Review: Come Back To Texas (Twelve Beats In A Bar #1) by K.K. Hendin

Title: Come Back To Texas
Author: K.K. Hendin
Series: Twelve Beats In A Bar
Genre: Romance, Contemporary, New Adult
Publication date: Augustus 17th 2014
Pages; 274 (Kindle edition)
Source: Xpresso Reads






Everyone thought we'd be the ones who made it through high school. The ones who'd get married and stay married forever. Te example of how young love can work. 

We thought so, too.

Too bad life had other plans.

It's been three years since Hayley and Nate broke each other's hearts. Three years, and a lot has changed.  Hayley's a freshman in Bushwick University, and the only thing keeping her sane are stress baking, and her a cappella group, Twelve Beats in a Bar.

Nate's a Marine, stationed in Afghanistan. The only thing that's keeping him sane is the last picture he has of him and Hayley, and the hope that maybe when the hell of deployment is over, he can find her again and apologize. 

One explosion will change everything.

When a bomb kills all of Nate's unit, leaving him missing a leg and eyesight in one eye, he's sent back home to Texas. Texas, where he loved Hayley more than he could possibly imagine ever loving anyone else.

With seemingly endless amounts of free time and needing something to distract himself, Nate starts making YouTube videos, imploring Hayley to come back to him, and come back to Texas.

Hayley's life is wrapped around the Beats, making sure she doesn't flunk out of biology class, and babysitting Ohio's smallest monster, Brandon. She doesn't want to admit it, but she misses Nate more than anything.

It's too bad she doesn't know just how much he misses her, too...

Goodreads

Hayley and Nate were high school sweethearts. But like many relationships that started in high school they didn’t last. Three years after their brutal brake up Hayley is starting college. A fresh new start that is supposed to keep her mind from thinking of Nate. Nothing has ever seemed more impossible than that. Is there a chance that Nate still misses her as much as she misses him, even after three years? Or is it finally time to move on?

Hayley was a great and wonderful girl. She had this amazing sense of humor. But her past was keeping her back. It bothered me a little that she hadn’t really tried to move on after she and Nate broke up. It had been three years! I get that she still missed him in some ways but it hold her back all this time. Near the end so was finally doing better probably because she talked about it too her friends, who are btw amazing. Hayley finally accepted that she didn’t have to do everything alone, that she had friends and family that wanted to help her and wanted her to be happy.
I really liked Nate it was clear that he had a difficult upbringing. I mean his mom literally dumped him by his grandmother and never looked back. He made some wrong decisions in the past but it was clear that he was trying to make up for them. He really grew as a character during this book and I really loved that. But I kind of missed that we didn’t really get to know his whole background, I have a feeling that there is so much more about him than that we were told now.

One of the great things about this book was the flashbacks. They showed how Nate and Hayley met, how their relationship grew and how it abruptly ended. It did give me a better understanding of their feelings and why they made those certain decisions in their lives. We also get to see the present time where Nate and Hayley are separate and are living completely different lives. I really liked the alternations between the past and the present.  The ending of this book was really sweet but it didn’t really feel to me like an ending. It more felt like a beginning so I’m curious about the novella that Hendin has written.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. It was an easy and quick read. The book was heartbreaking at certain points but also so sweet with Nate and his videos for Hayley. I can’t wait to find out how their story continues!

El