My rating: ⭐⭐⭐
From the cover:
"Addie is visiting Ireland for her aunt’s over-the-top destination wedding, and hoping she can stop thinking about the one horrible thing she did that left her miserable and heartbroken—and threatens her future. But her brother, Ian, isn’t about to let her forget, and his constant needling leads to arguments and even a fistfight between the two once inseparable siblings. Miserable, Addie can’t wait to visit her friend in Italy and leave her brother—and her problems—behind.
So when Addie discovers an unusual guidebook, Ireland for the Heartbroken, hidden in the dusty shelves of the hotel library, she’s able to finally escape her anxious mind and Ian’s criticism.
And then their travel plans change. Suddenly Addie finds herself on a whirlwind tour of the Emerald Isle, trapped in the world’s smallest vehicle with Ian and his admittedly cute, Irish-accented friend Rowan. As the trio journeys over breathtaking green hills, past countless castles, and through a number of fairy-tale forests, Addie hopes her guidebook will heal not only her broken heart, but also her shattered relationship with her brother.
That is if they don’t get completely lost along the way."
Addie and her brother have basically been at each other's throats since a mysterious incident over the summer. The two of them are supposed to fly to Italy together after their aunt's wedding in Ireland, but Ian has other plans...a road trip across Ireland with his friend Rowan, following in the footsteps of their favorite band. When Addie finds out, she's livid--just the day before, their mom had threatened to make both of them quit sports if they didn't get along on their trip to Italy, and she needs a soccer scholarship to pay for college. Rowan suggests she come along to their first stop so she can see what the trip is all about, and she agrees, hoping she can talk some sense into Ian and get their travel plans back on course. Spoiler alert: Their travel plans do not get back on course. Instead, Addie is swept along on a stumbling block-riddled trip across Ireland, all three of them trying to repair the broken parts of themselves along the way.
This isn't a bad story, but it was a little all over the place. Lots of starts at plot and character developments that never seemed to go anywhere and things that should have been giant plot points but ultimately fell flat. Overall, I enjoyed it. However, it's incredibly frustrating to have an entire story developed around an oft-reference occurrence over the summer and then, when this big secret is finally revealed (and it was a big deal), have it relegated to a minor plot point and casually wrapped up in an epilogue. Also, real talk? If you're going to create this whole narrative around a teenage girl being pressured into sending a naked picture of herself and then have the guy she sent it to pass it around to basically the whole school, you need to deal with that shit responsibly. How did that possibly become a minor detail, wrapped up in a few pages? It's a Big Fucking Deal.
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