Review: Don't Stop Now

Goodreads Summary: On the first day of Lillian’s summer-before-college, she gets a message on her cell from her sort-of friend, Penny. Not only has Penny faked her own kidnapping, but Lil is the only one who figures it out. She knows that Penny’s home life has been rough, and that her boyfriend may be abusive. Soon, Penny’s family, the local police, and even the FBI are grilling Lil, and she decides to head out to Oregon, where Penny has mentioned an acquaintance. And who better to road-trip across the country with than Lil’s BFF, Josh. But here’s the thing: Lil loves Josh. And Josh doesn’t want to “ruin” their amazing friendship. Josh has a car and his dad’s credit card. Lil has her cellphone and a hunch about where Penny is hiding. There’s something else she needs to find: Are she and Josh meant to be together?

Road trips and a possible best friend romance OH MY! For those two reasons, and those two reasons alone [Okay, so maybe I kind of sort of liked the cover too...] I had to have this novel. Those are a few of my favorite things after all...and everyone is always saying I need to read more contemporary. Win-win, right?


I'm not sure how long I debated over my Goodreads star rating of this particular book. Back and forth between two and three stars for like ever basically. I liked the book, I really did like the book...but I was disappointed by it too. It had so many amazing things going for it [an epic road trip and a best friend romance] and yet, I feel it was missing something vital.


The characters were cute, interesting and I liked the banter between them. I love reading about best friends, especially with the possibility of romance, because of all that history. The inside jokes, the closeness and so on. They always make for a great relationship. This aspect of the novel I thought was on the adorable side. I loved the way that Lil and Josh were together. They felt special.


I did have some problems with this one though. It took absentee parents to a whole new level. The teens, albeit they were freshly graduated and granted new responsibilities and freedoms, basically could do as they wanted and run free. There were issues with the parents, typical teen/parent stuff, but I don't feel like too much of it really got resolved except in the most basic form. Also, for this crazy spur of the moment road trip...I just felt like things went way too easily for them. I expected insanity. I mean, things do go wrong on road trips, everything isn't smooth sailing but for our protagonists it kind of, basically, was.


Overall it was a cute, quick contemporary read. Definitely something that I would recommend for those lazy days of summer, or any vacation or down time really. Its light, entertaining and sweet. But its final star rating after immense thought and review? A two stars...it was okay but I wanted more.