I really enjoyed this book. Kind of like a reverse 13 Going on 30. This is my favorite book from the author so far.

🖤🖤🖤⚡️
3.5/5


This was an anticipated read for me! This is also the first book I’ve read by Erin La Rosa. Overall, I enjoyed this book & I would give her other books a try. This just might not have been the right story for me. The ending isn’t what I was expecting it to be, but was throughly surprised & happy with how it ended!! So keep reading if you get that feeling during the middle part.

Sam returns to her hometown after many years of for filling her dream traveling as an international pilot. Sam, who’s in her thirties, is set to help her grandma clean out her house & to try to get her to change her mind of moving to assist living. She’s prepared to see her long lost best friend Damon, who she feels she left behind along with their hometown of Tybee all those years ago. What she isn’t prepared for is a (cursed?) CD player that is possibly transporting her to an alternate universe?! Oh, & a surprise visit from someone else of her past…

Things I didn’t really care for in this one…

-Sam was kind of immature for her age! I felt like she was trapped in her teenage self’s body sometimes with how she reacted to situations. For someone that was well traveled & living in an international city of Paris, I would expect her to be a bit more versed in life experience.

-Rachel…so many problems with Rachel, her present day “best” friend. She didn’t feel like a supportive best friend at all. I actually really disliked her reactions to a few things. I felt like maybe their friendship wasn’t built up enough.

Things I did really like about this book…

🎶 the song selection was nostalgic & 👩🏼‍🍳💋

🍻 loved that Damon owned a brewery

✈️ travel bingo

🕰️ the 13 going on 30 vibes

🍦 the ice cream with gummy bears

Overall, this was a cute story! I just prefer deeper romance stories, I believe. It was an easy read & would recommend it to anyone looking for a quick read!!

The Backtrack is a story of Sam who returns home to Tybee Island after being away for many years. She reconnects with her best friend, Damon, which is awkward after a near kiss years ago. She finds an old CD player which holds a mix CD that Damon made her. When she starts it, she is taken to a time of what ifs.

The concept grabbed me for this book. Second chance romance of sorts in a different way while sparks fly in the present as well. Things did happen fast but I really loved Sam going back to see what could have been. I loved that she was rooting for Alt Sam. The characters were wonderful and filled out. I loved Damon as he was so sweet and obviously still held a torch for Sam.

Thank you to NetGalley, Harlequin Trade Publishing, and Erin LaRosa for the e-ARC of this book. This review is my own opinion.

*I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

This was a fun, nostalgic story about a magical CD player, childhood love, and that "What If?" feeling we all have when we wonder about our other potential paths in life. If you're looking for a fun, fast romp, this is a good one and it gets bonus points for all of the references! Former emo kids, this one is for you LOL.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this ARC publication for an honest review.

This book was filled with nostalgia and so much fun to read, but at the same time there was an emotional depth that pulls at your heart, too. I adore best friends' love stories and this one added a magical element to the trope. Sam and Damon were best friends who had a moment in high school that changed the whole trajectory of not only their friendship but their entire future. Almost 20 years later, Sam is called back to her hometown on Tybee Island to help her grandma. The place where she was abandoned by her mother. The place Daman still lives. The place she was adamant about not getting stuck there...

While cleaning out her bedroom, Sam discovers a mix tape Daman had made her and a CD player. Each time she listens to a song she is transported back in time, starting with the moment Daman asked to kiss her...only this time she says YES! This secondary timeline is a whole different life. One where Sam and Daman are together. Talk about sweetness overload! Until the last couple of songs which about did me in...

Sam has a lot to deal with: her reunion with Daman and facing her feelings for him, the glimpses of a life that could have been, the issues of the abandonment of her mom and her return, her relationship with her grandma...

Daman was book boyfriend material no matter which timeline! Sam was so lucky to have him, but I was frustrated that she could be so selfish in the way she handled some things. I understand she had emotional baggage, but she abandoned Daman for all those years knowing what that felt like. Daman was way too easily forgiving, and Sam should have had to work more for it.

I enjoyed the romance but could have done without the spice. The emotions and intimacy were already felt without the open-door scenes. Just my preference...

Everything comes full circle by the end, and we do get a happily ever after even though it seemed too quick from "no, we cannot possibly be together...you live here, I live there, blah, blah, blah..." Then all of a sudden, the light bulb moment to easily make it work!

Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC of the backtrack.

I recommend this book. The characters were well thought out and it felt very real.

📚 #BOOKREVIEW 📚
The Backtrack by Erin La Rosa
⭐️⭐️⭐️ / Pages: 313 / Genre: Romcom

Before Sam’s mother abandoned her, she told her not to stay stuck like she did. So Sam relentlessly focused on becoming a pilot and getting out of there. No one would hold her back, including her best friend Damon, who could have easily been so much more. Twenty years later, she’s accomplished her dream of becoming a commercial pilot when she has to go back home to help her grandmother move. While cleaning, she finds her old CD Walkman with a mixed CD that Damon made for her. Every time she plays a song, she gets transported back in time to an alternate reality where she gave in to temptation and she and Damon became a couple. Through these glimpses she gets to see what could have been.

I loved the premise of this story since I’m a total sucker for time travel tropes. The early ‘00s playlist was especially fun. Most of this book was great, but for me, it fell apart at the very end. Suddenly it was all boring mother-daughter drama and the dialog in the last few chapters was seriously so cringy and sappy it was like someone else wrote it.

Thank you, @NetGalley and @HarlequinBooks for my gifted copy.

The vibes were ***everything***. Time travel, second chance, friends to lovers, nostalgic perfection with an ideal balance of throwback vibes and deep feels. It made me crave a trip to Hot Topic with a mix CD in the player.

I feel like this was well done. It wasn’t exactly time travel which I initially thought, but more alternate timeline. Regardless, I feel this was woven together nicely between the alternate timeline and current day.

This did hit me in the nostalgia feels. Based on the timeline, I am the same age as our two main characters so the descriptions of clothing and the music especially (which this book heavily focuses on) hit home for me and “took me back.” It really does get you thinking about the “what-ifs” and how life may have been different if I’d made this choice instead when I was 18.

This one was good the last half but it was very hard to get into. My main takeaway is that I felt like the main characters had little connection, I had so much hope for this one it sounded up my alley but at the end of the day it’s just kind of fine.

3.25/3.50 My favourite part of this book had to be the soundtracks, and I think any emo kid would totally agree. I totally felt connected to the book because of it! The plot was really cool but character relationships fell short in my opinion. Would have loved to see more of the main characters navigating their relationship despite seeing these flashbacks to their alt selves. And of course, we have to all agree that Grandma was the funniest character. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

Erin La Rosa’s The Backtrack was not what I expected but so much more. We follow Sam, a pilot who has not been back to her hometown in a decade, coming back home. Of course! There would be no small town romance without that. Sam’s grandma, Pearl, is selling her house because she’s getting old and is probably moving into a retirement home, but Sam does not want that for her. Sam comes home to help her settle the home however, she runs into her best friend Damon… who she hasn’t spoken to in that same amount of time 💀

In order to understand this, you have to know that Damon confessed his feelings for her someone time during the beginning of their senior year. Sam, being the Type A, must get out of Tybee, type of girl that she was let him down gently. She needed to leave her hometown, she couldn’t stay there and being with Damon meant staying there… right?

Erin puts a spin on a childhood best friends to lovers trope with MAGICAL REALISM AND EMO SONGS.

Sam and Damon are elder emos…. 🥲I felt so old reading this book…. Okay there’s my rant… now onto my feelings

I absolutely adore magical realism and alternate realities. I loved how easy it was to read. Sometimes you don’t need to read about the logistics of things, you just have to let them be. I felt nostalgic reading about Sam and Damon’s past and alternate past. Plus seeing it in the form of emo songs was icing on the cake.

Having something like this would usually not be my cup of tea. I really hate when the real world seeps into what I’m reading. It feels like it dates the book. But maybe it was the fact that I whole heartedly related to loving these songs made my usual ick disappear…. I will say that the final grand gesture was absolutely cringey and not something I truly expected to happen.

All in all, this was definitely a must read for anyone who misses Always by Blink 182!

Lots of 90s and 2000s nostalgia, and I loved the line "seafood boils are like therapy." Thanks, netgalley.

“Having nostalgia is romantic…It’s the ability to never forget something you love.”

This book felt like opening a window to the past as Sam was teleported into hers. Seriously, the 90’s/early 2000’s nostalgia is SO strong in this book and I couldn’t get enough of it! Honestly, Erin’s ability to remember all of the things and the brands is incredibly impressive and it was a fantastic stroll down memory lane for me.

Beyond the nostalgia, this story was absolutely beautiful. I love magical realism and the idea that this CD player that housed a mixed CD from her former best friend for over a decade is the exact item that teleports her into the past to see an alternate reality of her life if she had dated her best friend‽‽ LIKE WHAT‽‽? I honestly am captivated by how Erin came up with this idea, but beyond that, I just loved living through it. I loved reading about Sam’s mental breakdown when she realizes she’s seeing her teenage years play out differently. I loved watching her question things she had once been so sure of as a way to grow internally and expand what she thought she could have in life. And I love watching her reconnect with Damon, her childhood best friend who is just as charming—if not more so—today as he was all those years ago.

Honestly? I think Damon was my favorite character in this story, but I loved all parts of it and highly recommend putting some nostalgia and magic in your life by reading this one!

OH and one of my favorite lessons was in this one too: timing is everything. Sometimes, just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. But it also doesn’t mean we can’t later on.

Read if you like:
- Magical realism
- 90’s/early 2000’s nostalgia
- Friends to lovers
- Childhood best friends
- Second chance romance
- Alternate realities
- Spunky grandmothers

This was a fun nostalgic book! Sam returns back to her home town after a decade away to find her room just as she left it years before, including her CD player. Funny thing though, when she plays the special CD her friend Damon made her back in high school, she is transported back in time to see what could have been. So instead of staying friends, Alt-Sam and Damon kiss and end up dating and each song she gets a glimpse of the good, bad and sometimes hard times. It was sad at times, but that is life. I also appreciated the relationship Sam had with her Grandma who raised her when her mom left. I also liked how the resolution with her mom Bonnie played out. it added to the story line. It made more sense why Sam was the way she was.

I also was pulling out my CDs reminiscing about my high school days.

If you love nostalgia books with music of early 2000 like Blink 182, Paramour, this book is for you. Sam returns home to her small town to help her grandmother and finds a cd player that has a cd mix that was made by her first love, Damon. She learns that the CD player has a magical power and each track that she plays, goes back to their high school days but played out a little differently. It was fun to see both present Sam and Damon and the alternate flashbacks.

I did find it odd that Damon was so welcoming with Sam since she left 10 years ago and never came back. Damon's family added a fun dimension to the story as well.

Thank you @canarystreetpress @netgalley for a copy of this book.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of The Backtrack
by Erin La Rosa

I love Erin La Rosa books The Hollywood Series is one of my favorites so was excited to get this one, First of all I loved the nostalgia of the book, early 2000's flashback book about friends to lovers, minimal spice level, I feel like the concept of the book would make a great Hallmark Rom-Com

3.5✨

Short synopsis:
Twenty years ago, Sam Leto left Tybee Island behind to go after her dreams of becoming a pilot. Suddenly her grandma decides it is time to let Sam’s childhood home go, which means Sam must head back to her hometown. Not only does she feel nostalgic when she steps into her very 2000’s room, she feels it when her old best friend comes back around.

My Review: *slight spoilers below
While I am not huge on friends to lovers trope, I was super excited to receive this as an ARC when I heard it was full of 2000’s nostalgia. Now that being said, I felt like sometimes there were so many references thrown into a sentence that it just didn’t give you the feeling it should. The flow of them just didn’t work for me, BUT that being said….the playlist was done well and the songs made sense.

Let’s talk time travel/vivid dreaming? When Sam walks back into her old room, she is confronted with an old mix CD her best friend (Damon) made. This CD, along with her CD Walkman have a special power in showing her what could have been with Damon.
As Sam wakes up from these vivid thoughts/dreams she writes down what she saw along with what song was playing. While I did enjoy this way of story telling, I did not like the way the author rewrote about each song, every time a song was listened to. (Meaning, we re-read the same thing many times over.)

Overall, I enjoyed it more than i thought I was going to. The first 25% of the book, was honestly a rough time for me to get into. As I pushed through, it became more enjoyable and less like someone trying to throw a bunch of 2000’s references at me to be relatable. If you like a bit of “time-travel” mixed with a past love, then I think this is for you!

Pros of the book:
- Having music mixed in, along with a playlist is always a fun time! (She even had songs in her dedication/thanks! Which was absolutely adorable.)
- The way the family dynamic/drama of it all, was done well. I think it was very believable with how it was told, and the reasons that were given.


Cons of the book:
- The prologue was a tad silly, as far as the language used. While I liked the emo band era references —- it felt like it was written/done in a very adolescent manner. This continued into the first few chapters of the book also.
- The romance —- I absolutely hate to say this, but I just didn’t feel what I was supposed to. I didn’t dislike them together, it just felt a little bland to me. My stomach wasn’t having butterflies waiting to see what was next for them.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the E-ARC, in exchange for an honest review.

Book is out now!! I saw it in the wild, and the cover is even cuter in person!

The Backtrack-a standalone

By Erin La Rosa-I've read Plot Twist and gave it 4⭐

🙏🏾Thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing|Canary St. Press for this ARC 🧡! I voluntarily give my honest review and all opinions expressed are my own.

Rating ~3.5⭐

Genre ~ Contemporary Romance, Adult Fiction, Magical Realism

Setting ~ Tybee Island, GA

Publication date ~ July 16, 2024, Read July 20, 2024

Estimated Page Count ~ 313

Tropes ~ BFFs to lovers, time travel, mental health, 2000's emo nostalgia

Sam Leto followed her dream to Paris to become an international pilot. She left her hometown Tybee Island twenty years ago but returns now that her grandmother Pearl is selling their family home. She prepares herself to see Damon Rocha, her childhood BFF, that she rejected when she was fifteen. She discovers her old CD player that allows her to time travel back to pivotal times between her and Damon. Sam explores the "what if" while confronting painful childhood memories.

I had to think outside the box because the story was told in flashbacks. I loved the idea of a magical CD player that takes Sam back in time to redo the past. I enjoyed Sam and her grandmother Pearl's relationship.

Overall, this was a solid "what if" but I needed more chemistry between Sam and Damon. The music, fashion, and toys mentioned were staples in my childhood. I watched TRL(Total Request Live) everyday for Sum 41, Fall Out Boys, and Blink 182. The movie High Fidelity came to mind because of how the music connected to love lives.

thank you netgalley for the e-arc. the book was fine, it could have been better. i heavily relied on the nostalgia of the 2000's alt music but there wasn't enough for me to love the book. sam and damon had ZERO chemistry and if there is banter, it's not good. the scenes in the past were confusing and abrupt, as if traveling back in time is easy to seamlessly go and come back. the writing started off good but just like the plot it got flat halfway through.