Why we took the car is the YA novel from German author Wolfgang Herrndorf. It begins with Mike Klingenberg, who is just about to finish 8th grade and go on summer holidays. Mikes summer holidays arent like most of his classmates, his mum is about to go back to rehab and his dad is going on a Business meeting with his young attractive assistant. Mike is left around the house for two weeks to fend for himself until Tschick, the new, troubled boy from school shows up in a stolen car and he persuades Mike to join him on a road trip.

In the beginning I felt sorry for Mike and Tschick. They are dealing with recognisable issues of being a teenager, not belonging anywhere and longing for adventure and freedom and also other larger problems. But by the end I found Why we took the car was a dark, funny coming of age story. You find them during their journey and obstacles developing an unlikely friendship and they discover that there are still good people in the world.

Okay, Why We Took the Car by Wolgang Herrndorf was amazing, but I'll explain why it's only 3 stars and not 5 once I get past all the praise. I love road trip books and although I was a bit skeptical that the characters were only 14, it totally worked. Mike and Tschick spoke and acted the way I would expect 14 year old boys to act. Usually when novels have characters of that age they seem way too old, but I thought it was spot on. They were at the perfect level of maturity in my opinion. It was quite funny at times and serious at others, and it didn't necessarily depict the 14 year olds as ignorant, which I loved. If anything it was the adults that seemed the strangest and the most uninformed. The kids knew what they were doing wasn't exactly right and they weren't overly silly in their decisions. Mike was especially aware of his families situation and even though he may not have completely understood it, he accepted it. There is one minus of the book, and that was the fact that there were some really strange things that happened during their trip that weren't fully explained at all. I was expecting to find out why some of he people they met were so weird but it didn't happen. I mean a family who somehow collectively know obscure Harry Potter trivia? But to be completely honest, the fact that Mark didn't dwell on it made it easy to let slide and it wasn't an integral part of the story. Plus, possibly the weirdest and most out of context line was the funniest line I've ever read in a book and I laughed impossibly hard. Read this book and at page 195 you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.