The Mother Road by Meghan Quinn (Book Review)

What this book is about:

Marley is a 24 year old beauty blogger living a successful, modern lifestyle in L.A. One day her brother, Paul, and her father, Bernie, visit her in California with their 1980’s RV and convince her to go on a final road trip actoss Route 66 to honour their mother who passed away from cancer some years back. What Marley doesn’t know is that Porter, Marley’s childhood crush who also happens to be her first heartbreak will be joining them for the trip. One girl, her annoying brother, her intimidating yet lovable and sweet father and her eternal crush in an RV. This should be fun!

I can confidently say that this book will be liked by many readers. We have a funny, romantic new adult contemporary about a road trip full of funny moments, romance, sex and the feels. It is surprisingly well written to the point that it reads fast and pleasantly and it is a fun, relaxing read. Still, to me this does not deserve more than 2 stars. It was an okay book with a lot of meh moments. I didn’t really like it but also didn’t hate it.

There comes a time in a girl’s life when she has to reach deep down into her soul, clear the pathways of her inner goddess, and let out her nuclear Satan.

For a very large portion of the book the humour revolved around sex, farts and shit. I mean, yes, sex, farts and shit can be funny to use in one joke or a funny scene. But there was a point that the sex jokes were overused. The guys were always presented as these nasty creatures that always make a mess and excell in farts and of course let’s not forget about the fact that pooping is funny too. To be honest, I did laugh with some of the scenes, but after a while the jokes were not doing it for me any more.

“life isn’t worth living if you never put your heart on the line, if you don’t try new things. Pain can be short-lived, ‘could have beens’ will live with you forever. Don’t live your life in a bowl full of regrets, because you’re scared of the unknown.”

This book is like watching an American Pie movie. It’s stupid, it’s funny, it has sex and human nastiness as the main theme…and it’s funny. This is what earned this book its 2 stars. It was fun to read, I’ll admit. I would go to bed, turn on my kindle and read a few pages of this book every night. I would even be looking forward to the moment when I could pick up the kindle and read. I had a good time with it, I enjoy stupid comedies like American Pie and I strongly would recommend this book to anyone who loves this kind of films.

Yes, I’m being a total girl right now, but you know what? I don’t care, because guess what? If you look down my pants and up my shirt, you would find a vagina and a pair of boobs, making me very much a girl, and because I have to deal with my uterus committing suicide every month, I should be able to have girl moments.

Everything in the plot came about too easily. By that I mean that every conflict that exists in the book between the characters, neatly falls into place at the end. The fact that Marley is a beauty blogger is not random. Porter might have hurt Marley but now he is hot so she still wants him. The plot is extremely predictable to the point that it becomes ridiculous and it feels like the author is trying too much to make a movie out of a book. I want my books to depict reality. This is definitely not the case here and I didn’t appreciate it.

I’m not going to lie, Paul’s balls on my mascara brush was a blow to the gut, but Porter’s switching to the dark side, now that was like an elephant farting in my face and blowing off my fake eyelashes.

Every relationship was overexaggerated. Marley and her brother are like the most stereotypical older brother younger sister relationship that has ever existed in the history of the universe. It’s like, all the brother and sister relationships merged into these people. They overtease each other, overinsult each other..Too much. Porter and Marley..I can’t talk about them because they are the whole plot but their relationship is always fireworks and cannonshots. No dull moment in these people’s lives. Marley and her best friend represent again, a too stereotypical image of female friendship. Stereotypes are fun, they exist for a reason. People understand them and they have fun using them. But that’s another thing I don’t appreciate in my books.

sometimes you have to live your life with the motto…#NoRegrets. Sometimes you have to ignore the way people perceive you and do what you feel is right

To sum up, this is a book that will have a lot of readers falling for it. To me it was like watching a very funny comedy, a mix of American Pie but on a road trip. Who doesn’t love road trip stories? But, many parts of the book bothered me to the point that even though I was amused and was having fun reading it, I really didn’t appreciate it in the end. I would still recommend it to people as I firmly believe that it will have a huge appeal in the reading audience.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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