discovery and learning for both the characters and the reader. The way the author handles Grayson's illness is respectful and honest. It really is a book that makes you a better person for reading it! - Coranne
