Review: Open Road Summer by Emery Lord

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.

Sometimes you're lucky enough to come across just the right book at just the right time and the experience is nothing short of magical. Open Road Summer was that book for me. 

Though our problems aren't identical I could relate to the emotions that drove Reagan and that made her a special main character for me. I could get underneath her skin and understand why she did what she did, why she felt how she felt, and just know that chances are even if I I hadn't made the exact same stupid choices I would have come close albeit likely in a different direction. I loved the value that was placed on friendship in this novel. I loved infinity. There is a special magic in friendship that outweighs everything and, if you have it, you're even luckier than a girl who gets to flirt with a certain special opening act.  

I adored this novel because it was exactly what I needed at exactly the right time but for so much more. It wasn't just a novel about a super talented country singer who was getting to live a life where her wildest dreams were coming true, or just a summer romance; despite the amazing things that happened it felt like a real book. And sure, we aren't all lucky enough to have best friends that we can go on tour with (isn't that what road trips are for?) or the chance to meet guys in bands from our preteen-hoods, but the emotion behind the novel is what rings true. Everyone has made mistakes, someitmes beig ones that cost more than you could ever imagine and that will continue to haunt you until you hit on just the right exorcism, or making a friendship work as you grow up and find your own dreams, or trying to find a way to reconcile your new life and the new you with your past. We've all been there, or maybe like yme you're there now, and this is the book for that.

Open Road Summer was a beautiful novel that I couldn't stand to set aside. (Thank goodness I still have another day to catch up on homework!) It's the kind of story that you just lose yourself inside and stick it out until the end. And it's worth it. Every word. Every lyric. Every acronym. 

4.5/5

~*~

Open Road Summer was recommended to me by the fabulous Shannon @leaninglights. 
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