Driving Sideways by Jess Riley

If you're anything like me (female, cynical, longing to travel, but kind of boring) than you'll love this book, too. The main character Leigh is as described above with the added complication of Polycystic Kidney Disease, or, PKD. Also, her mom abandonded her family when she was young, and her dad committed suicide shortly after. So Leigh can be summed up as an extremely fragile 28 year-old, carrying around the kidney of a guy named Larry inside of her, who she tries to "channel" along her journey. Pretty interesting character, right?

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Leigh decides to go on a road trip to California shortly after receiving a kidney transplant and while taking a break from her dog-grooming job at Fuzzy Navels. Despite her older brother's objections, Leigh plans to drive cross-country (alone) to ultimately find their run-away mother. Along the way she picks up a 18-year-old girl abandoned by her psycho boyfriend at a rest stop, meets up with a "reformed" ex-boyfriend, visits two girlfriends from college, and meets Larry's family.

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Riley writes with a great sense of humor and illustrates her characters with richness. The journey along the way makes me miss the road and having the chance to visit new places. I am absolutely in love with traveling, so this book really did it for me. I highly recommend it as a good, relatable, female read. It's not chic-lit, even the protagonist is a girl; it's so much better because the characters aren't bubbly, stupid beauty queens going on female-liberating (feminist) adventures. However, the one problem I did have with this book was the many references to popular culture. I'm sorry, but you just don't make references to current reality shows or 15-minute fame celebrities in a novel. Ten years from now a lot of those things will be obsolete. Maybe even a few months from now! Anyhow, since that's the book's only weakness (which isn't even that bad) it's definitely worth checking out.