Ames’ review of Thou Shalt Not Road Trip by Antony John.
Main Character: Luke
Love Interest: Fran
Series: n/a
Author: Website|Facebook|Goodreads
When sixteen-year-old Luke’s book, Hallelujah, becomes a national bestseller, his publishing house sends him on a cross-country book tour with his older brother, Matt, as chauffeur. But when irresponsible Matt offers to drive Luke’s ex–soul mate, Fran, across the country too, things get a little crazy. On the trip, Luke must loosen up, discover what it truly means to have faith, and do what it takes to get the girl he loves.
The title of this book should have tipped me off to what the content would be about, but I was totally oblivious to the religious overtone. LOL Even the beginning didn’t clue me in.
Luke Dorsey is a 16 year old who wrote an inspirational book and he’s getting ready to head off on a book tour. The book begins with an excerpt from Luke’s own book and I have to admit, it had me laughing out loud. It was about his brother making fun of him for being so short, and there was mention of a leprechaun. It had me laughing and I thought I was in for a fun ride. But oh no – the book did not live up to that initial promise.
It all started with Luke’s older brother, Matt, who is going to chauffeur Luke across America on his book tour. He kind of takes over things and Luke is powerless to stop him. But that’s a bit misleading – Luke doesn’t really put up much of a fight when Matt takes over. He could have called his parents or his publicist from the hotel or something if he didn’t really care for the way things were going. And Matt was such a jerk! He made Luke late to several book signings and that’s only one aspect of what he did on their road trip. The other is inviting his girlfriend and his girlfriend’s sister along. Luke and Fran were friends the year before, like best friends. But Fran changed and that change is in part of why Luke wrote the book he did. Him and Fran are no longer friends and she makes things very uncomfortable for him. That wasn’t too bad, but the way Matt went about bringing them along and the reason why he takes over the road trip is just so freaking selfish. It annoyed the hell out of me. And Luke’s “it wasn’t me, it was out of my control” victim routine was also annoying. Ugh. I do not like doormat characters and Luke was the epitome of that.
I can’t be too hard on the book though because Luke does learn some lessons along the way (and he backslides a bit but comes through in the end) and I can see this being a good book to someone who doesn’t have the same issues with the characters as I did. But I just couldn’t get past my annoyance. There were some other laugh out loud moments but not many.
Another cool thing that I was able to do with this book was follow along on google maps. Luke and Matt go on the old Route 66 highway and the things they saw and the places they visited I was able to look up. It makes me want to go on a road trip of my own. 😛
Thou Shalt Not Road Trip gets a C from me. It was ok.
..and that’s your scoop!
Book cover and blurb credit: http://www.goodreads.com
You know, it should have tipped me off to (the title of the book) but that went right over my head. Oh, well…it still sounds interesting.
Thanks so much for the review Ames, I heart you big time!
Oh
I was hoping this book would be awesome but I hate characters that play victim and the book doesn’t sound funny after all 🙁 that’s sad.
Wena-You’re welcome. And yeah, we’re so not observant about things. LOL
Alex-Yeah. The beginning really had my hopes up. 🙁