YA Road Trip Books: Julie's Weekly Review

Amy Curry thinks her life sucks. Her mom decides to move from California to Connecticut to start anew--just in time for Amy's senior year. Her dad recently died in a car accident. So Amy embarks on a road trip to escape from it all, driving cross-country from the home she's always known toward her new life. Joining Amy on the road trip is Roger, the son of Amy's mother's old friend. Amy hasn't seen him in years, and she is less than thrilled to be driving across the country with a guy she barely knows. So she's surprised to find that she is developing a crush on him. At the same time, she's coming to terms with her father's death and how to put her own life back together after the accident. Told in traditional narrative as well as scraps from the road--diner napkins, motel receipts, postcards--this is the story of one girl's journey to find herself.

WHY I LOVE THIS BOOK: The beauty of road trip books is that you take the character out of their normal lives and their world and somehow you always end getting more insight into their world by pulling them from it than when you go through the everyday motions. I love when characters get impulsive and do exactly what they want to and that’s what happens in this book. The scrapbook pages and the playlists are so much fun as are the conversations and games of twenty questions between Amy and Roger. I kept waiting for one of them to explode and get mad at the other and start walking home or something because that seems to be what happens in a lot of these books and I loved that it didn’t happen. The two cross country adventurists get along just fine and the conflict is both internal and external without affecting their relationships. The missions that they go on are so fun and important. I feel like they accomplished years of growing and learning in just a handful of days. The development of the relationship was believable and natural. I mean, I know it’s not a long time but we all know when you’re isolated with someone whether it’s traveling or camping or something that keeps you together twenty four seven its like you can multiple the days times ten and compare that to real time.

WHO SHOULD READ THIS BOOK: Probably best for 12 or 13 and up and anyone who likes to see characters start in dark place and find the light as the story unfolds. That’s exactly what happens to Amy. Roger is a bright light right from the beginning and all you want to do is keep turning the pages and watch how he spills some of himself onto Amy little by little.

Julie’s Top 10 YA Road trip Books

1) Two Way Street by Lauren Barnholdt
2) Crash Into Me by Michael Frost and Albert Borris
3) From What I Remember by Stacy Kramer and
4) Wanderlove by Kristen Hubbard
5) The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour
6) Paper Towns by John Green
7) In Honor by Jessi Kirby
8) An Abundance Of Katherines by John Green
9) Don’t Stop Now by Julie Halpern
10) Getting Lost With Boys by Hailey Abbott

Julie’s TBR List Of YA Road Trip Books

Thou Shalt Not Road Trip by Antony John
Nobody But Us by Kristin Halbrook
Reunited by Hilary Weisman Graham *Ashelynn's note: REUNITED is so, so good.
You Are Here by Jennifer E. Smith

UN-COVERED #7: How Mark Got Into Modelling

Mark Perini aka model Jackson

So . . . Mark is pretty much the coolest guy ever. You can tell by the past UN-COVERED episodes: 

Episode #1
Episode #2
Episode #3
Episode #4
Episode #5
Episode #6 

Or even just by reading his "how I got into Modelling" story because it's AWESOME. 

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The story of how I got started goes like this...I was working at Abercrombie Kids and they were having a casting at the store in NYC at South Street Seaport...In preparation for the event the managers at each of the retail stores picked a person or two that they thought would be a good fit for the campaign...So I got picked and one other girl from the store. 

This girl Kaitlyn, my manager at the time and myself  all went into NYC for this casting. (Side-note is that I almost didn't go because I had a quiz at school and I thought that there was no freaken way I was going to get picked.) 

[editor's note: I wouldn't even be THINKING about school if this was happening to me.] 

 

When I got to the casting early in the morning there were over 200 people there. And I kept thinking I should have just gone to school. While nervously waiting for our turn we were told by the casting director that we would be on video tape talking about a fake excursion to find Nessy the Loch Ness Monster. When I finally got to go I put on a goofy Scottish accent and just had as much fun possible answering all the questions. 

 Two weeks later I got a call from a Ryan Scott from Abercrombie and he asked if I had any interest in going to LA to do a job for Hollister Co. I was so stoked i was jumping up and down. And I said of course I did. And that was the start of it all...One interesting note was that the whole job was shot on film not digital. I suppose now I'm aging myself.
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SEE? He's awesome. ;) We like Mark.