Before I get into this review of Recovery Road by Blake Nelson, I wanted to do a little shout out to Kristen @ The Cozy Reading Corner and Sarah @ Book Saur's Reviews. They both gave me the Liebster Blog award, but I had already gotten it from another blogger, so I wanted to link back to thank them! They both rock, so be sure to check them out!

Title: Recovery Road
Author: Blake Nelson
Format: Hardcover 1st Edition
Release Date: March 1, 2011
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Pages In This Edition: 310
Rating:

/5

On the Cover:
Beyond the Cover:
Summary taken from Barnes and Noble:
"Madeline is sent away to Spring Meadows to help with a drinking and rage problem she has. It's a pretty intense place, but there is the weekly movie night in town--where Madeline meets Stewart, who's at another rehab place nearby. They fall for each other during a really crazy time in their lives. Madeline gets out and tries to get back on her feet, waiting for Stewart to join her. When he does, though, it's not the ideal recovery world Madeline dreamed of. Both of them still have serious problems. And Stewart's are only getting worse...."

Review:
I picked up this book while I was at the library because I love books about realistic problems ( i.e. sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll...). It was exactly what I wanted; a good book about a person with some problems to work through.

The reason I like this sort of thing is because usually when there are problems in a person's life, it makes for a story with great character development. And it's true for Recovery Road. That was my favorite part of this book. Maddie starts out as a girl who doesn't even know what she wants in life. She thinks she might have an idea, but really, she's clueless. When she meets Stewart, she thinks she get's a clue, but then she starts to realize that love isn't always perfect, and loving someone means a lot more than one might think.

I love them together. You can tell they have a lot of chemistry and have a lot of love for each other even though they both have their problems. The only thing I didn't really care for was how fast they fell in love. Sure the full story spans years, but when they first fall for each other it seems like it's an instant thing. Maybe it's "love at first sight" or something, but for me it was a little unrealistic.

The plot was good, and there were a lot of realistic twists and turns that almost had me in tears multiple times during the book. Even the way it was put on the page; Blake Nelson separated Recovery Road into 8 parts, and each one of those parts is made of quite a few short chapters (a style I happen to like). The short sweet and almost brutality of the one liners at the end of the parts, and sometimes even the chapters, made what Maddie was feeling all the more real and heartbreaking. It kept me turning pages, and that's why I even ended up stopping reading a book I was already 2/3 of the way done with.

Overall, I loved Recovery Road and thought it was an amazing insight into a world that's unknown to most of us; the world of a teenage recovering alcoholic. Pick it up if you want an awesome piece of realistic YA Fiction.

<3 Alexis