Review: Pushing The Limits by Katie McGarry

Pushing The Limits by Katie McGarry

• Pub. Date: July 31, 2012
• Publisher:Harlequin 
• Pages: 416

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.

First Line: : "My father is a control freak, I hate my stepmother, my brother is dead and my mother has...well issues."


Review:

Contemporary is not something I read. I've only read two this whole year including this one. And Pushing The Limits has had such an impact on me that I am now actually adding more contemporary books to my must reads. Plain and simple McGarry has created such a riveting and heart wrenching story about two characters who even though complete opposites couldn't be more alike.


Echo and Noah have been through a lot. Echo is the popular girl gone loner and considered a freak with all those horrible scars on her arms which she can't remember how she got them. Her world has been turned upside down. Her brother is dead, her mom has something to do with that horrible night that changed her entire life, and her dad is married and having a baby with her former babysitter.

Noah...oh man this boy is complex, he is the bad boy at least that is what everyone sees on the surface but deep down there is so much more to Noah. He lost both his parents to a fire and is being bounced around foster homes while trying to figure out how to get custody of his two little brothers who he thinks is living in a home where they are being abused.

I can go on and on about the two main characters, they were so real and believable never once did I find them to be unrealistic. And not just them but all the characters in the book from Beth, Isaiah, even Mrs. Collins and Echo's dad were all multifaceted which made even reading parts that included them in it just as gripping as the parts that only involved Echo and Noah.

I experienced a whole whirlwind of emotions while reading Pushing The Limits. I caught myself on the verge of crying at some points while others I would be laughing or angry and at times nervous and full of worry. It was really a rollercoaster of a book and I highly recommend it.