YA Road Trip!

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yaYA Road Trip by Josephine Angelini @ Bookish.com

Who says road trip books have to be read on the road? Or that they have to be about gas station stops and broken ACs? As a part of our ongoing series with Macmillan’s Fierce Reads authors, Josephine Angelini turns road trip reads on their head by letting us know why she doesn’t like reading on the road and why she prefers her own loose definition of a ‘road trip’ book. Here, the Trial by Fire author proves that a good road trip book doesn’t need cliches, just some great adventures of how to get from A to B.

I love road trips. I’ve been all over the continent, including one epic trek from NYC to LA that I did completely solo. I wandered all over the map—nearly three weeks on the road all by my lonesome. It was one of the best things I ever did.

I also love books. I just moved this past weekend and even the movers commented on the book-to-clothing ratio being heavily on the book side. Heck, I think my books actually outweighed my furniture, and I have a ginormous couch.

So, I love road trips and I love books. But I have to be honest, I’m not much of a reader when I’m on the road. I’ve never taken a book to read on a road trip. Never missed having a book while I was on the road, either. I do write while traveling, though, even if it’s just in my journal. The way I see it, I’m getting out into the world to experience my actual surroundings and maybe even take note of them, not to get lost in a book I can read just as well back at home. A girl’s gotta experience life as it happens in order to write about it, after all.

That being said, I do enjoy books about road trips. In fact, I think all great quest books are essentially road tips books. And I love quest books. Here is a list of some of the YA reads that I love the most.

  1. 1.The Lost Sun

    This is the first book in the New Asgard series. A berserker and an oracle go on the road to find a missing god and bring him back before the whole world is destroyed. It’s a great love story. Also, I have a thing for books about modern-day gods.

  2. 2.Dragonsong

    A girl runs away after a terrible accident robs her of the ability to play music. She ends up in a place about as different from her home as can be. I’ve loved this book since I read it when I was a young teen.

  3. 3.Blackbird

    Not technically a road trip, but oh well. A girl wakes up on the subway tracks and has no idea who she is or how she got there. While she doesn’t travel very far, there is so much moving about that it feels like a quest book. There are great details in this one concerning place and climate. It feels like LA feels, which to me feels kinda like a road trip, possibly because everyone in LA spends so much time in their cars.

  4. 4.Graceling

    The king’s reluctant assassin goes on a journey with a hot foreign guy. Love (and bloodshed) is in the air. Perfecto.

  5. 5.After the End

    A sled-boat-foot then eventually car trip that goes from Alaska to the desert. This is a far ranging YA story that definitely moves.

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