Perfection really is a sort of link between sister Kendra and older brother Grayson. She has veered towards overachievement in large part to compensate for his extreme OCD. While he stops trips to Grandma's at Christmas with total screaming breakdowns in the car because he can't handle their driving on overpasses, she moves closer and closer to the top of her class, even when they both lose their perfect neighbor Zoe. Kendra's best friend and Grayson's first love. Her parents can't stand weirdo Grayson's attentions on their little girl, treating his condition as contagious and destructive.

In the three years since Zoe left Missouri for California, Grayson has tried to cope by dropping out of school and completing treatment programs. Kendra has found substitute friends, dated a bit, and attempted to be the perfect daughter for her parents who just barely hang on in dealing with such a needy son. Then disaster hits the perfect child: she has been caught cheating in Calculus, a class that she just couldn't do perfectly, not even close. Kendra only slowly reveals the depth of her offense, but she rapidly flees the school for the town quarry when she sees the principal and teacher searching her locker. The quarry has been a locus for Grayson, who would walk the three miles, cimb the fence and count and sort rocks in the thousands, only coaxed away by Kendra or her parents with great finesse and difficulty.

How surprising that Kendra should find Grayson, only just home from treatment, there when she runs. There are times when we just drive, even when we know that we only delay facing our problems. It's knee jerk reaction for Kendra to pull Grayson into her escape and just go in Hunka, her crummy old car. It's only later that she devises a destination: Zoe. That's when things went from bad for Grayson to so much worse. Maybe a real best friend can help Kendra figure out what to do to get her ass out of the fire. However, Kendra doesn't think about how hard it is to travel with a brother who can't eat or sleep most places that seem fine to the rest of us--or with a brother off his meds. She just keeps driving, making it up as she goes along.

The first of the cheap motels Kendra chooses for a crash offers her a road friend, Rena: only sixteen, she, too, is a runaway, but one that landed with an ornery old dude who knocked her up. When she and Grayson get back on the road, they are surprised to see Rena, baby car seat in hand, walking away from that life. And so two becomes four, and escape has moments of road trip, and a whole lot of angst and problems for Kendra to try to solve.

I never quite lost the nervousness some narratives full of difficulties instill in me when my vicarious experience keeps me unsettled and worried for the characters. That's a little uncomfortable for the reader but perhaps a victory for the author. Seems a realistic and eye-opening portayal of OCD, which is too often played as a sort of joke, but appears to be quite legitimately debilitating. Realistic sibling relationship was a strength as well. Not the most fun road trip, but I'm not sorry I took it.