I enjoyed this book. However, I was left wanting more for Cloudy and Kyle. ( )

Kyle and Cloudy are trying to survive after having their ex-girlfriend/best friend die in an accident six months ago. Cloudy appears to be handling everything very well but she isn't. Kyle doesn't know how to deal with this death and it shows. When Cloudy finds out that Ashlyn's organs were donated, she sets out to visit the the people that received the organs and drags Kyle alone with her without telling him what the road-trip is about until they reach their first destination.

I swear something's wrong with me. This book had it all to be amazing and all the raving reviews on Goodreads prove it but I couldn't love it. I know it wasn't my mood because I was super excited for it but I didn't click with it. I was so close to DNF'ing this book but if you know me, then you know it's hard for me to DNF a book so I pushed through. For the first 65% or 70%, the book was sloooow.

Seriously, I couldn't deal. My excitement for this book died very early on in the story because not much was really happening. That's saying a lot because this book has a road-trip and I love road-trips!! But this one was so boring. It started off slow, giving us a background on Cloudy and Kyle. To me, the background didn't add much to the story. It did at the beginning but then it was dragged on for nothing because it didn't really add anything. It didn't make me feel sympathetic at all and I was just over it all, but I kept reading because I was excited for the road-trip.

Well, nothing happened. Once again, the road-trip didn't add much in my opinion. Even through the death of a friend these two teens experienced, I couldn't feel sorry for them. The book took on a very somber feel to it and it got really difficult for me to want to finish this book. The romance felt so forced! Even when they previously had feelings for each other, I couldn't believe it at all.

Overall, this book didn't impress me at all and it bums me because this was one of my 2016 anticipated releases.
--
Review can be found on Latte Nights Reviews:
https://lattenightsreviews.com/arc-review-the-way-back-to-you/ ( )

I wanted to read The Way Back to You because I liked the road trip aspect paired with the friends trying to make sense of the death of their friend by tracking down the recipients of her organ donation.

The first part getting to know the two main characters is like a study in different kinds of grief. Claudia AKA cloudy is trying to go about her life still and it's hard on her because they were best friends and they did cheerleading together. it's hard for her whenever she has moments like she turns around to tell something to Ashlyn but she is obviously not there having passed away.
Kyle is the boyfriend and when we first meet him he is seeking out churches in Hope of some kind of comfort. He's never been to church much but according to him he remembers seeing the movies and books and stuff that people can find answers or Comfort or whatever they need at churches.
He someone gets a sign because when he comes out of the church he finds this little cat and it's freezing outside so he decides to adopt the cat which is interesting because of how involved Ashland was into Pet Rescue Pet rights that sort of thing so I think it was fitting and for some reason the cat just reminded Kyle of Ashland so he decided that he was going to adopt her. it's interesting how a cat can just wiggle its way into your heart or any kind of pet really I have never been a cat person myself but I guess I just meant pets in general. they can be stress relievers and they are someone who is going to be loyal to you and provide a source of love and comfort.

As for the road trip part of this, cloudy realizes that Ashlyn's Mom has been in really close contact with the family of some of the recipients. she accidentally season email about one of the little boys who was the recipient and he was going to be performing in a play so it hits her that Kyle has been struggling a whole lot and so is she in this that maybe this could bring some kind of Peace so she wrote them into a road trip but she doesn't tell him a whole lot about what's going on. Of course that doesn't take him long to figure it out since they were hours from home and cloudy can't really keep it a secret anymore but whenever he sees a little boy up on stage something really just clicks with him so they continue on the road trip.

As their time together increases we get to see some of their memories and we see that their history isn't as black-and-white as it seems at first. we find out that cloudy light Kyle first but then she was trying to heal from a break up and it ends up that Ashlynn and Kyle start dating and she made some mistakes and they were both keeping it quiet so they didn't hurt Ashlynn but there have been some chemistry Between the two they were Lab Partners and they had spent some time together and over this road trip they have to overcome the awkwardness and the secrecy and also all of that mingled in with their grief over losing their best friend and girlfriend respectively.

Again we get to see the different types of grief, and how this trip and seeing old friends as well as the organ recipients affects the two. A big part of their life passed, and they saw her in ICU, and they see some of the parts of grief they were doing wrong, and start to try to learn newer and healthier ways to express that.

I liked the ending, and how it all wrapped up.

Bottom Line: Well done road trip and healing story. ( )