Amy & Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson

I don't read a lot of YA (young adult fiction), but I do read some.  I loved the Harry Potter series, for a while I talked to everyone I saw about Twilight (just ask my poor husband) and even though I was shocked that Hunger Games was written for a YA audience, I loved it as well.  I also read a lot of YA book blogs.  Honestly, most book blogs seem to be YA focused.  That is where I found my latest read.  Amy & Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson came highly recommended by Estelle @ RatherBeReading. 

Amy & Roger's Epic Detour is told from the perspective of Amy, a soon-to-be high school senior being forced to move across the country.  Her father has just died (something for which she blames herself), her twin brother is in rehab, and she is not happy about being uprooted.  To solve more than one moving issue, Amy's mother asks a family friend to drive cross country with Amy in her car.  This family friend is, of course, Roger.  Roger is a college student that is suffering from a recent heartbreak.  Amy's mom has a road trip arranged including hotel rooms reserved for each night.  The trip is intended to take four days, but Roger and Amy decide a little detour is in order.  And so begins a journey during which Amy and Roger have a chance to discover the country and themselves. 

As I said, I do read YA, but not a lot because I often feel there isn't quite enough meat for me.  That is how I felt about this book.  It was okay.  Amy is an awkward, insecure teenage girl, but that really started to irritate me after a few chapters.  Roger is a nice guy, but he is obviously hung up on a girl that none of friends like because she treated him so badly.  They can see what she is, but Roger can't.  

I did enjoy reading about the road trip.  It was fun to read about all the different things Amy and Roger saw and all the local food they ate.  The only thing about the food that irked me was when Matson described Roger sipping a Dairy Queen Blizzard through a straw and calling it a drink.  You cannot sip a Blizzard.  Blizzards are cups of thick soft serve with toppings mixed in.  Blizzards are so thick that when the DQ employee hands you your Blizzard, they are required to turn it upside down first.  You cannot sip a Blizzard.  I also liked the secondary characters that Amy & Roger met along the way.  I would love to have a friend like Bronwyn and as awkward as Amy feels, everyone she meets seems to really like her.

Overall, this was a quick, entertaining read, but I don't know to whom I would recommend it.  On GoodReads, I gave this one three stars.