Let's Get Lost by @AdiAlsaid Review

Let's Get Lost by Adi Alsaid
Release Date: July 29, 2014
Publisher: Harlequin Teen; 352 pages
Rating: 

Five strangers. Countless adventures. One epic way to get lost.

Four teens across the country have only one thing in common: a girl named LEILA. She crashes into their lives in her absurdly red car at the moment they need someone the most.

There's HUDSON, a small-town mechanic who is willing to throw away his dreams for true love. And BREE, a runaway who seizes every Tuesday—and a few stolen goods along the way. ELLIOT believes in happy endings…until his own life goes off-script. And SONIA worries that when she lost her boyfriend, she also lost the ability to love.

Hudson, Bree, Elliot and Sonia find a friend in Leila. And when Leila leaves them, their lives are forever changed. But it is during Leila's own 4,268-mile journey that she discovers the most important truth— sometimes, what you need most is right where you started. And maybe the only way to find what you're looking for is to get lost along the way.

 Everyone needs to go on a road trip at least once in their lives.  A few years ago, a group of friends and I took a drive to Nashville, Tennessee and it was so much fun.  While reading Let's Get Lost, I would frequently have flashbacks to my own road trip.  But the really cool thing about this book is that it's not told from Leila's (the girl on the road trip) point of view.  It's seen through the eyes of those she meets along the way.  I personally love this concept.  It reminds you that the amount of time that you meet someone no way shapes how much of an impact they can have on your life.  I can think of quite a few people who I've only met on a few occasions and how memories of them make me smile or laugh.

Let's Get Lost starts off with Hudson.  A recent high school graduate who works in a garage.  Hudson is getting ready to leave home for college, and is about to go on the interview of a lifetime.  Pretty much the interview that will make or break his start for college.  When Hudson meets Leila there is is this instant attraction.  And honestly, it's just so freaking cute.  I adored these two together.  It's a love at first sight that is done correctly, and I ate it up.  I wanted their story to just keep going.  And without spoiling it, as that first story was concluding I had this sense of dread.  I really didn't want it to end.  But it did it's job.  It drew me in, and I just kept wanting to read.

Each of the people that Leila meets along the way are all interesting.  They each have their own story.  Bree and Leila give us the "Thelma and Louise" story.  Which really was a riot to read.  When Elliot is introduced, it reminded us that a guy and a girl can be just friends, and in some cases they can't.  Sonia showed us that it is okay to move on, and that we as humans really are too hard on ourselves.  But one of the things I thought was interesting that the author did was he didn't try to connect each story.  You can actually read each story separately.  Because in the end that's what they really are, short stories.  Yeah there are one or two subtle references at the previous stories, but they're so quick that you would read write past them unless you knew they were there.

But as memorable as each of the characters are, in the back of my mind that first story with Hudson was always there.  I found myself hoping that it would be revisited, and I don't like putting spoilers in my reviews so you'll just have to read the book to find out.  ;-)  But I will say in the final story a lot of questions are answered.  I really loved this book.  It's so interesting to read about someone's journey through the eyes of other people.  I think that's what really makes this book.  Because you know Leila, but at the same time you don't.  She's a mystery that gets solved as you read.