Dee Matthews is used to airing her personal laundry on the podcast she co-hosts, well everything except what happened between she and her best friend who she has nicknamed Name Redacted. She references him all the time but hasn’t talked to him at all in a decade. When Ben Porter shows up outside her apartment door asking her to go on a roadtrip to his Gam’s he bases the impulse on a promise he made to her ten years ago, after their last road trip. In ten years time they would take the same road trip to visit his Gam, but in this case it’s to clean out her house because she’s died. Despite Ben leaving a gaping hole in her life, Dee agree’s. Ben wants his best friend Dee back in his life and Dee wants something much more, to find out the truth about why they never spoke again after that fateful trip.

A Thousand Miles had clever characters, a wonderful premise of regaining a lost friendship, and beautifully written dialog. Dee Matthews brought life to these pages with her will to say and be what Ben needed despite having huge feelings over the ending of their best-friend status in high school. Ben’s grandmother dying and a secret she revealed to him is the impetus behind him asking Dee to go on this trip with him. She was his most supportive person, the one that was always there for him despite her quirkiness and anti-social personality. He was the staid, steady popular kid that was drawn to this bright person from early childhood. Not to say that their relationship was one-sided, that steadiness was something that Dee was drawn to as well. Her childhood was filled with uncertainty, no money, and low social status. When he shows up at her door, she doesn’t really even think twice about it, she packs a bag and agrees to go. You’ve got to admire that ability to make a hard choice based on a thread of hope that they would find their way back together.

Despite their fun adventures and the moments of giddiness, this was kind of a hard book for me to read. There were just so many feelings! Dee’s feelings of abandonment, Ben’s realization that he never takes chances, their lost ten years. Aargh! I just wanted to skip through the discovery and get to the why! I was really impatient with this novel through no faults of it’s own. I just really wanted to see if this author was going to take me where I wanted this plot to go. I reigned myself in and vowed patience. I would allow this story to unfold at the pace it was meant to be read, and I was so happy that I allowed myself to do that. Dee and Ben’s trip was funny, fun, sad, and again, made me feel everything I was meant to feel.

A large part of this novel is about Dee’s podcast. Ben, as Name Redacted, is an integral character that Dee references all the time. Each chapter starts with an episode of a podcast where we get to know Dee but we also get to know Ben, or at least her underlying feelings for him. Some of these podcasts were hilarious and her co-host Javi is a guy I’d love to know in real life. Anyway, these episodes are a great tool for the reader to learn her feelings without seeing her go through all of the emotions. It’s also integral to her personality and character. Even with Ben she speaks as if she’s recording an episode. I found it really interesting to see her journey on her show at the same time as the journey they were taking in the car. Well done!

Despite my own awkward feelings while reading this novel, I thought it was great. There was humor, drama, and love that practically made my chest explode with feelings. All of the qualifications of a good romance novel, isn’t it? ❤️❤️❤️❤️

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley or my honest review and it was honest!

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