Review: Two Way Street by Lauren Barnholdt

Two Way Street by Lauren Barnholdt
Released: June 2007
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Source: Bought for Kindle
Rating: 3/5

Goodreads Description:

This is Jordan and Courtney, totally in love. Sure, they were an unlikely high school couple. But they clicked; it worked. They're even going to the same college, and driving cross-country together for orientation.
Then Jordan dumps Courtney -- for a girl he met on the Internet.
It's too late to change plans, so the road trip is on. Courtney's heartbroken, but figures she can tough it out for a few days. La la la -- this is Courtney pretending not to care.
But in a strange twist, Jordan cares. A lot.
Turns out, he's got a secret or two that he's not telling Courtney. And it has everything to do with why they broke up, why they can't get back together, and how, in spite of it all, this couple is destined for each other.

My thoughts:

Me and Two Way Street got off to a bad start. I didn't really like either Courtney or Jordan much and I never really warmed to them. I found Courtney a bt precious and whiny, too controlling. Jordan was just a bit of a jerk really. I didn't like him at all, he's the sort of boy I absolutely detest. A massive tool who treats women as his playthings, has no respect for them and doesn't treat them with dignity. I get that he 'changed' because of Courtney but still, I really didn't like him.

I really liked the idea of this book, going on a road trip with your ex is possibly the most painful thing ever. Being trapped in a confined space with them, for hours, with very little to do.... I kinda liked how they both wound each other up, pretending to speak to people on the phone that they knew would annoy the other and things like that. They were both kinda manipulative and a bit bitchy. I think that's how we'd all be, in the situation, though we'd like to think we wouldn't be.

There wasn't that much of a road trip feel to this book, in that they wanted to get from point A to B and there wasn't much stopping in between.It didn't feel as road trippy as I anticipated it being, which was a bit of a shame, but I still enjoyed the tension between the two and the road trip elements we did have.

The revelation of the book was pretty heavily hinted at, even from the off which I found a bit surprising. I wasn't sure if it was the author's intention for the reader to know exactly why they broke up or not, but I did kinda like the dynamic it set up of knowing Jordan's motivations, knowing what Courtney thought and the discrepancy between the two. I did feel the pain at their break up was a little diminished by the fact they were only together about 3 months....I was a little sceptical of that and I feel the book would've worked better if they'd been together a little bit longer, though I could see why it had been written that way. I was also let down by the ending which I felt was a bit easy, a bit too rushed.

This review seems really negative, but it isn't. I did enjoy reading this book, but I did have some very specific issues with it as you can see above. Overall though, I did actually like it, just not as much as I thought I would or as much as everyone else seems to!

Today Liz is reviewing How to Be Bad!