From the author who brought you the best-selling romantic comedy, “Hating the Boss.” They say you never forget your first love. Clearly, they haven’t tried hard enough. I’ve spent five years forgetting about Christopher Hastings. His gentle touch? A distant memory. Those gorgeous hazel eyes? Long gone. The sparks that flew when we kissed? Wiped from my mind. Now my life is going exactly the way I …
Now my life is going exactly the way I want it to. I landed a teaching job at my old elementary school. I’m happy again. Everything’s perfect.
Imagine my surprise when I find out my school’s gym teacher is none other than Christopher Hastings.
Cue panic attack.
But it doesn’t matter how good he fills out those basketball shorts—I’ve moved on. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. If only my heart would get the memo.
They say you never forget your first love, and it looks like Christopher is determined to make sure I never forget mine.
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I’m completely wowed by author Kristen Granata’s fantastic writing voice – a standout in the rom com sphere. This girl really knows how to weave a heartfelt story with great comic timing, perfect pacing, and characters you will completely fall in love with living in a totally relatable and often hilarious world (dodgeball to the head, anyone?). From the moment of accident prone Christopher and pragmatic Michelle’s meet cute, or rather, meet adorable (he accidentally beer pongs her drink with a sploosh while playing pool), you’ll be aching to know what could have possibly driven these two apart and rooting for them to hurry up and get back together. I loved the “teacher’s lounge only” school setting, the family dynamics and the secondary characters; especially Christopher’s totally charming nephew Aiden, who will steal as many hearts as he does scenes. Overall, a terrific read and I’ll definitely explore more from this talented author!
An amazing emotional roller coaster. I know Kirsten often talks about the emotion in her stories, and boy does this one deliver. While Christopher and Michelle take a heart-aching road to get their HEA, it is so worth the journey. Their story is sweet and beautiful and filled with a realness that made my eyes blur with tears and my sides burn from laughter. If only we could all be so lucky as to have a story similar to theirs.
“Back to You” by Kristen Granata was a fantastic follow up to her previous book, “Hating the Boss.” Both are completely standalone stories, but I love that the timelines overlapped and Raegan and Jaxon, the main characters from the first book, made cameo appearances here in book #2. I also enjoyed gaining a new perspective on events I remembered from the previous story (especially the dodgeball game!).
The main characters of “Back to You,” Chris and Michelle, were very likeable and relatable, and their families added a lot of humor and heart to the story as well. I particularly enjoyed Chris’s relationship with his nephew Aiden. He was such a great kid, and I’m sure much of that was because of the example Chris set for him. Michelle’s relationship with her father and brothers was a lot of fun too. The way they looked out for each other was quite endearing, and I appreciated how easily they accepted Chris and Aiden into the fold.
The story itself was sweet, charming, and gave me all the feels. There were certainly funny moments, but it was also heartwarming and heartbreaking at times. Michelle and Chris had some tough issues to tackle before they could find their way to back to each other, but I think their relationship developed at a nice pace. I was happy that Michelle didn’t forgive Chris’s past behavior too easily, but made him explain himself and explained why his choices hurt her in return. Even though I completely understood why he chose to leave school to take care of Aiden, Michelle was absolutely correct in that Chris could have handled things with her better back then. Fortunately, everything worked out for them in the end!
Overall, I loved “Back to You” and can’t wait to see what Ms. Granata publishes next.
*ARC provided by the author. All opinions expressed are my own.