Review: The Geography of Lost Things by Jessica Brody
10:00
Series: None
Author: Jessica Brody
Published October 2nd 2018 by Simon Pulse
Goodreads Synopsis
In this romantic road trip story perfect for fans of Sarah Dessen and Morgan Matson, a teen girl discovers the value of ordinary objects while learning to forgive her absent father.
After Ali’s father passes away, he leaves his one and only prized possession—a 1968 Firebird convertible—to his daughter. But Ali doesn’t plan on keeping it. Not when it reminds her too much of all her father’s unfulfilled promises. So when she finds a buyer three hundred miles up the Pacific coast willing to pay enough money for the car to save her childhood home, Ali can’t wait to get going. Except Ali has no idea how to drive a stick shift. But guess who does?
Ali’s ex-boyfriend, Nico. And Nico has other plans.
He persuades Ali that instead of selling the car, they should “trade up” the items they collect on their trip to eventually reach the monetary amount Ali needs. Agreeing with Nico’s crazy plan, Ali sets off on a unique adventure that is unlike anything she ever could have expected.
And it’s through Ali’s travels, through the strangers she meets and the things that they value—and why they value them—that Ali eventually comes to understand her father and how his life may not have been as easy and carefree as she previously thought. Because just like the seemingly insignificant objects Ali collects, not everything is exactly as it appears.
Goodreads
Review
I hadn't really seen much about this book, until Simon and Schuster did their free reads advent calendar and this was one of them. I quickly read the synopsis on GR, and decided to give it a read as I was free for the day and it seemed like a book I would enjoy. In The Geography of Lost Things, Ali has inherited her father's beloved car, and wants rid of it asap! Her father was absent for much of her life, and cared only about the car, really, and she would really rather have the money, because her family desperately needs it. She finds a buyer over 300 miles away, and needs to do a road trip to get it over to the other side of the country, but she can't drive it, as it's a manual, not an automatic. The only person she knows who can help just happens to be her ex-boyfriend, Nico, who agrees to drive, if she tries to make the money in another way. He thinks that if they sell things they buy along the way, what they might think is insignificant but others valuable, they might be able to raise the money without selling the last connection she has to her father.
I went into this book expecting quite a cute and fluffy contemporary, but there were some harder hitting themes, and it wasn't all sweetness and light. Ali, no matter how much she wanted to hate her father, also loved him, even though he wasn't there, and the grief over losing him only starts to really hit her as she crosses the country more and more. We have flashbacks to when their life was good, and I liked the contrast between past and present. Ali and Nico, being exes, were awkward to start off with, but there was always chemistry between them, and I liked how their relationship was explored. I'm glad I read this, but don't know if I would be jumping to reread it, because it wasn't very memorable.
Dates Read:
Rating
3 Stars
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