Review: Pushing The Limits

Pushing The Limits by Katie McGarry
Pushing The Limits #1
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Release Date: April 30th, 2013
Source: Bought
Date Read: 5/17/15 to 5/20/15
391 pages

Rating: ✰✰✰✰✰ 

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.

But when Noah Hutchins, the smoking-hot, girl-using loner in the black leather jacket, explodes into her life with his surprising understanding, Echo;s world shifts in ways she could never have imagined. They should have nothing in common.

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.

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If anyone even knows who I am, they'll know that I am not a fan of romance. Yet here I am, willingly and on my own, writing a glowing review on Pushing The Limits, a purely YA romance novel. No fantasy or sci-fi involved. 

But then again that's not true. This isn't a story that solely revolves around romance. Pushing The Limits brings up a huge topic, and that is the reality of life. There is no such thing as a black and white world, in other words there's no defining right or wrong answer. This is portrayed with both Echo, the main character, and the love interest, Noah. Both of their lives are filled with hardships, and of course we, as the audience, are supposed to root for them to achieve their goals.

Noah is the "bad boy". He's a delinquent in school, and he's working with the new school counselor to work out visitation rights with his brothers who are being taken care of in a different foster home than him. He is desperately doing everything he can to get his brothers back, even if he himself doesn't have his life together. 

Enter Echo. All she wants is to fit in again with the social world, even though she knows it's not truly something she cares about. After being absent from school for a month and coming back only wearing long sleeves, people have only assumed the worst. But Echo won't tell anyone the truth of what truly happened, because she herself has repressed those memories and now can't see to remember anything about what her bipolar mother has done to her.

There are a ton of characters to root for in the novel, but by the end, everything is thrown back into your face. And that is life. Noah believes he's doing the right thing by rescuing his brothers. The foster parents of his younger brothers believe they're doing the right thing by taking away visitation rights from Noah (which I RAGED about). Echo believes her mother should at least deserve some forgiveness, because when she was on her meds everything was okay. And Echo's father believes that Echo should never see her mother again. Everyone sees things in a different perspective, and none of it is truly right or truly wrong. 

And along with that, the relationship between Noah and Echo goes from disinterested to love, AND IT WAS BEAUTIFUL. It was a nice slow burn, but of course, not without lots of angst regarding Echo's chance of being bipolar and Noah wanting his family back. The only complaint I have is small, and that's Noah's use of the term "baby". I honestly thought the word didn't fit him.

Overall, I loved the dynamics between all the characters, and the life lessons that were portrayed in the book.

And now I'm done being serious. SUMMARY IN DOGE LANGUAGE:

MUCH REALISTIC

SUCH HOTNESS

SO GOOD