Off the Map by Trish Doller
Series: Beck Sisters #3
Narrator: Sarah Naughton
Published by Macmillan Audio, St Martin's Griffin on March 7, 2023
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Romance, Romantic Comedy
Pages: 272
Format: Audiobook ARC
Source: Publisher (Netgalley)
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On the road to love, you don't need a GPS...

Carla Black’s life motto is “here for a good time, not for a long time.” She’s been travelling the world on her own in her vintage Jeep Wrangler for nearly a decade, stopping only long enough to replenish her adventure fund. She doesn’t do love and she doesn’t ever go home.

Eamon Sullivan is a modern-day cartographer who creates digital maps. His work helps people find their way, but he’s the one who’s lost his sense of direction. He’s unhappy at work, recently dumped, and his one big dream is stalled out—literally.

Fate throws them together when Carla arrives in Dublin for her best friend’s wedding and Eamon is tasked with picking her up from the airport. But what should be a simple drive across Ireland quickly becomes complicated with chemistry-filled detours, unexpected feelings, and a chance at love - if only they choose it.

I will spit it out right now: I did not like this book at all. Maybe it’s because I haven’t read the first two books in the series, but I don’t think that’s it. I don’t think that seeing these characters as secondary characters in someone else’s love story would make me like them more. They both are just sucky people, and since I’m a character driven reader I knew this would most likely go downhill really fast. I listened to this book, though, and I always end up hanging in there longer than I otherwise would have if I’d been reading the book on my own. Sarah Naughton did a very good job reading this book, and the Irish accents were perfect. I loved listening to her. And that, my friend, is why I finished this book at all.

I love road trip books, and two people trekking through Ireland gave me Leap Year vibes. You know, the movie with Amy Adams? One of my top favorite movies ever. And that’s why I jumped into this series with the final book. I needed a Leap Year feeling! It was my mistake for elevating my hopes way too high but, even so, Carla and Eamon suck. They are so irresponsible and see no problem with dragging their feet to their friends’ wedding so they can go on adventures and sleep together a lot. Like. Come on and put your pants on, you idiots, the wedding is waiting for you!! Carla’s personality was also pretty crummy. She has absolutely no tact, and I didn’t find it to be funny or endearing. She’s just rude. Eamon was a jerk. And the fact that their “relationship” just screamed of a string of one-night stands gave me no depth or development. They start getting it on within the first few pages of the book, and I didn’t get it. There’s no romance there, and the spicy scenes were prominent. The story was all over the place for me.

I’ve read multiple reviews saying that the first two books in this series are totally different from this one, and that some people had whiplash from the spice level and lack of emotional depth that they had assumed they’d get again going into this final book. That gives me hope that I might like those, so I will give them a try because I usually like Trish Doller’s writing. Luckily this is not my first book of hers, and luckily I have reviewer friends I trust, or I might have decided to not give her another chance. That cover sure is cute, though, and I did like the scene from the book that’s been illustrated for us. It actually might have been the only scene I liked? lol. Oops.