Review: Crash Into You by Katie McGarry

Crash Into You by Katie McGarry
Series: Pushing The Limits #3
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Source: Publisher
ISBN: 9780373210992
Release Date: November 26, 2013
Pages: 496

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The girl with straight As, designer clothes and the perfect life-that's who people expect Rachel Young to be. So the private-school junior keeps secrets from her wealthy parents and overbearing brothers...and she's just added two more to the list. One involves racing strangers down dark country roads in her Mustang GT. The other? Seventeen-year-old Isaiah Walker-a guy she has no business even talking to. But when the foster kid with the tattoos and intense gray eyes comes to her rescue, she can't get him out of her mind.

Isaiah has secrets, too. About where he lives, and how he really feels about Rachel. The last thing he needs is to get tangled up with a rich girl who wants to slum it on the south side for kicks-no matter how angelic she might look.

But when their shared love of street racing puts both their lives in jeopardy, they have six weeks to come up with a way out. Six weeks to discover just how far they'll go to save each other.

"A debt, a villain, speed and bad odds. This is something I definitely want to be part of."
Logan

I want more of Isaiah. One book just wasn’t enough. I consumed Crash Into You. I finished it in a day. A day! I don’t do that very often. I woke up early to read it and even contemplated calling in sick to work so I could finish it. It was that good. I can’t even analyze this book. This book gave me too many feelings.

After reading Dare You To I didn’t know if Katie McGarry could top it. I was never a fan of Beth and Isaiah together. They seemed to enable each other and that wouldn’t have been healthy for either of them. Beth smashed Isaiah’s heart into tiny little pieces in the last book and he has now closed himself off further. With Rachel, Isaiah was a perfect fit right from the start. Even when he was denying his feelings I was just swooning for him. The cover perfectly epitomizes their relationship. Isaiah the protector. Rachel the naive girl who needs to be protected. Isaiah is all hot and tough wanting to protect Rachel in this book, even when she doesn’t want to be protected.

My heart beats frantically in my chest. Isaiah is hot and scary and hot. Why on earth would a guy like him want to be anywhere near a girl like me?
Rachel

Rachel suffers from severe panic attacks to a point where she was once hospitalized due to the severity of them. Rachel tries and tries to be a perfect daughter. The daughter she was supposed to replace. She sacrifices everything, including her health to make her family happy. With four brothers that bring overprotective to a whole other level Rachel feels suffocated.

I hate this illness. I hate it in ways that make my blood run cold and my muscles heavy with rage. I hate the way my family has always looked at me as if I’m breakable. I hate how I’ve been a constant disappointment when each of my brothers has excelled at so many public things like sports or debate teams.

“I never asked for this.”
Rachel

“And I did. Do you think this is the life that Jack and I wanted? To watch our sister die? To watch Mom’s soul die? But it’s what we got. We all have roles to play, Rachel and I’m tired of having to remind you of yours.”
Gavin

Even while being overprotective Rachel’s family puts so much pressure on her. Her brothers and father all expect her to sacrifice herself to ensure her mother is happy regardless of whether it affects Rachel’s health.

Isaiah is broken, but I just loved him so freaking much! He has been bounced from foster home to foster home his entire life. Everyone he has loved leaves him. He doesn’t want to have feelings for Rachel He knows those type of feelings make you vulnerable and others are able to use that to their advantage. Isaiah has had a rough life, but found a family with Noah and Beth. What I loved about Isaiah was a tough as he appeared he was sensitive and had such a good heart. With Rachel he slowly shows himself to her and reveals things about his past that no else knew.

"What’s wrong with me that nobody wants to keep me?"
Isaiah

The author knows how to write such distinct characters. I adore the cast of characters that Katie McGarry as created from Noah and Echo to Ryan and Beth, Abby, Logan, etc. They all care so much about each other and have the others back no matter what. I want more I want more of Ethan and Abby. (*hint hint* book five please.)

Overall, you have hot guys, fast cars, and a story to die for what more do you need from a book?

My Rating:

Review: Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

Pushing The Limits by Katie McGarry
Series: Pushing The Limits #1
Source: Bought
Release Date: June 1, 2012

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 recently read the second book in this series, Dare You To, and honestly I liked the second book better. Beth was a much more interesting character in the second book compared to Echo. I didn't have either negative or positive feelings towards this book. At times I was just a little bored and skimmed parts.

Noah Hutchins, is your typical bad boy. Bad attitude, bad grades, messy family life, etc., but when Echo Emerson starts to tutor him, he starts to change. His grades improve, attitude gets better, etc. Echo became an outcast of her friends after her "accident." Pretty much all of her friends eventually abandoned her, except for Lila. Lila was her only friend that I could actually tolerate in the book. Grace and Luke were both terrible friends and once Echo decided she could confront her scars and wear short sleeves in public, they both abandoned her again.

You can tell when reading this book that both characters honestly do care for each other, but both have crazy stuff going on in their lives. This might have been why the book was depressing at times. Even though Echo's secret was tragic, I found Noah and his brothers the more compelling story in the book. Echo's lack of memory did provide a unique spin to the good girl vs. bad boy storyline.

My Rating:

Review: Dare You To by Katie McGarry

Dare You To by Katie McGarry
Series: Pushing The Limits #2
Source: Netgalley
Release Date: May 28, 2013

Beth’s the bad girl that no-one wanted, not even parents.

Ryan’s the high school hero that everyone wants a piece of – even if no-one knows the real him.

Their paths should never have crossed – now they’re each other’s only life line.

If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk’s mum they’d send her mother to jail. So seventeen year old Beth protects her mum at all costs. Until the day she can’t. Suddenly sent to live with her uncle in a small town Beth’s now stuck with an aunt who doesn’t want her, and at a school that doesn’t get her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn’t go anywhere near a girl like Beth. . . .

Ryan Stone is gorgeous, a popular jock and the town golden boy—with secrets he can’t tell anyone. Even his friends. As Ryan and Beth dare to let each other in, they’re treading on dangerous ground – and the consequences could change their worlds forever.

I really enjoyed this book. I haven't read the first book in this series, so I didn't really have a lot to connect with Noah and Isaiah. I liked how Beth slowly opened up to people in her new life. She was tough, but vulnerable at the same time. Even in the end she didn't lose herself and become someone fake. She was just a better version of herself.

Beth did not have an easy life. Her mother is either strung out on drugs, drunk, or being beaten by her douche-bag boyfriend. Beth's mother is the opposite of what a good mother should be. What kind of mother would allow her teenage daughter to take the fall for her and be arrested? Or let her boyfriend beat up her daughter? A really shitty one. That's who. The only thing that frustrated me in this book was that Beth wouldn't let go of her mother. But she had to overcome that and the guilt she felt about her father leaving her mother. No matter how many times Beth found her mother drunk, she would help her home, clean her up, make sure she had food, and that her bills were paid.

You could tell her Uncle Scott was really trying. He wasn't perfect, but he was working with what he had.

Usually, I don't like split POVs, as I find they disrupt the flow of the book. In Dare You To the story is written in both Beth and Ryan's points of view. The author wrote the split very seamlessly and it almost added to the storytelling.

As I stated I did enjoy this book, but I couldn't give it four stars. It was definitely a solid three star book.

My Rating: