Review: Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

Goodreads Summary:

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.

Genre: YA romance

My rating for Pushing the Limits (#1):

WOW did I love this book! I was not expecting this at all! I started it on a whim after my lovely friend Bayli Lane at Bayli's Bookshelf recommended I read it. (She recommends the best books to read so definitely check her out!) I repeat, I did not expect this story. The first sentence of this YA book by itself told me I didn't know what I was getting myself in to: 

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

Echo, echo, echo...is not just the repetition of sound produced by sound waves. It's the name of a 17 year old girl who had almost been murdered by her bi-polar mother. "Almost" meaning she could have died if she had been discovered any later than she had been. Since that time, she's become a self-inflicted recluse with a hint of reject from her peers. When she tries working towards the only thing she can imagine getting happiness from, restoring her deceased brother's cherished car, she is faced with Noah.

Noah is a bad boy, a hot and sexy stoner who hooks up with basically girl who approaches him. Little does anyone know that there's more to him than his physique and skills and his bad reputation. I mean, would you expect the hottest guy in school to have lost his parents to a fire, to now be a bobbing through the foster care system while his two younger brothers are on the brink of being adoptive by another family not of blood? Yeah, I wouldn't.

Echo and Noah team up together to get a peak at something they're both dying to get a hold of, but more than just an alliance strikes between them.

And that something was one of the most beautiful things I've ever read! Their file of fears and issues stacked sky high and then when a spark was ignited between them, everything was left up in the air! I knew that they might tip at any moment, balance for half a second before tumbling hard to the ground, or...well, I didn't even want to get my hopes up for a success, but gah! What did happened was beautiful, I tell you!

I'm amazed at how crafted this story is. The topics were so brave to venture into and done extremely well and original! Echo and Noah are unlike ANY OTHER character I have ever read and their relationship is not one I have seen either! The honesty, the rawness, the emotions conveyed, and just the chances the characters went through... it all made me so ecstatic!

“I watched you battle against the worst memory of your life and I watched you win. Make no mistake, Echo. I battled right beside you.” 

 I needed to keep flipping the pages so I could get to another part where Echo and Noah were in the same scene together! I liked how their relationship grew :)

I was so sad when I neared the end of the story, but the ending was beautiful as well and I couldn't have asked for a better conclusion to Echo and Noah's story!

Real issues, romance, originality, and talent all wrapped up in this one book by Katie McGarry!

Katie McGarry has a SEQUEL coming out May 28, 2013 called Dare You To, which follows Beth, Noah's friend who was introduced in Pushing the Limits. A novella to the series called Crossing the Line was released April 1, 2013 and it is about Echo's friend Lila and her little romance...

Show Katie McGarry some love on and her website, Facebook, and Goodreads!

Her books are available for purchase at Amazon or Barnes & Noble if you are interested in the. I hope you love Pushing the Limits as much as I do!