A love story of and for millennials. Essentially the same concept of “the one that got away”. This story will give you flashbacks with specific toys, bands, fashion, and songs that connects the reader to the story. Essentially the MC is a millennial who was fed the same script we all were growing up of “do better for yourself and leave this [small] town” which pushed the MC to make herself emotionally unavailable to her guy friend/childhood love and of course this story is them coming back together after living two separate lives. The MC travels home to help an elderly family member, while having visions/flashbacks she connects with her hometown again.

The flashbacks are really confusing because there is a lack of transition or symbol to let you know when your back and forth. At some points the author lead that you’re there, or watching the vision but then it changes again. These are later clarified as ALTERNATE versions of flashbacks.

The constant name dropping is what really got me to keep going in this book from the Bath and Body Works Cucumber melon perfume, furby, my chemical romance, twilight, etc. It was really fun just to see what else the author brought in.

Towards the middle of the book it drags A LOT. Most of the middle could have been summarized. You can go from Chapter 18 to 23 and not miss anything. All fluff. Then it starts again the last 8% of the book, just constant back and forth. Interruptions of important conversations to go from Damon and Sam to Sam running home to her family or vice versa. It’s messy and frustrating writing.

The romance scene is AWKWARD, VAGUE, and UNCOMFORTABLE. The language is vague, the scene is boring, and they are walked in on by grandma. It was an all-around let down.

The ending was bad as well. 20 pages of random discussions and cliches.

I went into this book excepting more of the typical contemporary romance, like the previous two books from Erin La Rosa I had read, but I was pleasantly surprised!

I love when magical realism is woven into a romance, and the time traveling paired with early 00’s musical nostalgia was so fun to experience. Every song on the mixed tape was a revelation and really had me hooked and wondering what would happen next in the alternate reality that Sam and Damon were living.

Sam and Damon’s relationship, in both timelines, were really compelling, from dealing with family trouble, parental abandonment, their dreams, and wanting more. I really felt for them and their struggles, and I was routing for them to get together.

I didn’t expect this book to make me as introspective as it did, and I certainly didn’t think going in that the end would make me cry, but here we are!!

I recommend this read if you like:
✈️ Strong, pilot FMC
✈️ Childhood best friends to lovers
✈️ Magical realism
✈️ Time travel
✈️ Early 00’s nostalgia
✈️ “What if?” come to life
✈️ Family trauma

This is for all those who ever wonder how the “what if” situation would have been. Loved the nostalgia of the era that was represented and the small town romance x big dreams trope besides that I feel like some areas were a miss. There was a lot of back and forth with the FMC and some interactions were predictable and immature

This book is perfect for millenials whose taste in music hasn't changed or evolved from the emo phase. If that's not you it may fall a little bit flat. I enjoyed the nostalgia invoking songs but it became pretty repetitive. This is a second chance romance between high school best friends that never were. Going back home she gets to relive what they might have been if they had kissed in high school by listening to a mix CD.

Overall it was okay. Fun and nostalgic but I didn't find myself yearning to read it in the evenings.

This was cute! Reluctantly back home in Tybee Island, Georgia to assist her (absolutely hilarious) grandmother, Sam stumbles across her old Walkman still loaded with a burnt CD made by her childhood best friend, Damon.

... But when it turns on, Sam is transported to an alternate version of her life—one where she never left her small town eleven years ago. Through each emo anthem played, Sam receives a glimpse of what her life could have been, uncovering both the ups and downs of each path.

I liked that neither life was exactly perfect for Sam. In a way, it was a reminder that sometimes everything happens for a reason. The chemistry with Damon was more apparent in the alternate timeline, but I also just really loved the fun dive into pop culture during the 2000s. What a time!

A bit more palpable tension between Sam and Damon was needed in the present timeline, I think, but overall I always love the concept of “what if” explored through magical realism, and this was a very enjoyable, lightly emotional take on it.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

THE NOSTALGIA of this book!! Erin, I’ve never read your writing before but I’m SOLD. I listened to the songs alongside of Sam while she listened on her “time travel” CD player and it was just the best experience, that I want every 90s baby to have 🤌🏼

Sam and Damon were best friends in high school - they used to be glued at the hip until Sam didn’t agree to share a kiss and then left town for flight school. Fast forward to today: Sam is a commercial pilot and lives in Paris, while Damon remains in her hometown USA. She is called back when her grandmother plans to transition to a nursing home. Upon returning, she finds her old CD player which contained a playlist tape made for her by Damon long ago. The twist is that when she puts on her headphones to listen, she’s transport back in time to the alternative life she would have had if she *did* kiss Damon.

I loved so much about this book including:

•slow burn romance
•small town setting
•second chance story
•mental health representation
•girl friendship
•time travel
•2000s nostalgia

PLEASE read this book and thank me later!

Thank you @netgalley and @harlequinbooks for the ARC copy of this book + and opportunity to review it early.

If you are someone that often is feeling nostalgic about 2000's emo culture or were at one point obsessed with Twilight and Hot Topic you'll love this book! The plot is so fun! It's a second chance romance with spice and a bit of magic. It has a lot of funny moments and I loved Sam. I loved the descriptions when Sam was listening to the CD. The relationship between Damon and Sam was very sweet especially when they were in high school. There were a lot of "aww" moments! It was overall a fun read and I would read again.
Thank you NetGalley, Harlequin Trade Publishing and Erin La Rosa for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

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

As an elder emo, I felt such a great nostalgia reading this book. Music is, and always has, been very important in my life and revisiting albums from the early aughts that I was obsessed with is always great. Throughout this book, we get to see Sam revisit her favorite musics from high school while seeing an alternate version of her life.

Sam is a really great protagonist. She followed her dream of being a pilot straight out of high school and left Georgia, and her best friend Damon, behind. When she returns, so do her complicated feelings. She’s always asking the what if questions and her old cd player shows her exactly that. I really loved that this forces Sam to really inspect her current life and what she really wants. She's spent so long running and not setting down real roots that she questions decisions she made as a teenager.

On the surface, it seems like a sweet rom com, but it tackles some difficult topics really well. Sam struggles with her relationship with her mother and her regrets of the past. Her friendship with Damon was always an anchor for her, and it’s exciting when they reconnect. The alternate timeline she sees is really devastating in what could have been, both good and bad. Sam's arc is really well done, and it's satisfying to see her confront her mother, have a much needed talk with her grandmother, and decide what she feels for Damon,

Damon is so sweet and truly cares about Sam, even though they haven’t seen each other in years. He wants to help Sam in any way that he can. He's such great book boyfriend material. Also, Sam’s grandmother Pearl is an absolute delight. She is so funny and sassy, and she provides the perfect amount of levity when the subject matter gets tough. There were moments with her where I found myself laughing out loud at her snide comments. This is such a great romance, but it will really resonate for any elder emos out there!

The Backtrack is a 2000’s nostalgic hug in a book! This was my first Erin La Rosa book and I enjoyed it.

After being away for several years to pursue her career as a pilot, Sam Leto returns to her hometown to help her grandmother clean out her family home before it goes on the market. Not only is she confronted with all her 2000’s memorabilia, but she must also navigate challenging family dynamics and the “what ifs” with her high school best friend…all while a magical CD player keeps showing her glimpses of an alternate version of her life!

Similar to Sam, we sometimes wonder the “what ifs” in life the older we get. I found the concept of the magical CD player showing Sam an alternate version of her life if she had made different choices very intriguing — be careful what you wish for! I loved following each song from Damon’s mixtape and seeing how the song fit into the plot of Sam’s alternate life. As a fellow millennial with a love for 2000s emo music, this is what really made the book for me!

Going into this book, I thought it would be a fun, light-hearted rom-com but it ended up having much deeper themes. I greatly appreciated the mental health representation. The depiction of Sam navigating the challenging relationship with her mom was done really well, especially towards the end when they were setting boundaries and moving towards a path of understanding. Lastly, Grandma Pearl was a riot and should be protected at all costs!!

I liked Erin’s writing and followed it along as if I were watching a movie. (Okay, but this book should totally become a movie!) Overall, this story was a fun walk down memory lane with all the 2000s references and music!

Thank you to The Hive, Harlequin Trade, NetGalley and the amazing @erinlarosa for this gifted E-Arc. All opinions are my own.

This book is so fun! Total 2000s vibes, from the music to the body glitter, making it such a sweet and nostalgic trip down memory lane!!

Sam has always dreamed of being a pilot and flying herself right out of her tiny hometown of Tybee Island, Georgia. But when she goes back to help her grandmother sell their family home, Sam finds an old cd player with a mixed CD that was made for her by her former best friend and almost love interest Damon. Surprisingly the CD player still works but when Sam hits play it literally transports her back in time and she is able to see an alternative version of her life play out before her eyes.

The chemistry between Sam and Damon is super sweet both in the current time line as well as when they were back in high school. I loved how at first Sam is excited to see what her life would have been like if only she had kissed Damon when she had the chance but then as the book unfolds she realizes that neither path is without challenges. Everything happens for a reason and if it is meant to be then love will find a way. If you are a fan of magical realism then you should absolutely give this one a try! It is adorable!!

What if?

I was charmed by this sliding doors with cd's and mix tapes and music nostalgia. Sam left Tybee Island eleven years ago. She never went back and left her best friend and crush, Damon behind. He liked her and wanted to kiss her in high school but Sam pulled away and left. Sam became a successful pilot, literally flying away from the island that caused her pain with her mother's voice in her head telling her to leave the island, too, while she left Sam.

Damon is successful, handsome, motorcycle riding brewer without his emo eyeliner, now.
There's magic in Sam's cd player and she sees an alternate reality (a la sliding doors).
Sweet, fun, you really feel like you are on Tybee Island, an ode to emo music (Fall Out Boy and Paramore).
Highly recommend.

I absolutely adored this book by Erin La Rosa. The Backtrack is a book that will leave you 100% nostalgic for your favorite emo band growing up and then some. Sam goes back to her small beach hometown of Tybee to help her grandmother pack up her house to sell only to find herself being thrown down a timeline of what-ifs when she finds a CD made by her high school best friend and boy she’s secretly had a crush on her whole life Damon. I loved the pacing of this book and how the author seamlessly incorporated the songs into each part of the story and blended the two together.

Thank you harlequin and NetGalley. The cover grabbed me instantly and this book didn’t disappoint. This is my first by Erin La Rosa, but I’m excited to read more.

For the 2000's Emo kids that thought Twilight was life...pick this book up....you are guaranteed crazy nostalgia vibes. Think manic panic hair die, body glitter, Lisa Frank and Blow Up chairs!!!

Sam left the small island of Tybee right after high school to become a pilot, while childhood BFF Damon stayed on the island to open a brewery. Returning nearly 20 years later to help her Sassy Grandmother who raised her pack up the house to sell. Sam finds the Magical playlist made by Damon, her childhood best friend. The playlist brings Sam back in time to what might have been if they kissed, but what does that make them now, that they never did?

Sam and Damon's Magical Playlist
1.Bring Me to Life - Evanescence
2. I Believe in a Thing Called Love - The Darkness
3.Supermassive Black Hole - Muse
4. Want You Bad - The Offspring
5. Dance Dance - The Fall Out Boy
6. Fell In Love With a Girl - The White Stripes
7. Read My Mind- The Killers
8. Over My Head - The Fray
9. Maps - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
10. The Curse of Curves - Cute Is What We Aim For
11. My Happy Ending - Avril Lavigne
12. I Write Sins Not Tragedies - Panic! At the Disco
13. Always - Blink 182

💿 Ashley Poston Fans will LOVE
🍺 Emo & Punk Rock Music
💿 Time Travel
🍺 Second Chance
💿 Small Town
🍺 Friendship
💿 Sassy Side Characters

This book reads like a movie in your head filled with early 2000s nostalgia 😍. I would have LOVED it at 17, 27 and probably even more now at 37 😂.

My heart thought it was prepared for the journey Sam was about to take back to her childhood home. I was ready to deal with revisiting the past, I was ready to see potential former flames even... I was not ready for the emotional journey this book took me on because it definitely went places I wasn't expecting, but it was so good 🥰. Seriously, I would absolutely watch this if it were a movie 📽️. Multiple times.

The emo-child within me was thriving reading this book! I loved all the music references and how the music of their relationship really drove the story. I think the Alt-version of the characters did a great job serving as a "what if" to help our present-timeline characters grow.

Erin La Rosa's "The Backtrack" follows Sam Leto, a successful international pilot who returns to Tybee Island, Georgia, to assist her grandmother Pearl with moving out of their once-shared beach home. While there, Sam confronts her painful memories and rekindles her relationship with childhood best friend Damon Rocha. The story revolves around a mixtape from Damon, the alternate reality it represents, and the nostalgic and emotional journey of their relationship. The book is filled with nostalgia, and amid backyard dances and motorcycle rides, the anticipation of their reunion makes for an enjoyable, beachy read.

“The Backtrack” was a bit of a victim of circumstance for me. For one, it consisted of two tropes I’m not really a fan of (alternating timelines and second chance). I also read the bulk of it immediately post surgery, which I think clouded my opinion of it.

I’m normally a fan of slight fantastical elements in contemporary romance, but I felt like this one was just alternating timelines in disguise so it didn’t work for me as much. And even so, I still don’t understand what the purpose was of showing Sam the alternate version of events. It certainly didn’t build any chemistry between her and Damon. Their current chemistry was all implied to be from this past chemistry, but all of the flashbacks were from high school or immediately post high school. A lot can change in 15 years, I wouldn’t expect them to be the same people they were before. Meanwhile, this book was trying to balance Sam’s personal growth, her family issues, and the romance all at once and I’m not sure it succeeded.

While I wasn’t a fan of the execution, there were some elements of the book I enjoyed. I really liked the 2000s nostalgia (even if it was a bit heavy handed). That was a lot of fun. I also enjoyed the themes around Sam’s relationship with her mother/family and how her story reflected her mother’s. I wish we got a little more from Damon, he was a bit one dimensional.

Overall, I’d still recommend this one to people since I think it was mostly a me problem, but this one just didn’t land for me (excuse the pilot pun).

2.5 stars

Thank you NetGalley and Canary Street Press for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

Sam escaped Tybee Island, GA as soon as she could, even though it meant leaving behind Damon, her best friend and waiting to see if they could be more. Sam dreamed of being of a pilot and nothing, not even love was going to stop her. Now, 15 years later she’s back to help her ailing grandmother and seeing a much more handsome version of Damon makes her realize that her feelings for Damon are still there, if not stronger. Sam has always wondered what would have happened if she had let Damon kiss her all those years ago - so when she finds her old CD player and the mix CD Damon gave her she decides to play it. However each song she listens to has the power to take her to an alternative version of her life that would have occurred if she hand Damon and kissed. Now she has to decide whether she should give love a chance or continue to run away.

I feel like I’ve read a bunch of high-school-best-friends-turn to-true-love stories in the past month (e.g. Slow Dance, Break Up Pact). What was cute about this one was the clever magical CD player plot device/alternative universe. I read this one pretty quickly (as I do most books) because I really liked all the characters and really wanted to (1) see what would happen to the alternative Sam and Damon and (2) watch for the real world ones to get together. What was clever about this time travel concept was that Sam could see her past but couldn’t actually change anything about it - she was simply a spectator of her alternate world (no butterfly effect in this one). All cute romances have great ancillary characters - and this one does not disappoint, the grandmother, the best friend and Damon’s family all added to the story. This was a cute sliding doors/second chance romance that I found charming and entertaining!

Thank you to Canary Street Press and NetGalley for the ARC to review

What a fun nostalgic read. If emo was not a phase for you either, you definitely need to give this romance a try - there's so many great nostalgic song and band references I need a playlist from the book asap. Great music aside, the story is simple but effective. I liked exploring the what ifs surrounding Sam's return to her hometown and best friend, Damon, reconnecting after a decade of not really speaking. The fated elements in the story were done satisfyingly and felt earned through Sam and Damon's past and present relationship.