Right of Way by Lauren Barnholdt

About the book

Right of Way is a contemporary young adult novel by Lauren Barnholdt. It was published by Simon Pulse on 9^th July and the book is 320 pages long. I received and e-book for review.

Synopsis (Taken from Goodreads.com)

Here are Peyton and Jace, meeting on vacation. Click! It’s awesome, it’s easy, it’s romantic. This is the real deal.

Unless it isn’t. Because when you’re in love, you don’t just stop calling one day. And you don’t keep secrets. Or lie. And when your life starts falling apart, you’re supposed to have the other person to lean on.

Here are Peyton and Jace again, broken up but thrown together on a road trip. One of them is lying about the destination. One of them is pretending not to be leaving something behind. And neither of them is prepared for what’s coming on the road ahead…

What I thought

Right of Way is the companion novel to Two-Way Street, which was released quite a while ago now. I didn’t even realise this before reading the book. However, you don’t need to have read Two-Way Street before reading this one and it can work as a stand-alone. The characters from Two-Way Street do make appearances in this one although you won’t be confused about who they are.

I really enjoyed this book from the first page. We meet protagonist Peyton sitting in some bushes, having a massive panic because her plans for the whole summer have just been messed up. She’s stuck in Florida after going to a wedding, her parents have flown home already and she is all on her own. Peyton and her best friend were supposed to be running away to North Carolina but her best friend’s mum found out and pretty much has her on house arrest. Now, Peyton is stuck in Florida with very little money and no way of either getting home or to North Carolina.

Jace is Peyton’s knight in shining armour – even though they have some awkward past and they’re not really speaking. Jace steps up and offers to drive Peyton home, not realising at all what he’s getting himself into. I loved Jace because even though he knew things were awkward between him and Peyton, he still did the right thing and looked after her. He was gentlemanly and kind and thoughtful when he decided to go on this road trip.

Right of Way is told through a dual narrative. Both Peyton and Jace get their own chapters. However, this book is done slightly differently. Chapters go between the past and the present and through Peyton and Jace. Telling the story this way meant we got to learn about what happened with Jace and Peyton before and to know why things are so weird between them. These things are slowly revealed throughout the book which meant there was always a little bit of mystery about what had actually happened.

The actual road trip taken in this book is really entertaining. Jace and Peyton get themselves into some quite funny situations which had me giggling while there are also some more serious things going on at the same time. The past/ present narrative breaks up the monotony of them driving for so many miles and it also made the book fun. I do wish we had gotten a little bit more of them on the road though as it didn’t seem to last very long.

While this was a fun and cute read, the end was very abrupt. I felt as though everything ended far too quickly and I wanted answers. Some things were answered well but there were some massive issues which were just left up in the air. I would have liked for either everything to have been dealt with or to know that there was going to be a second book.