Review: Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

Title: Pushing the Limits

Author: Katie McGarry

Publisher: HarlequinTeen

Publication Date: 7.31.2012

Pages: 392

Genre: Contemporary

Series: No

Source: ARC from BEA

Rating: A-

Summary:

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.

Review:

I think I can credit this book with jump starting my renewed obsession with contemporary novels. I got through cycles where I obsess over a certain genre and read it to death. I hadn’t read a contemporary novel in months before this one, and Katie McGarry totally restored my faith and love for this type of book. Heady, romantic, and down-right drool-worthy, Pushing the Limits could easily be compared to every other bad-boy-meets-wounded-girl novel, with the singular exception that it was written with McGarry’s flawless grace.

Echo is a damaged girl, repressing memories of how she came by these winding scars etched into her arms. Noah is a boy that’s been beaten down by the system repeatedly. Together these two collide and explode like a 4th of July fireworks display. Maybe I’m just a sucker for this ‘type’ of story, but there is so much more to it than that.

This is one of those novels where the alternating perspectives just worked. Getting into Echo’s head and then Noah’s was intensely revealing and really added to the overall appeal of the novel. Watching them fall in love, and not just getting a one-sided perspective, was fantastic. I loved it.

The only fault I found with the novel were Echo’s father and step-mother. I get that these two were supposed to be overbearing and somewhat villainous, but after a while I was just flat out fed up with them. They truly started to irritate the bejeezus out of me.

Pushing the Limits is a fabulously romantic story with a mysterious twist. Definitely a book to check out sooner rather than later.

Purchase: Amazon | The Book Depository