Characters

• Auden Penelope West: Auden is the main character of Along for the Ride. She is a quiet girl who lived with her mother after her parents' divorce, devoting herself to schoolwork in order to please her perfectonist of a mother. Along the way, she realizes she lost most of her childhood because her parents treat her as an adult, since she was young and she never bothered to participate in any of the important milestones of becoming a teenager. Auden decides to spend her last summer before college in the beach town of Colby where her father, stepmother and new baby sister live. She starts working as the book keeper at Clementine's, her stepmother's boutique, and makes new friends there and otherwise that help her gain back her childhood and finally have a memorable summer.
• Eli Joseph Stock: Eli is a native of Colby who is an insomniac, like Auden. He and his best friend since grade school, Abe, rode bikes together in competitions until Abe died in a car accident where Eli was driving. Since the accident, Eli has kept to himself and seemingly stopped riding his bike until Auden finds him one lonely night, and they teach each other to grow and love again.
• Dr. Victoria West: Auden's mother is a "Mensa level" scholar who has treated her daughter like an adult since she was a child. She doesn't particularly agree with Auden's decision to spend the summer with her father, but once she realizes that the trip has transformed Auden into a better person, she learns to embrace her life and appreciate her daughter.
• Maggie: Maggie is another native of Colby who works at Clementine's, Auden's stepmother, Heidi's boutique. She dated Eli's brother, Jake, for most of high school, and they were in a rough patch when Auden came to town and hooked up with Jake on her first night in Colby. Maggie finds out that Auden hooked up with Jake, but she decides it is for the best and the two become friends. Maggie teaches Auden how to ride a bike, and the two are both very bright students and end up becoming roommates at Defriese University.
• Adam: Adam is another native of Colby who works at the Bike shop, later called "Abe's Bikes". He is in love with Maggie, which everyone knows but Maggie. He helps teach Auden how to ride a bike. He was the only person on the staff of his high-schools yearbook, causing all other native to Colby not let him take a picture. Adam ends up dating Maggie at the end of the book.
• Robert West: Robert is Auden's father. He is a professor at a college and divorced Auden's mother after she became more successful than him. He marries Heidi West and has Thisbe. He is described as selfish and never helps with Thisbe. He and Heidi fight and he moves out, but in the end, appears to want to turn a new leaf. Auden states that he moves back in at the end of the book.
• Jake Stock: Jake is a playboy, he dated Maggie, but hooked up with Auden behind a sand dune, and he is Eli's brother.
• Belissa Norwood Eli's jealous ex-girlfriend, who got mad at Auden for trying to steal her boyfriend, because Auden was talking with Eli.
• Hollis West: Auden's free-spirited, happy go lucky older brother who has been backpacking abroad in Europe for a couple years prior to the beginning of the story. He later returns home after having met and fallen in love with Lauren, a scientist at "The U," whom Heidi noticed strongly resembled Auden's mother, and begins a steady job at a bank. He explains to Auden that all children are kids with their parents, unless the parents are too childish themselves - one of the reasons he'd left home.
• Thisbe Caroline "Isby" West: The newborn daughter of Heidi and Robert, Auden and Hollis's father. She was extremely fussy until Heidi had a breakdown, prompting Auden to call Eli, who brought his mother Karen Stock, who raised four children and has four grandchildren, to help Heidi and give advice for caring for Isby.
• Heidi West: Auden's upbeat 26-year old stepmother who has been married to Robert West for about a year. Auden initially can't stand Heidi's enthusiasm and love for pink but later learns that she was wrong about her. She owns a boutique, Clementine's, which is next to the bike shop where Eli works. A self-proclaimed former "cold bitch," she dreamed of opening a store in New York City before she moved to Colby one summer to take care of her sick mother and met Auden's father.

• Photo of Novel