The Road Trip

The Worst Possible Car

Addie’s plan for getting to her sister’s wedding in Scotland is admirably simple: drive up with her best friend Marcus, stop at some scenic spots, arrive without catastrophe. The plan fails immediately when Marcus’s car breaks down and Dylan — Addie’s ex-boyfriend, the one who broke her heart two years ago — arrives in a much smaller car with his friend Daf, and an arrangement is reached that Addie would not have agreed to in any other circumstances.

Now she is in a car with Dylan. For several days. Through the English countryside and into Scotland. With her best friend watching the situation from the back seat.

This is the premise of The Road Trip, Beth O’Leary’s third novel, and she executes it with the combination of comic timing and emotional precision that has made her one of the most read contemporary British romance novelists.

What Happened Between Them

The novel uses a dual timeline to reveal the history of Addie and Dylan’s relationship: the happy beginning, the difficult middle, the eventual disaster. This structure is O’Leary’s most technically ambitious, and she manages it well — the past sections provide context for the present ones without removing the tension of what’s happening in the car.

What happened between Addie and Dylan is more complicated than either standard second-chance romance template (someone wronged the other; someone had to leave). Both characters contributed to the relationship’s failure in ways that are psychologically specific rather than generically dramatic. Dylan’s mental health struggles — anxiety and depression, rendered with the unglamorous specificity they actually have — played a role. Addie’s response to those struggles played a role. The breakup was a failure of both of them to be what the other needed, rather than a clear villain story.

The Comedy

O’Leary’s greatest consistent strength is her comedy, and The Road Trip has some of her funniest material. The logistics of four people in a small car — the seating politics, the food stops, the music negotiations, the increasingly fraught proximity — are rendered with a gift for escalating absurdity that keeps the emotional sections from becoming heavy. Daf, Dylan’s friend, is a particular comic triumph.

The comedy also serves the character work. Addie’s ability to be funny when she’s stressed — and Dylan’s response to that quality — establishes the specific texture of their dynamic more efficiently than explanation could.

The Friends as Mirrors

The ensemble of Marcus and Daf provides perspective on the central relationship that Addie and Dylan can’t provide for themselves. Marcus, who is deeply invested in Addie’s wellbeing, responds to Dylan’s presence differently than Addie does, and his responses illuminate what Addie is suppressing. Daf, who is loyal to Dylan without being blind to his faults, performs a parallel function.

O’Leary uses supporting characters better than most romance writers, and this novel is a good example of why: the people around the romantic couple are not simply backdrop but genuine participants in the emotional dynamics of the situation.

The Second Chance Question

The central question of any second-chance romance is whether the people involved have actually changed enough for things to be different this time. O’Leary takes this seriously. Addie and Dylan in the present timeline are not simply older versions of themselves from two years ago; they have developed, made mistakes, learned specific things about themselves. The romance only becomes possible because of that development, not because time has passed.

This is the right answer, and The Road Trip earns it.

Our rating: 4.0/5 — O’Leary’s most emotionally complex romance. The road trip structure forces the right conversations, the comedy is sharp, and the emotional honesty is genuine.