Review: Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

Pushing the Limits  

by Katie McGarry

Published: July 31, 2012

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Available: Amazon (pre-order)

Synopsis:

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.

Review:
This has got to be one of my favorite YA contemporary romances this year, if not ever! It is a fast read, made so by McGarry's strong voice, and her brilliantly crafted characters.


When I started reading Pushing the Limits I was expecting something a little softer. I'm not sure exactly why, but it just seemed more of a fluffy good girl falls for bad boy story. Pushing the Limits is so much more. Noah and Echo come from completely different backgrounds, but both had their lives torn apart, and now they are struggling to survive in the lives they've created for themselves. There is no insta-love, and there is no game playing. They come across as genuine people trying to understand what happened to them and why. Even the secondary characters were beautifully developed. Noah's friend Beth is even getting a book of her own, and I can't wait to read it!


It's really hard to pin point specific things I loved about the story, because doing so would reveal spoilers, and this is definitely a book I would hate to spoil for anyone. I will say that I cried for about the last third of the book, I got angry, and ultimately I felt hope that Noah and Echo wouldn't forever be defined by the things that happened to them, but by how they survived. Despite my tears, and the obvious serious nature of both Echo and Noah's lives, I wasn't left with a heavy feeling. Pushing the Limits is an amazing debut novel for McGarry.