Crash Into You by Katie McGarry

 
Release Date: Out now!

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Pages: 464pgs

The Story

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.

The Review

A big thanks to the publisher on netGalley for providing me with a review copy of this book!

From the very first book in the Pushing the Limits series I have loved the author's writing not to mention all of her characters - main or supporting ones, and while I still don't know how she manages to write these amazing stories, but I know one thing is for sure: Katie McGarry is definitely one of my favourite contemporary writers by far! She just nails each and every book of hers!

CRASH INTO YOU was such a thrill ride for me and while I wouldn't necessarily say that it was my favourite, favourite book in the series (really it's hard to decide because all of the books are written so brilliantly), but boy it was pretty close and SO GOOD too! Now initially it took me some time to warm up to our new leading lady, Rachel, and be immersed with her story this time round (even though she definitely turns into such a lovely, bad-ass girl later in the book), but when her perspective is switched and paired up with Isaiah's perspective . . . then everything else in the book soon becomes perfection within itself and honestly Isaiah was what I loved most out of everyone else. He was the driving force of the entire book I thought!

Oh Isaiah! I have loved him from the get-go of this series and while I wasn't entirely sure what he could be capable of with his own book (especially since his heart was broken in the previous sequel), but now I think out of all of the guys I have met in this series so far, he's definitely in my top lists of favourite boy characters of all time. Just boy . . .  I love him and that's probably because he reminds me so much of Alex from Simone Elkeles's Perfect Chemistry which is bonus for us fangirls if I do say so myself. Isaiah just has so much compassionate and protective hotness in this book (much more than I ever expected from him too), so just you wait until you get to know him some more and see the flaming hot chemistry he shares with Rachel . . . just you wait girls . . . you're going to love him a hundred times more than you do already!

Overall, CRASH INTO YOU contains a lot of frustrating and over-the-edge type of characters (especially with Rachel's family), but with the driving force of Isaiah and Rachel's newfound love . . . everything in this book is totally worth the wait!

The Rating

5/5 stars

Dare You To by Katie McGarry

Release Date: 7th June, 2013

Publisher: Mira Ink

Pages: 352pgs

The Story

Ryan lowers his lips to my ear. "Dance with me, Beth."

"No." I whisper the reply. I hate him and I hate myself for wanting him to touch me again....

"I dare you..."

If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk's home life, they'd send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom's freedom and her own happiness. That's how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn't want her and going to a school that doesn't understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn't get her, but does . . .

Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can't tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn't be less interested in him.

But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won't let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all . . .

The Review

A big thanks to the publisher on netGalley for accepting my request in reading this book early!

Whoa. Whoa. WHOA. Okay so I absolutely loved Katie McGarry's debut, Pushing the Limits, as did others judging by the many, many high praising reviews it received and it too had become one of my favourite contemporary YA titles from last year and one that was pretty much unforgettable for me. But just when I thought her sequel and companion book to the series could never ever beat my epic love of her debut book and its featured characters . . . I was clearly wrong - DEAD WRONG - in all respects and I totally mean in ALL respects possible because my mind was blown!

DARE YOU TO continues the Pushing the Limits series with Beth, a very misunderstood teenage girl who we were introduced to in the first book. Now coming from a deadbeat family with a mother who couldn't care less about her and with no father present, Beth has a very little chance of a great life. But when she is arrested for something her mother and her mother's lowlife boyfriend did (only Beth takes the blame for it), Beth is soon reunited with her wealthy Uncle, someone she hasn't even seen since she was a kid and whom decides to let her live - or rather force her to live - with him and his new wife. As she's taken away from everything she knows dear including her best friend Isaiah, Beth is quickly enrolled into an entirely new school and meets the golden boy of the town, Ryan, someone who doesn't mind a good old dare. So when Beth becomes one of Ryan's dares, she is soon challenged in every aspect of her new life - in family, friends, and most importantly, in new love. But the question is: Is Ryan the perfect start to her do-over life or is just the beginning of even more trouble for Beth and her family?

Despite what I felt for the first book in the series, never have I felt this way about another contemporary YA book before! You know, the way where you just sit there in one place, on a bed, and keep on reading a book until you finish every single page of it . . . even if it means no food or water in-between those chapter breaks? Yeah . . . that was the exact feeling I got from this book and boy this book was totally worth my time! DARE YOU TO deserves more than this blabbing review because the book releases all sorts of emotions within me - the emotions that had everything to do with the sexy tension, the sizzling chemistry, the sometimes exuberant characters, and a strongly-driven storyline. And in the end, I guess what surprised me even more when it comes down to this book was that I LOVED this sequel way more than the first book, Pushing the Limits, and who would have thought, right? I know . . . I had no idea Katie McGarry could outdo herself with this one!

I think what made this book shine even more than it already did was the dual-perspectives that was told from the characters, Beth and Ryan. Both of the narratives told from these two main characters, I find, was so . . . intense and yet so emotional too. It was almost as if these people were actually real to me and were among my own company of friends, so that's a very rare feeling to get from a book alone so the author clearly did something very right in that respect. 

Now Beth for me was someone so rough around the edges and doesn't know love at all - even if it hit her right in the face - and yet she possessed every single quality that I love in a good, strong and a very inspiring main character - honesty, loyalty and a feisty personality - and when she is with her potential love interest, Ryan, her character just keeps on getting better and better. As for Ryan, he was another character I could respect and he's exactly what I love in a love interest - someone who isn't all what he seems but is caring for the most part. I just absolutely loved him to death. LOVED him! I mean, much like with Beth's character, Ryan did everything right for me and it's great to see his own company of friends to be . . . well . . . really good friends and not total idiots.

Overall, I could go on and on about this book. Forever even. I mean, DARE TO YOU delivers more than just a regular YA contemporary storyline . . .  it actually breaks you down in all of the emotion it contains and in the best possible way too. So if you loved and had many 'feels' for the first book in the series, Pushing the Limits, then be prepared for its sequel. It's a real heart-aching and an emotion kicker, and I can't wait to get Isaiah's side of things in the third book continuation of Crash Into You, which should be coming out sometime next year! Can't wait!

The Rating

5/5 stars