This is the fourth book I've read by Emery Lord, but I believe it is actually the first book she published. I have enjoyed her other books quite a bit. I like that they aren’t just the typical fluffy YA. There are some more complex situations and characters than you see in other YA contemporary books. Open Road Summer definitely has some angsty stuff going on, and for the most part, I liked it. Unfortunately, I had one very big issue that kept me from rating this book higher than 3 stars.

Things I liked:
1. Matt! He was such a good guy. While it's fun to read about bad boys, Matt is the kind of guy you would actually want to end up with in real life. He is sweet, caring, open, and funny. I count myself lucky that I already have my own version of Matt.
2. The interactions between Matt and Reagan were great. I loved their banter with each other, and I really liked that their relationship grew throughout the book. No insta-love here.
3. Friendships - I liked Dee and Reagan's friendship, and that either one of them would go above and beyond for the other. I also liked that Dee and Matt were shown as friends and it was never turned into any kind of triangle situation.
4. The Music - I really loved the songs written in this book. I actually would love to hear them turned into songs. I loved the passages talking about Matt and Dee writing together and their process and all that. Makes the music nerd in me really happy.
5. Pacing - even though this book deals with a few heavier topics, I read it very quickly and it didn't feel like it dragged.

THING I didn't like:
No, that is not a typo. I quite enjoyed the majority of this book. But there is one big thing that just rubbed me the wrong way to the point that I knocked off two stars. Rant incoming...

Reagan.

What a selfish, insecure, bordering on delusional character Reagan turned out to be. Now, I actually enjoyed the romance between her and Matt, up until about 70 pages from the end. I thought they had real conversations and really got to know each other, rather than just seeing each other and being like, "I've only known you five minutes but I'm in love!"

BUT...

Reagan is a Mean Girl. It's interesting, because we are told in the beginning of the book that she has been constantly tormented at school by bullies calling her a slut, bitch, etc. But then every chance she gets, she is putting down every woman she sees, aside from Dee. Some examples:

Pg 86: "I wish all these skanks would just sit down so I could see."

Pg 87: "The girls how like a bunch of starving street cats about to get table scraps. It's unseemly."

Pg 91: 'doting bimbos'

Pg 118: "She bats her mascara-thickened eyelashes at him, which is borderline tragic because she's at least in her mid-twenties--too old for this behavior. Also, she really needs to dye her roots."

Pg 137: "I spot Matt on the dance floor, swinging around some leggy brunette in a thigh-grazing black dress. I surgery her appearance, which is so obvious--long hair in full curls, skintight dress, and stacked heels. The look is amateur, the one I'd resort to if I was feeling lazy."

Pg 157: "I can't deny that she's beautiful--but it's such an uninteresting beautiful. Medium height, slender, with no features that particularly stand out. Beautiful, but forgettable."
(So this isn't necessarily slut-shaming, but it's still her trying to bash another female to make herself seem better. She also says that the girl has 'the personality of a trash bag' because she sold the story of her breakup to a tabloid. Now, that is a judgy comment I would understand, because this girl's actions hurt someone Reagan cares about. But bringing her looks into Reagan's assessment of her is unnecessary and it makes Reagan look like an insecure mean girl with no self-esteem.)

Pg 157 (yes, the same page as the previous comment) "She's cute, but not in a threatening, Hollywood way. She's more like best-friend-in-a-rom-com cute."
She just can't bear to compliment another female aside from Dee without making it backhanded.

Pg 177: "She's compact and curvy, topped with round curls that must have taken some serious hot rollers. Her hair dye is probably called Goldenrod or Honeysuckle, but it's actually the color of aging butter or dry cornbread."

Pg 198: "There are a few girls in the front with shirts cut so low that they make my neckline look modest. Like, honestly--if Matt so much as glanced down, he could probably see all the way to their belly buttons. Some girls have no self-respect, and even though they can't see me, I make a face of disgust."
Wow. She is so hypocritical. I'm not sure if the author even realizes how unlikable Reagan is when she's judging other girls.

Pg 214: "She looks...wholesome. And friendly. Like a Muppet."

Pg 222: "I'd be pissed, too, if I was caught standing next to Alexis Henderson, who is a cheerleader but also a goody-goody." Why would that piss anyone off?

Pg 244: "she cares for him. She's good to him. But I think Brenda is too practical to love anything." Talking about her stepmom

Pg 267 "Yeah, poor girl, breakups are rough, boo-hoo."
She has zero self-esteem. Her best friend went through the same situation as the girl she's talking about, but whereas she has all the sympathy in the world for Dee, she has none for Corinne, and it comes completely from the fact that she feels threatened by Corrine and her place in Matt's life.

- After this point in the story Matt's best friend--who is a girl--shows up and Reagan is full of jealously and backhanded comments about her...I would pretty much have to copy the book verbatim to include all her sniping comments and thoughts.

Pg 279, in response to being asked if she's bothered by girls flocking around her boyfriend:
"Not really. I'm not insecure."
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! She is the DEFINITION of insecure.

Pg 318: "He doesn't deserve me; that became clear last week."
This girl is delusional. He deserves BETTER than her mean-girl ass.

My biggest problem is that this behavior continues through the entirety of the novel. On the last two or three pages we are supposed to believe that she has some kind of epiphany, but not about her low self-esteem or insecurities. I found it really difficult to root for her.

Every time I'd start liking her a little bit, she would get all judgy about another female and it just comes off as so catty. She literally cannot mention a girl (aside from Dee) without making some sort of comment about how the girl is below her somehow. Being that Reagan is the main character and the story is told first person through her eyes, you can imagine how difficult it was.

I also just want to throw out there that I'm not super sensitive when it comes to slut-shaming in books. I think it's actually pretty realistic (unfortunately) for teenage girls to have these insecure moments where they lash out at other girls to make themselves feel better...but this was freaking excessive.

As I stated at the beginning of this review, I've read and liked Emery Lord's later works, and there were aspects of this I did like quite a bit. But the unlikable aspects of Reagan's character made it difficult for me to fully invest.