So is this the right book for me?!

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Zigzag is the story of Robin Daley, a seventeen-year-old girl who lives with her mother in a small town in Iowa. In Robin's opinion, the sole reason for her existence is her boyfriend Chris, and she fears that when he leaves for college in the fall, she'll lose him forever. Finding out that he's spending their last summer together in Rome only increases her worries, until all she wants to do is mope around the house all summer.

To bring her out of her misery – and maybe to spend some more time with her new fling – Robin's mother suggests that Robin join her Aunt Dory and bratty cousins Iris and Marshall on a zigzagging road trip from Iowa all the way to Los Angeles. Dory's taking the trip so that she can try to bring her kids out the funk that was caused by their father's death, and she really wants Robin to come be the mediator for her. She also offers to make a stop in Arizona, where Robin's father lives with his second wife and their little son, David, so Robin reluctantly agrees. And so begins the Zigzag Plan.

This is very much a book about characters more than plot. While it's entertaining to read about the places that Robin and her kin visit, the story is really focussed more on how the journey changes all of them. At the beginning, Dory is a mother who has no idea what to do with her children; Iris, a very pre-pubescent thirteen-year-old who never tires of complaining and has a bulimic problem her mother refuses to notice, and Marshall, who vents his anger and fear by drawing violent, disturbing pictures. Robin's stuck in the middle; she has to cope with her unstable family as well as her nervous jealousy of Chris's wonderful summer in Rome.

What makes this book interesting is how we see the characters growing into something better. The characters actually have personality; we see that Iris has a hidden love of horses that can sometimes even abate her anger, and that Marshall really is a talented artist when he moves away from the guns and blood. And then there's Dory, who actually reminds me of the Finding Nemo fish who shares her name; the poor woman isn't quite sure what's going on, but even she manages to pull something of a 180.

Overall, I really liked this book. It's no masterpiece of literature, but it's a quick, thought-provoking read, and it really proves the point that maybe sometimes it's not the destination that matters, but the journey.

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