Just didn’t really connect with this one - reading it now as older than when it came out, I would probably be more on their parents side!

A road-trip story about following your dreams and embracing the unexpected.
Megan knows what she wants out of life and she intends to get it, whatever her parents say.
Elliott has given up on all his plans for the future – but then Megan bursts into his life with a proposal that could change it forever.
Together they embark on a road trip to escape their hometown and chase their dreams. But life is a journey and not even Megan can control where theirs will lead…

A great book about finding love and finding yourself along the way too. You can run away, but you always take yourself with you.

I’m a sucker for a road trip story. In this one, Megan is desperate to get out of her sister’s shadow and get what she wants, even without her parents approval. Her desperate attempts to make that happen are at the center of this story

Will no longer be reading or reviewing this book due to lack of interest in the title, and the fact that the title has been archived.

A book about two young people getting married as a means of escape. Yes. Yes it is.

And let me tell you now: it’s pretty darn glorious.

There’s something so shocking about it, isn’t there? Two young people, nearly adults but not quite, running off to Gretna Green but supposedly in a very serious and platonic way.

It’s reckless. It’s crazy. They’re obviously not thinking.

But the best bit is… They actually are. I’m not going to ruin this with spoilers, but there is something so real about the thought process to thus whole scheme that I was down with it.



And why shouldn’t it work? If two people are committed to each other and have the same goals, what does age matter?

Here’s the full blurb, FYI:

A road-trip story about following your dreams and embracing the unexpected.

Megan knows what she wants out of life and she intends to get it, whatever her parents say.

Elliott has given up on all his plans for the future – but then Megan bursts into his life with a proposal that could change it forever.

Together they embark on a road trip to escape their hometown and chase their dreams. But life is a journey and not even Megan can control where theirs will lead…
For me, this book spoke to my 17 year old self. I went to university because I literally had no other plan (that I thought would be acceptable) and ended up applying late, moving out, doing the whole freshers thing and HATING IT. I was back home by Christmas.

It just seemed like what I HAD to do. I wasn’t ready to be a fully fledged adult but I didn’t want to let my family or my peers down by admitting that straight away.

There are so many different layers to ‘And Then We Ran’ I think you could peel it apart for a week.

It’s sweet. It’s a little bit bonkers. But it’s also very real. And it was a reading experience similar to that of when I read a Sarah Dessen book. Addictive and has a lot of muchness to it. It also doesn’t end up where you think it will and that’s really fun too.

I whizzed through it because I couldn’t stop reading. And that’s tell tale sign that it’s a good ‘un.

This is one of those books where it's all about the characters. Love the characters, love the book. Fortunately for me, I did.

It didn't take me long to fall in love with both Megan and Elliot, who were willing to take a huge risk to have a future they wanted, rather than one that their families had drawn up for them. There was a lot of playful banter between them and a few very meaningful conversations, which made me cry more than once.

The family dynamics were also very interesting. I can't even begin to imagine living in Megan's situation, where her older sister died and I understand why she felt so pressured to emulate Lizzie and felt a pressure from her parents too. I loved the discussion between the three of them at the end, I thought it was beautiful and really helped to close out the story.

Elliot's situation is also intriguing, as he refuses to ask his dad for help and, like Megan, is ready to make a fairly rash decision because he believes it's the only way out.

I loved their friendship, I loved their budding relationship. I loved Megan. I loved Elliot.

DNF, I did not enjoy the writing style of this book.

Full review available on my blog and Goodreads (linked below). Review has also been uploaded to Amazon.co.uk and the publisher's website, littletiger.co.uk.

My thoughts:

I really liked this book! It’s very much a “finding yourself” story, which I normally stay away from because they can be very cliche, but this was very well done. I liked every character and it was realistic for such a ridiculous story. I loved the setting of a seaside town in Wales, and London is my favourite place in the world so I fully understood the characters’ motives. I also loved reading about characters who know what they want from life, when there are so many stories about teenagers who just don’t care. This is a great story and I highly recommend it if you’re in the mood for a fun but thought-provoking book.

Pros:

The characters are likeable and not too over the top, and their motives are so real. I love that they know(-ish) what they want to do with their lives and I love that they’re willing to drop everything to try and achieve it.

The setting. A large chunk of the book is set in a small seaside town in Wales in the middle of winter, and it sounds similar to where I live, and I really liked that. I also loved the road trip and all the places they passed through.

The writing is wonderful – each character’s voice is distinct, and the format is beautiful, with text conversations and photographs sprinkled throughout the book.

Cons:

My only gripe is that it took a while to get from the beginning of the book into the road trip – I thought the road trip would be the main plot of the book but it doesn’t start until about 65% of the way in.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and I’ll be looking at more of Katy Cannon’s work.

Rating: 4 stars

Recommended for: Fans of Morgan Matson and Sarah Dessen, and anyone looking for a funny contemporary romance.

I tried to care for this book but I couldn't. It's about a girl called Becca who survives the death of her older sister Lizzie and feels herself tied up in being what their parents expect of her sister but not of her. So she decides to do something drastic as marrying somebody so she can go to London (where she has a flat) and pursue her dream. To do so, she picks a guy named Elliot, kind of an outcast due to his father's actions.
But he is hiding some things about Lizzie's death, and she is also trying to hide some other things about how she feels about her sister... so... that.
But I couldn't care for the book or the characters. For me they were plain and didn't have the kind of spark that makes them come alive.

I wasn't sure about this book. It was a good enough story and there were moments that I really liked, but it didn't leave much of an impression on me. The character's were cool. I liked Megan and her wild ideas. I liked the way that Elliott knew how Megan was with her crazy ideas and how willing he was to go along with her idea.

I liked the way it ended too. It was such a desperate scheme that I knew it probably all work out the way they planned it to. So I'd guessed pretty much how it would end, at least for Megan. But I like the way it came together quite neatly, even if I was rooting for them to pull it all off.

I wasn't sure about the treatment of grief in the book. I guess that most of the grief really takes place before the book starts. Megan has reach a point where she's ready to move on and become her own person, even if her parents still weren't.

So basically, I enjoyed reading this book, but it wasn't one that is especially good or especially bad. It was interesting but not anything special.

And Then We Ran by Katy Cannon was released April 2017. Cannon does an amazing job in creating the plot and setting for this book. I really like how she created characters that are life like and believable. They are the types of characters that you can relate to. When I think about most road trip novels that I have read in the last, I think of a nightmarish or scary type of ending. I found this ending to be a complete surprise. This book deals with family issues, financial issues, and romance. I feel that this book stresses on the importance of listening to the people who care about you, like your parents and friends. Everyone needs a support system. So loves, as you can tell I really liked this book and the messages it sends. I seriously recommend this book

*I read this March 2017. I read it as an arc. As always, this is my honest opinion.

This one was a miss for me. I liked the idea of it, but the execution of it didn't work too well.

Summary:

A road-trip story about following your dreams and embracing the unexpected.
Megan knows what she wants out of life and she intends to get it, whatever her parents say.
Elliott has given up on all his plans for the future – but then Megan bursts into his life with a proposal that could change it forever.
Together they embark on a road trip to escape their hometown and chase their dreams. But life is a journey and not even Megan can control where theirs will lead…

Megan reads very over the top, and I think that's how she's supposed to read, but it's not exactly charming. I liked Elliott a bit more.

This book was enjoyable because it was a quick read and distracted me from homework for a couple of hours. It's a very light, contemporary, and I guess I was expecting it to be a bit deeper, especially when it deals with the death of a loved one.

One thing that irked me for most of the book is Megan's love for photography. She claims it's her passion and what she wants to do, but isn't aware that a bachleor's in photography even exists. My parents are photographers. My dad just left for Europe on a tour to work on his portfolio for travel photography. It is not an easy job. Photos don't come out of the camera ready to go. There's editing skills you need to know, business skills-you need to make profit from this. This is kind of sort of addressed by the end of the book, but I was irritated with Megan's constant simple approach to a business that is hard.

Toward the end of the book, there's a redemption scene, but it feels forced and superficial and basically like it was put there because it had to be there. It wasn't too convincing, and I wasn't attached to any of the characters to feel much of anything.

I think that's the main problem I had with this book. I wanted it to feel closer to the characters that I felt. I was told over and over what people thought about the main characters and what they wanted for themselves, but I never identified or felt pity or anything. A lot of it just seemed convinient.

It also reminded me a little of Nobody but Us by Kristin Halbrook and that is not a good thing. I disliked that novel so much I deleted it completely off of my kindle library. It no longer exists in my world.

At the end of the day, this is a light read that will kill a couple of hours, and maybe that's what you need, but it's not going to blow your mind with beautiful writing or story.

While I'm not a fan of demonising parents, I thought And Then We Ran did a spectacular job of explaining its own logic and putting everything into perspective. This is a pretty spectacular plot, so Cannon had her work cut out for her to make it 1) plausible and 2) convincing. I though both were achieved excellently!

There's a danger with road-trip novels that things are going to get a bit too episodic, but that really wasn't the case. To make a successful road-trip story you need to have threads that run through the entire book and impact the decisions the characters make. I was completely not expecting the dimension of guilt Megan felt about her sister. It gave And Then We Ran a really emotional core, but not so that it was too heavy and meant Megan couldn't pursue her own personality and interests.

The balance between family troubles, financial troubles and the romance is also spot-on. While I was far more interested in Megan, adding two POVs to this story also made things run smoothly. The moves between Elliott and Megan were seamless and I thought both were equally complex characters. (Obviously, Elliot needs some drive too so that he's equally invested in this whole marriage thing!)

Also, I loved how much emphasis there was on university and making sure you're picking the right course for you. I'm beginning to notice a shift from secondary school to pre-university focused stories in UKYA now and it's giving me LIFE. I honestly wish I had this book before I was going to uni, because it just proves that you have to follow your dream and be authentically you, but this book also shows how important it is listen to your parents and the people that care about you generally. I think And Then We Ran's main focus is on having a support system - and that doesn't have to be parents, it can be friends or teachers, whatever! - so long as people are there for you to help make decisions that could change your life forever.

Generally, I was worried that this book would paint teenagers as reckless, impulsive and irresponsible, but after finishing it that is definitely NOT the case. It shows teen thought processes in their best and worst lights, and both are necessary!

As you can yell, I really liked the messages in this book! I wasn't too fussed about the romance, but I really appreciated the craft! And Then We Ran is full of life-like characters and real-life lessons, and I would seriously recommend it!

Thank you to NetGallery for offering me a copy for review!

I adored this story so much, I loved everything about it – the characters, the setting, everything. It left me warm and fuzzy (and crying) upon the end of the book. It was my first Katy Cannon book but I doubt it will be my last, her writing is so wonderful.

The story follows Megan, who's older sister recently died in a tragic accident. Her parents also want Megan to be her sister, they want her to become very academic like her sister. Although Megan has other plans and dreams, like photography. There's also Elliott who has given up on his dreams as he was left to help out his mother soon after their father put a black cloud over their family.

I really liked Megan, she was so smart and strong willed. She has a goal and she's so determined to achieve it and I loved that about her. Elliott is having a hard time as people from their town are still not over what his father did, and so he lives in that shadow. He's having such a hard time deciding what he wants to do with his future.

The story is told from both perspectives and when I first started reading I thought I wouldn't enjoy it. I was so so so wrong. Elliott was such a wonderful character and I loved reading his thoughts. It also adds to the story as you see both of them falling for each other without realising they both were. I was so absorbed into the story that I finished the novel in a day. I can't tell you how good it was. Megan and Elliott are so darn cute and it was wonderful to read their journey.

The straight forward road trip turns into a mess across the country as they are short on time. This part of the story had me laughing a lot, I loved the fact that they made friends during their journey, it just added to the story. I did find the fact that their journey became chaotic slightly predictable, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

This is such a cute summery read, its definitely going into my top 3. I would also love to see this book made into a movie, I think there's potential for that, or maybe the writing was so descriptive I imagined it as a movie. It was so good, I urge you to read it when it comes out!

Here is my full review of the book on my blog - http://www.isthisreallife.co.uk/2017/03/book-round-up-3.html

Great novel for Teens. Love the relationships between the characters and their interactions! It is told from the point of view of both Megan and Elliott, and they have great voices.

If you are looking for a heart-warming novel about teens finding themselves this is for you!

I really enjoyed this one. If you like:

-the beach
-hot boys
-roadtrips
-teen humour

You should totally check it out.

Review will be up close to release.

The book is written from the point of view of both Megan and Elliott. This definitely added to the story as we saw both of them falling for each other without realising they both were, which was cute as hell. I love books like this, you're expecting a happy ending but don't know when, where or how it's going to happen. I was quite sad it wasn't until the end because I really wanted to see them together more.

The characters are extremely well written. I can't personally relate to Megan's story but can imagine how awful it must be having your parents pressure you into your future, my family allows me to make all my own choices. The way she grows throughout the book, even though her plans are a little crazy, is great to see. I love that her parents finally come around in the end, it's a shame it takes her so much to make them see what she wants but it happens (I'm not suggesting you should run off to elope to get something from your parents)

The texts between Sean and Becca also added something in the book, Becca is Megan's best friend, Sean is Elliott's brother. These two also end up in a fling/romance/friends-with-benefits (they don't really know) thing. And this is another relationship most of us can relate too, that, is it happening yes or no kind of thing. It was a nice second storyline in the book. I also loved the pictures, however, because I got an uncut edit some of the pictures on my iPad didn't show properly which was a shame.

I think I loved this book even more because it was set in British Secondary School and I could relate to the grades and system for the first time in a book as I did a-levels myself. Also the fact that it's set in Wales, which is where I'm currently living, made it all the better. The name Swansea popped up (I think that is genuinely the first time I've seen it in a book) and I was like yes, I live there. I recognised the stories about the beaches and the town and also about Megan going into the pub and becoming friends with two older men and the bartender, because people here really are friendly and will have a conversation with you and become your temporary friend.

I really hope there is a second part to this book that tells us more about Megan and hopefully Elliott's adventures in London as well as Sean and Becca's potential romance.