Marla has been best friends with Gwen since high school. While Marla goes to Paris to meet her fiance's parents, Gwen is about to go on a road trip with her boyfriend, Coop, and his blond, busty, yoga guru best friend, Dannica. Marla stumbles on a journal and knows she should buy it. She gives it to Gwen before she leaves so Gwen can vent on paper, especially since she knows Gwen has a jealously streak. After that the story is told by Gwen through her letters to Marla.

Jody Gehrman is one of those writers that is a hit or miss with me. Notes from the Backseat was a hit. Gwen was fun, quirky character with a flair for fashion. A lot of what Gwen was feeling was real. Character development in the book was strong. I found someone to root for, and someone to dislike. I was totally involved in the story. The story was predictable, but in this case an ending any other way and I would have hurled the book across the room. The California Coast was described so thoroughly and beautifully, I now what to see it myself. The Story was fun, with a little bit of seriousness involved. "We are not our parents" seriousness. Final word, I loved it, and I will definitely be lending this one out to some friends.

Melissa ( )

I love chick lit. I am proud of it and Red Dress Ink has always been a favorite of mine - they cater to my addiction :)

I had never read anything by Jody Gehrman, but I was thrilled to get the opportunity to read the book Notes from the Backseat. I was not disappointed.

Gwen has always had it all together - even at that ackward period in high school. Gwen and Marla met in school and have been best friends ever since, being there for each other through the ups and downs of their lives. Although both are now adults and leading different lives, they are still the best of friends and rely heavily on each other for support.

Gwen has finally met a wonderful man and she is crazy about him. He appears to be feel the same way about her - except that Gwen has this abnormal fear of being abandoned (which is why she has always ended every of her previous relationships) and now is convinced that Coop will leave her for his best female friend - Dannika. I mean, why wouldn't he? Dannika is blonde and gorgeous and seems to have her sights on Coop. Gwen is going into hyper mode - not knowing how to deal with this - after all, this is the man she loves and wants to marry. Should she bail first?

Marla, on her side, is heading for Paris and is now torn between helping her friend throught this and living her own life. So Gwen and Marla decide on a diary that Gwen will write while on a weekend (from hell?) road trip with Coop and the horrid Dannika.

I have to say that the premise of this book made my blood boil. I knew exactly how Gwen must have felt and I was immediately rooting for her. Why was Coop totally incapable of seeing how difficult it must have been for Gwen to be anywhere near Dannika - and of course Dannika was not helping the situation!!!!

I could not stop reading once I started. I loved the diary entries Gwen wrote. It was interesting to me that the girl who looked like she had it all together on the outside could write such insecure and sad words on paper.

I also liked the two dimensional view of the same diary entry - that is Marla's view upon reading the entry and Gwen's view when she wrote it. It clearly showed how insecure Gwen was and that maybe when you are in that type of situation - you are not the best judge of what the actualy reality is.

This book is extremely well written, you can feel the friendship of both girls intensely - even throughout the miles.

Yes, this is a book about "finding the one" but I thought there were deeper messages of friendship and of believing in yourself no matter what.

I loved this book - another Red Dress Ink winner ( )

I thought this was a novel idea. Reading a friends journal about her trip while on your trip. well just great. she had some issues but overall i thought she was a great lead. Her character had alot of funny moments and was quite open to shring those witht he reader. ( )

It’s kind of funny how you might know someone for a really long time and never truly know them. Marla thought she knew her best friend Gwen, but she never knew Gwen could write so much.

The story starts out with Marla in Paris, meeting her fiancé’s parents. However, most of the story is told from Gwen’s point of view through the journals she sends to Marla. Gwen is going on a trip with her boyfriend of almost three months, Coop, and Coop’s best friend from college, Dannika. What Coop doesn’t know is that Gwen has massive jealousy problems, and the fact that Dannika is a beautiful blonde in a yoga-toned body doesn’t help.
As one would expect, the story ends well. I found many parallels between Notes from the Backseat and Faking 19. The main characters are two girls who have been best friends since high school. There is a divorce involved in both, and the girls from those families come to terms with or learn to accept their fathers. And of course, there’s the happy ending.

There’s a repeated phrase in this novel that really stuck with me: “We are not out parents.” It shows that no matter what our parents do, we can always blaze our own trail because we’re not destined to follow directly in their footsteps, as realized by Gwen and her new friend Joni. That’s the phrase that helped Joni get through her wedding and Gwen come to accept her dad’s mistakes.

What I like best about this novel was the descriptiveness. Gwen, Coop, and Dannika do a lot of driving, and each new scene and setting is exquisitely described. I felt like I was there beside them. I also really appreciated the complicated personalities of the characters. All the jealousy, anger, and finally happiness makes them seem human.

I would recommend this book to teens, although I believe it was aimed at an older audience. There are some mature scenes, so it would be best for older teens to read.

reposted from http://thebookmuncher.blogspot.com ( )