Where the Road Takes Me by Jay McLean

4 Stars!

"You can run, you can hide, you can choose not to see, but where the road takes you will always lead to me."

               The best way I can think of to describe this book is The Fault in Our Stars meets The Edge of Never, except leaning more towards the cute side instead of the emotionally destructive one. Unfortunately, I've noticed a few people are less than impressed and complain that it's cliche. Which it is, popular boy finally notices invisible girl in a bizarre chain of events and suddenly can't look away. And yeah, I get it, it's been done a thousand times, but it's still a good story. Perfect for when you want to feel something, but not necessarily be reduced to a blubbering mess for days on end. That's what people should be thinking about. There's a reason why these things are written about over and over again in different ways, we can't help but love stories like this.

               Blake Hunter seems like the real all-American guy. A regular Troy Bolton. A Basketball star with a bright future, an honorable military father and accomplished novelist mother, and a perfect cheerleader girlfriend. He's the guy every girl wants and who every guy wishes he was. He has a picture perfect life, but no one can see the lies the frame hides. No one sees that his father is colonel and treats his son like nothing more than a soldier under his boot and his mother is an alcoholic living in the guest house out back. No one sees that his girlfriend might as well have sharp teeth and claws, and he's struggling with one of the hardest decisions of his life. Until Chloe. Chloe is the girl that sees everything and makes a life out of being invisible. They've never had a reason to interact until a chance night in the park where they're trying to escape their inner demons in an attempt to feel nothing at all; causing them to run smack into each other. Literally. Chloe is unlike anyone Blake's ever met. She stops to smell the roses and does exactly what she wants, consequences be damned, yet still seems to be carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders and he can't seem to figure her out. Meanwhile, Chloe's trying to keep everyone at arms length, counting down the days to graduation when she will leave on The Road and just drive for the rest of her life. However long that is. Letting whatever's going on between her and Blake become anything isn't part of the plan. But plans can change.

               Apart, Blake doesn't know what he wants and is too afraid to find out for fear of the consequences and Chloe thinks she knows exactly what she wants, but it probably isn't what she needs. Together, they start to figure things out and learn some valuable things about themselves and life along the way. But as the timer Chloe's set in their time together approaches, they'll have to make a decision, to stay as they've always been or to take a crazy leap of faith and find out just Where the Road Takes Me.