REVIEW: Dare You To (Pushing the Limits #2)

"I dare you..." 

If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk's home life, they'd send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom's freedom and her own happiness. That's how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn't want her and going to a school that doesn't understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn't get her, but does.... 

Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can't tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn't be less interested in him. 

But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won't let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all....

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Before I start this review, I just want to say HUGE thank you to Harlequin UK for giving me an arc of this book through netgalley, I totally wasn't expecting to get it so thank you again. You guys are very generous and I squealed upon seeing my request getting approved :) So without further ado, let the review begin.

“This overwhelming, encompassing feeling is love. It's not perfect and it's messy as hell. And it's exactly what I need.” 

EEP. SO MANY FEELS. Katie McGarry has done it yet again. Damn lady, you're quickly becoming one of my favourite authors of all time. She's gone ahead and created yet another emotional, unforgettable and gut-wrenching story between who utterly messed up yet absolutely perfect characters. 

We see Beth Risk a.k.a Skater Girl who is whisked away from her troubled world in Louisville and is sent to live in a small rural town with her uncle Scott, a former baseball player who played for the New York Yankees. Beth is dark. Spiky. Rude. Snappy. Bitchy. Condescending. Think of a small angry goth girl with tattoos, dyed black hair and a nose piercing. Yep, that's her. Ugh, I just loved Beth. She is brutally honest, to the point of where someone's feelings are hurt, swears a shit load and protective of her mother, despite her mother letting her down over and over again. Beth is a deeply misunderstood character who is quickly judged by most people in the small town of Groveton (think of Stepford wives, Sunday dinners, church committee meetings... yep, that's Groveton down pat) and quickly puts her defences up when it comes to meeting new people, not willing to risk getting hurt again due to an incident that happened when she was just a vulnerable fifteen year old.  She was frustrating at times with all the patronising remarks she made about Echo and how she was quick to judge Allison (admittedly Allison DID judge her as well), the fact that all of her decisions seemed to revolve around her deadbeat, heroin-addicted mother who isn't a healthy influence on her at all and how she's so unwilling of accepting trust for what it is. But she's damaged and all she needs is someone to take care of her, to be free of responsibility.

Enter the Taco Bell Boy, Ryan Stone. Ryan is your quintessential all-American boy jock who's destined to have a great baseball career and then settle in his McMansion with his pretty blonde wife and their 2.5 children frolicking in their yard with their pet dog. His parents are respected members of the community and his dad seems to be a dead cert for mayor of the town. All of this is a facade. His parents fight. His dad demands too much of him. His brother is the black (well, gay) sheep of the family and is no longer living with them. The author did a great job of demonstrating the inner turmoil in his life and I really appreciated that, he was my favourite character. Let me just say, I pretty much liked Ryan right from the start when we got that excerpt at the end of Pushing the Limits - he seemed like your average, flirty jock with a great sense of humour. My suspicions were right; he is conceited to a point and is your typical jock but he is a contrast of all sorts. He is also sweet, caring and has a great love for creative writing which was a breath of fresh air amongst all the one-dimensional jocks in Young Adult fiction. He knew what he wanted in his life, who he wanted in his life; there was no naffing about on his part and I liked that. Ryan helps Beth grow and develop as a person and helps her see the meaning of trust again and I found that incredibly sweet, how he was so willing to accept her, prickly demeanour and all.

“There are times when you stand on the cusp of moments so huge, you know you'll remember them forever. This is that moment for me and for Ryan.” 

I also loved Beth's uncle Scott. Scott is fairly young for an adult (he was twelve when Beth was born), grew up in a trailer park and messed around with trailer park girls before making it to the pros with the New York Yankees and ended up marrying a woman who was the exact opposite of the girls he used to hook up with. Despite Beth rebelling against him and him also ranting back at her in return, he was that tough yet loving authority figure that Beth had always needed and craved for and provides her with the kind of caring, familial love that she had always yearned for.

Damn, I gotta say I feel sorry for Isaiah. Dude was friendzoned majorly. Although I was rooting for Beth and Ryan the whole way right from the start, my heart went out for him when Beth rejected him. He deserves a girl that is in love with him and not just on a friendship level - but I didn't feel too badly seeing that there was a sequel about him called Crash into You. CANNOT WAIT. I'm sure he'd get his happy ending then. But I've got a long wait, seeing as this book isn't technically out yet. Damn.

Dare You To is a fantastic read with a badass chick who doesn't stand for bullshit and is chockfull of sexual tension and scenes that are sure to make you swoon. What more could you want?

RATING: 4.5/5 stars

REVIEW: Pushing the Limits (Pushing the Limits #1)

No one knows what happened the night Echo Emerson went from popular girl with jock boyfriend to gossiped-about outsider with "freaky" scars on her arms. Even Echo can't remember the whole truth of that horrible night. All she knows is that she wants everything to go back to normal.But when Noah Hutchins, the smoking-hot, girl-using loner in the black leather jacket, explodes into her life with his tough attitude and surprising understanding, Echo's world shifts in ways she could never have imagined. They should have nothing in common. And with the secrets they both keep, being together is pretty much impossible.

Yet the crazy attraction between them refuses to go away. And Echo has to ask herself just how far they can push the limits and what she'll risk for the one guy who might teach her how to love again.

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Thank you to Harlequin UK for being kind enough for letting me review this when I requested it on netgalley. :D

Pushing the Limits tells the story of Echo Emerson (I'm sorry but I absolutely despise the name Echo, I always think of thirteen year old scene girls whenever I see that name. ANYWAY...), a formerly popular cheerleader who suddenly vanished off the face of the earth at the end of her sophomore. She returns for her junior year and rumours are flying around the school about her disappearance. Echo quickly goes from the girl with the jock boyfriend who makes honour roll on a regular basis to that freaky loner with weird scars on her arms and repressed memories about what happened on that particular night.

Noah Hutchins is a foster kid with a toughened and hardened shell who is a girl-using, one-night-stand having, underachieving stoner and is branded so by practically everyone he meets, even Echo initially. Nobody bothers to know Noah for who he is though, preferring to ignore the depths of his pain and the tragic events that shape the way he is.

This novel is told in both Echo and Noah's point of view which serves to highlight the different worlds they come from. Both characters have depth and it's always awesome when you see people overcome their inner demons together and rediscover themselves again. I liked that this book highlighted one of the key aspects in one's life: Family. We see Echo's struggles with her overbearing, controlling businessman father and her mentally ill mother, her young babysitter-turned-stepmother and we see her grief over her dead brother. We also see how Noah struggles to cope with the death of his parents in an accident a few years earlier and his feelings towards his brothers putting put in the foster system and the obstacles he faces to reunite his family once again.

I docked a star off this book because I felt as if Echo and Noah's romance was based on physical sex appeal rather than an actual emotional connection. Yes, there were scenes where they connected on an emotional level but overall, I felt like as if they were only into each other because she had a great rack and that he looked nice in a leather jacket. I also felt like it was repetitive in some areas when Noah kept describing Echo as being a 'nymph' (who the hell describes their girlfriend as a nymph?) or a 'goddess' and kept alluding to the fact that she smelled like cinnamon. Yes, she resembles a donut and she's hot. We get it. 

Despite the corniness and cheesiness in certain parts, I liked this book. A Lot. I loved Echo and Noah's witty banter and the fact that there was no insta-love; they were both emotionally damaged people who had serious problems to work out than just obsess over each other and I liked their sessions with the school counsellor and how she slowly helped them rebuild their lives on their journey of discovering themselves again, even though they hated seeing her at first. 

I really wish I could talk about the content of the book in a more eloquent manner about Echo's 'friendship' with Grace and Noah's friends Isaiah and Beth but I can't seem to quite put into words. But this has everything; romance, sadness, sweetness and a hopeful end.

I can't wait for Katie McGarry's next book Dare You To which is basically a sequel of this book but about Beth, Noah's friend, instead. CANNOT WAIT. June seems so far away!

RATING: 4/5 stars