Review: Pushing the Limits

Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

Genre: YA


It's Raining Men! 2012 Challenge

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Goodreads Says: "I won't tell anyone, Echo. I promise." Noah tucked a curl behind my ear. It had been so long since someone touched me like he did. Why did it have to be Noah Hutchins? His dark brown eyes shifted to my covered arms. "You didn't do that-did you? It was done to you?" No one ever asked that question. They stared. They whispered. They laughed. But they never asked.

So wrong for each other...and yet so right.

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.

I’ve been confessing a lot as of late… so why not throw a few more confessions out there.

I happen to come across a bunch of books that get A LOT of publicity from readers and bloggers. Being a lover of books you can’t help but to get excited too when you see all the excitement EVERYWHERE. However, a lot of those same books entice me only to be epic fail leaving my faith in other readers waning.

Pushing the Limits happens to be one of those books receiving a lot of publicity and hype AND worth every bit of it! It was EPIC.

This is not your typical teen romance but so much more. What you will find is an incredibly well written story with amazingly developed characters in a world that is all too real. You will walk along side Echo and Noah as they each travel down their given path, discovering bits and pieces of their lives in hopes of feeling whole again.

Both of their stories are compelling and filled with horrors you wouldn’t wish upon anyone much less children. Echo and Noah realize that they are not exactly the same, yet not so different. With that said they found acceptance in one another and in that acceptance, comfort and courage to fight their demons. Their love is sweet, needed and believable.

In the end you can’t help but feel for them. Although you know that things are far from perfect, you hope that there will be a better tomorrow for them, a tomorrow full of normal.

Congrats to Katie McGarry on her wonderful debut! She is officially one of my favorite authors. I cannot wait to read her next book, Dare You To, featuring Beth, one of the many great characters in Pushing the Limits.

My last confession of the day: having just finished Want by Stephanie Lawton and now Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry… I walk away feeling even more weight on my shoulders. I’m praying that I continue to be a good mom no matter what and that I never ever put my child through what the main protagonists have been put through in these books.

Peeps, children really are precious gifts and we should treat them as such, whether they are ours or not.

ARC provided by Harlequin Teen via NetGalley