Reviewed by Cheryl
TITLE: Two Roads Converged 
AUTHOR: Justin Durand
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 590 pages
RELEASE DATE: June 4, 2018
BLURB:
Disgrace, exile, escape, retreat, escape, true love, escape…in some of the most beautiful locales in Europe.
After spending his first seventeen and a half years in small town western Pennsylvania, Arrow Carson Youngbird doesn’t become a seasoned traveler voluntarily, but he is young, intelligent and healthy and he adapts well to change. Arrow isn’t in control of his life but he (mostly) enjoys the journey with Janis, the warm-hearted second generation hippy who raised him and especially their new traveling companion: tall, handsome fellow athlete Zephan Adler Kelly, a calm, confident natural leader whose heroes are Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.
On the outside, Arrow seems tough, cool and doesn’t smile that much but he wants love just like anyone else. Raised in poverty and burdened with family problems, he is snatched from the world he’s adapted to and confronted with people whose motives and intentions he doesn’t understand. His new life is complicated enough but then love enters the picture and Arrow finds himself in Europe struggling to cope with a hopeless crush while trying to help a friend escape from desperate and greedy forces determined to take everything from him.
Set in Manhattan, France’s southern Provence region, the Swiss Alps, Amsterdam and London, Two Roads Converged wants to be a new adult love story, but it also happens to have a coming out story, a few sex education case studies, and some suspense and action that intrude on a happy travelogue.
REVIEW:
The essence of the story is that two babies were accidentally switched at birth. One went to poor parents, the other to rich and powerful ones. When the mistake is discovered they’re all brought together.
There is a lot of story to this book. Many of the aspects are quite elegant. The basic premise is not new, but the way it’s dealt with feels fresh and intricate. The cast of characters potentially works well together and even though the story is wide ranging geographically, and socially, nothing seems out of place or exposition for the sake of it.
I am absolutely certain there will be many readers who will love this book. The story starts off with action and there is plenty of it, both physical and emotional throughout. I have to say though that, unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I could have. There is an absolutely fantastic story in there with amazing characters, good and bad, but I feel the potential has been squandered by the writing.
The writing is good enough, but the style really put me off. The story is very choppy with short sections, jumping between characters, locations and even time periods. I am aware there are plenty of well known books written in the same style but it’s not for me and I don’t think the writing was quite good enough to pull it off.
The main issue for me is that there was an opportunity for some in depth emotional connections which was never realised at all. I found the writing dry and unemotional. In some places it was nothing more than superficial.
I’m not saying that I didn’t engage with any of these characters, because I did, but it wasn’t easy, and there were so many lost opportunities to delve deeper.
The story arcs are well thought out and elegantly realized, and I’m sure that readers who like young adult and new adult, who are more interested in story than in depth of character development and emotional attachment, will love it. As I always say, reviews are subjective. I didn’t like the book but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good book.
RATING: 
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