Book review of Road to Rouen by Ben Hatch

Perfect to accompany a road trip in France

My latest book review is Road to Rouen by Ben Hatch, the amusing book that tells the story of a three month, 10,000 mile road trip in France by a family of four. I love a road trip in France so was initially a little bit jealous of the Hatch family plan to spend their whole summer on the road in France, however the more I read the more I appreciated our French road trips without children. With a different hotel every night and all day spent in the car it must have been quite stressful at times, but Ben writes with great affection for his lovely sounding children and wife, and despite the odd hiccup they certainly seemed to have fun most of the time. Can you imagine the unloading and loading, packing and repacking of their squishy bags every day, not to mention the laundry? No, me neither! Chapeau (hats off) to Ben and his family. Having been on many French school trips and experienced the French idea of fun facts for kids when visiting chateaux, I was able to chuckle along with some of Ben’s descriptions of their Tourist board arranged days out (the poor kids!).

This book was the perfect read to accompany our drive from Poitou-Charentes in the west to Calais in the north of France, via Rouen, and if you pop back tomorrow I have my own little story of Rouen to share. This was also one of those books that I couldn’t help reading bits out to Ade as we drove along, until he reminded me it would rather spoil his enjoyment when he reads it (which he is doing now, even as I write this). I really enjoyed Ben’s writing style and his honest account of the good, the bad and the ugly bits, so have also added his previous book Are We Nearly There Yet?: A Family's 8000 Mile Car Journey Around Britain: Family's 8000 Miles Around Britain in a Vauxhall Astra to my ‘To Read’ list.

Published by Headline, Road to Rouen is available in paperback and ebook format. Links to Amazon.co.uk can be found below. Many thanks to Ben for sending me a copy of this book.