REVIEW – OPEN ROAD SUMMER by Emery Lord

Open Road Summer 
by Emery Lord
Publisher – Bloomsbury US Children’s
Release Date –  March 23rd 2015
Buy – Amazon | Book Depository

After breaking up with her bad-news boyfriend, Reagan O’Neill is ready to leave her rebellious ways behind. . . and her best friend, country superstar Lilah Montgomery, is nursing a broken heart of her own.

Fortunately, Lilah’s 24-city tour is about to kick off, offering a perfect opportunity for a girls-only summer of break-up ballads and healing hearts. But when Matt Finch joins the tour as its opening act, his boy-next-door charm proves difficult for Reagan to resist, despite her vow to live a drama-free existence.

This summer, Reagan and Lilah will navigate the ups and downs of fame and friendship as they come to see that giving your heart to the right person is always a risk worth taking.

A fresh new voice in contemporary romance, Emery Lord’s gorgeous writing hits all the right notes.

Another brilliant read for my reading group last month. I think contemporaries are certainly a hit for me these days. It’s all I’m in the mood for. If you have any recommendations of novels like these please do let us know. I read this with my lovely friend Glass and we had a blast, continuous fangirling, tweets, hashtags and lots of reminiscing of our lives too. Open Road Summer really is the perfect summer read, it will get you into that road trip romances that we always love. Today both myself and glass will be sharing our reviews of Open Road Summer so be sure to visit her blog here.

The Storyline – Both Reagan and Dee have lost something in their lives, Dee her boyfriend, Reagan her way in life. Two very unlikely personas have been friends for many years and now. Over the summer they spend time with each, reminisce of the past and the present and more importantly grow as friends. This storyline was really quite something, it was like you were on the roadtrip with them. And right now that’s all I want to do with my friends and my man. This is the perfect summer read to get you in that mood.

The Characters – Reagan isn’t a bad girl she just fell into the wrong crowd but she has a lot of people around her, like Dee to help her out of it too. I can tell though that she was very much on guard with her best friend making sure she’s okay as well as trying not to let herself go with the tour either. So this tour across america was a way to reconnect with herself, with nature and life as well as her photography. I especially loved that part of her character as that is connecting with the creative part in me too. I loved how she even replaced her bathroom light to become a red room for developing photos. I want to do that. Lol. Dee or Lilah, is essentially two people, the singer and the normal teenage girl. Her character reminded me of Chloe from Something Real. There is two sides to her but only so few people see the normal in her. Dee is constantly reminded of her celebrity status on tour, for once she just wants the freedom of being a normal teenager like everyone else. Is that really too much to ask for.

The Romance – At first I think both myself and Glass thought a bit of jealousy would come between Dee and Reagan with relationship with Matt. Or even a love triangle but that wasn’t the case. Matt is very much the romantic which I loved as it was a way to break down Reagan’s walls. I guess you could say that Matt serenades you with his music and songs. How I wish I could hear those songs to life. Well it made me fall in love with him the first time around. There was certainly a lot of squealing and fangirling at these parts. .

The Friendship – Open Road Summer wasn’t just about the romance, and it by all means wasn’t the only relationship in the novel too. What I’m taking about is that Emery didn’t put the romance and the friendship on the sidelines when either one was spotlighted, she did it both equally. In the end, friendship is just as important as your romantic relationship too. It your friendships that can start a deeper relationship, it’s the friends that are always there no matter what. Whether they are next door or across the seas. It’s those that even though you may not speak with each other for ages, they are the ones you turn too when your need a friend, because they know you more than anyone else. Reagan and Dee are the embodiment of that friendship.

The Writing – All the matters is that this novel made me reflect and reminisce on my friendships and the people that I love around me. That speaks volumes and words about the writing of this novel and I just adored it. Emery by all means has a way of words, heartfelt, true, honest, emotional and damn near perfect. Some scenes I will not tell which just showed you how amazing when you compare them to the likes of Katie McGarry, I think by then regardless of that I think we were onto a true contemporary winner.

Rating – 5

Here is just some of the fangirling tweets that we shared…

@NverJudgeaBook THE KISS!!!!! *screams* Emma!!!!!! THIS!!!! <3

— Glass@Ja čitam,a ti? (@jacitamati) June 16, 2015

@jacitamati My heart just melted. Have you got to this bit yet? Need to fangirl. Hehe. #openroadsummer #RLBookclub pic.twitter.com/i4mF314pfN

— Emma (@NverJudgeaBook) June 16, 2015