Review: The Wrong Stop by Rex Burke
Blurb:
Ready for an adventure that’s out of this world?
Hutch has it all planned. College is out – backpacks ready for a summer train trip around the famous sights of Europe.
Sure, it means matching party animal, Sully, drink for drink, and dealing with conspiracy nut, Jed, who’s along for the ride. But it’s nothing that Hutch can’t handle – until they meet a mysterious stranger on the way to Berlin.
Faced with an extraordinary truth, they are drawn into a life-changing adventure – one that will have repercussions down the years.
Off the rails and on the run, they’re pursued from city to city by shadowy forces. In the end, there’s only one place left for them to go. And one chance to escape.
But as ancient secrets are uncovered, the next journey might just be a trip too far.
The Wrong Stop is ‘Starman’ meets ‘Paul’ in an irreverent, fast-paced SciFi caper that will keep you guessing until the end.
Review:
What really made me want to pick up this book was the nods to old—man, I feel like I’m getting old— movies like Euro Trip, Paul, and the likes. I really enjoyed these movies as a kid, and thought reading this book would be like a nice walk down nostalgia avenue.
To be entirely honest, it was. Right from the beginning with the three friends on a trip, I was transported back to my own college trips with friends. And this cozy feeling stays with you pretty much throughout the narrative. I think that’s primarily the reason I kept reading, because of the comfort this story brought.
The story is quite straightforward and simple. Three friends on a trip across Europe encounter an alien trying to get back home. A nice blend of teen comedies with sci-fi elements, The Wrong Stop does a lot of things right with its character moments and callbacks. You almost feel like a part of the group. Young and idiotic, but free-spirited, the adventure is something every teenager and young adult would have loved to embark on, and the author does a brilliant job of immersing you into that experience. Be it the bad puns and teasing, to college kids acting like college kids, Burke really nailed the dynamics with this one.
That being said, not everything is perfect with the book. As much as I loved how the secret service’s scenes were handled, I found them rather lackluster. SPOILERS: We never really see any of the scenes, instead experiencing them through one-sided text messages, emails, and ‘formal communication’. While this was novel and neat in the beginning, it lost its charm halfway through the novel. The physical detachment from this arc of the plot ended up taking away from the main plot’s urgency and stakes. Speaking of, these stakes are relatively low to begin with, given how a lot of the conflicts that arise in the main plot get resolved with little effort. It can be comforting, but at times can feel unearned.
I really enjoyed the ending. SPOILERS: I thought I wouldn’t like it when there’s a thirty-year time jump in the last chapter, but it actually served as a nice epilogue to the characters we spent all this time with. This is exactly the kind of happy ending you want from a buddy sci-fi comedy, and I was left with a smile and a warm feeling when I finally closed the book.
The Wrong Stop doesn’t try to break the mold, but embraces it in favor of crafting a comforting experience that fans of sci-fi comedies will love to read. Despite a few flaws, it delivers on its promise of a buddy sci-fi comedy that pays homage to a lot of our favorite comedies from the 90s and the early 2000s.
TL;DR:
WHAT I LIKED: Character moments between the main cast, comforting read with homages to many of my favorite comedies.
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE: The B plot with the Secret Service, lack of stakes or effort needed to solve problems.
