Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

Release Date: 25th July, 2012

Publisher: HarlequinTeen

Pages: 392pgs

The Story

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.

The Review

A big thanks to Morey Media for sending me an ARC copy of this book!

The moment I saw the blurb I knew this was definitely my kind of book. As far as romances go in the young adult genre - cliche or not - I have the secret pleasure of reading about forbidden romances where two young people find themselves being opposites to one another and as much as they know they are no good together, somehow and some way they are just meant to be and go against all the odds that life throws at them. Like many of you I know, I'm a total sucker for those kind of forbidden relationships. I just can't help but love them! So, when it comes to this book, I'm happy to say I soon disappeared into the lives of Echo and Noah and Katie McGarry sure knows how to please her readers with such raw emotion and intensity.

I won't go into any details regarding the storyline, so let's talk about the characters and in particular the two main characters we alternate chapters between. That being Echo and Noah. Echo is a wonderfully portrayed young woman. She's real and she's honest, and I guess that's what added this believability to her character and it's probably the main reason why I liked her so much. She was someone who is coming to grips with who she is as a person but she's also someone who is still trying to face the many difficult times ahead of her, since she'd recently experienced a horrific event but one she cannot exactly remember. I admit, for someone so young, I couldn't imagine anything worse then not remembering something life-changing that happened to you and I just couldn't help but feel for her, especially when it came to how she's coping with her family and her friends alongside her own grief. Yeah . . . I'm sure many readers will relate to her on some personal level.

On the other hand, we have Noah. Really, what's with all these Noah names being thrown around nowadays? Out of everyone, Noah's character was the one that really surprised me in the end. He was more than his reputation precedes itself and he was an angel in some respects when it came to caring about others and for his brothers, which I didn't see coming at all. Even when he started calling Echo 'Baby' all the time (which as you know, drives me nuts and if anybody called me that I would kick his ass to the curb haha), there was just this immediate connection you had with Noah - despite all his faults - and you could understand what drove him and Echo together. After all, they both had suffered from something tragic in their past and they were still coping with their tough circumstances, even after such a long time of grieving. Honestly, they had the perfect chemistry in my books . . . even when things seemed so impossible for them to actually be together.

Overall, PUSHING THE LIMITS is unlike any other YA romance novels of today. There's no insta-love nor any love triangle placed in there to create some tension - it was just a book that make your heart ache in all the right places and it was just a book that had a little bit of everything to inspire you in your own life. So if you love stories from the likes of Simone Elkeles or Elizabeth Scott, then PUSHING THE LIMITS is a MUST read for you because it definitely pushes everything to the limits and if not, pushes you more than you would ever expect from it and I'll be very much looking forward to reading what else Katie McGarry writes next!

The Rating5/5 stars