Take This One On!

As if you needed one more excuse to sit on the couch all day and read? Well, Katie McGarry does it again in Take Me On, the fourth book in the Pushing the Limits series of companion novels. And you won't be able to say no to West and Haley, mark my words!

Haley was a champion kickboxer, until everything went wrong. She also had a fairly normal life until her father lost his job, they lost their house, and the whole family had to move in with her short-tempered uncle. For Haley, there is no such thing as normal anymore. When she quit her grandfather's gym and started training at the competitor gym, she alienated her entire family on top of that- all for some guy who ended up ruining her entire love for the sport anyway. Now all she can do is pray she can somehow eke out a scholarship to get the hell out of that house.

West is an over-privileged brat, and he knows it. Unfortunately, he is also headstrong, defiant, and always looking for a fight as well. When his impulsive actions send his sister into life-changing danger, he doesn't need anyone to beat him up for it. He is already beating himself up enough. When his father finally kicks him out of the house, no one expected what would come next. West decides to make it on his own. From living in his car while it still has a little gas, to going to the local public school, to finding a job so he can eat, everything changes. But not as much as it changed the moment he met Haley.

When he stops a couple of thugs from hurting her, he didn't realize it would change his life forever. The fight he got into might have been the catalyst for getting kicked out of his house, but it also brought him to Haley. Thinking he was the knight in shining armor, it was like the world had been turned inside out to wake up and realize someone else had done the damage to the other two guys- Haley. Now those guys want to make him pay in the only way they know how- a fight. Challenged to a no-holds-barred fight, Haley must now train West in the hopes he won't get killed in the cage. The problem is, her grandfather owns the gym, and fighting is the last thing Haley ever planned on doing. But she will, to make sure West stays alive!

OK. If you read my reviews, you know I LOVE Katie McGarry. Seriously? I would read ANYTHING this woman wrote. She knows how to write contemporary with a background of romance but a bulk of character and a winning plot like so few authors can today. She belongs in the same crowd as Dessen and Perkins with these books because I a) know I am going to love them and b) am always surprised by what is happening even though I know I am going to love them! She does it to me. Every. Time. So I walked into this story knowing it was going to be fabulous, but clearly curious about how it was going to stack up to Isaiah's story, which I loved unconditionally. Well, West wasn't Isaiah, but I loved him all the same. And Haley? There are no words!

Haley almost reminded me of Eleanor from Eleanor and Park. I loved her for that. She had a clear set of baggage she dragged around with her, and it took you almost the whole book to find out the true depth of those issues. I didn't pity her, but I did struggle with seeing her try to put on a strong, brave face in the midst of everything around her. You just wanted to protect her, but you knew she had to learn to fight back on her own. 

I also loved a few more important themes I found repeating in this series:

1. Romance doesn't need wishy washy woman. I like a romance with a sassy lead, and McGarry always delivers!

2. I love the guidance counselor. So often they are the butt of jokes, but I have known some great counselors, and McGarry always seems to put her in there. She helped Noah and Echo and never stopped! 

3. Boys need love too. None of those stone cold boys in McGarry books. They can be strong and manly and still have deep emotions. I love it! 

4. Girls. Kick. Butt. Cars? Kickboxing? You name it, McGarry's girls do it. I love this gender stereotype busting. It is fantastic and doesn't fail to give new perspective to young woman. 

5. People make mistakes. But you have to forgive and move on. 

So give West and Haley a piece of your heart. And, Ms. McGarry, if I don't get an Abby story soon? There is going to be a kind and praising email that also begs, bribes, and pleads for one! So save us all the time and pitiable begging, and just give Abby a book.... PLEASE?!

I Wish I Could Unread it to Experience it for the First Time All Over Again

When we got Noah and Echo's story, we thought we couldn't love anyone more than the two of them. Then we got Beth's story and realized our love for each character is different, but equally as devoted. And then there was Isaiah's story and I thought to myself, "Katie McGarry! You tricky little devil! How on EARTH do you do this to me with every single book?!" In the third companion novel of the Pushing the Limits series, McGarry brings Isaiah what we always wanted for him: the perfect girl for him. But nothing comes easy for Isaiah. 

Isaiah has only loved two people unconditionally in his life: Noah and Beth. Noah has Echo and is torn between his past and loyalty to Isaiah and the future he wants to start with Echo. Beth just destroyed Isaiah. Now Isaiah finds himself alone again and hanging on by a thread. Barely able to make rent with Noah, he faces losing his freedom from the system if Noah moves to the dorms with Echo. In an effort to make a little money and keep Noah with him, he does something he never does: he decides to drag for a little extra cash. When he goes to Eric's illegal races, he expects meet some rough characters, Eric being the most deceptively terrifying. What he doesn't expect is to meet an angel in a Mustang. 

Rachel has always been protected. Born as a replacement for her sister who died of leukemia, Rachel has never lived up to the vibrant, outgoing Colleen. Instead, her desire to work on cars, irritation with the colors pink and purple, and anxiety attacks have been the ever present source of sadness for her mother. Add to that an overprotective father and four overprotective older brothers, and you have a girl who barely leaves the house. Except to drive her mustang. Her baby. After a rough night, Rachel's twin, Ethan, covers for her while she goes for a ride. She doesn't expect to end up at a drag race, but even less does she expect to be so taken by a guy full of earrings and tattoos. But when Isaiah strides up to her car to approve of its engine for her to race, she can't pull her eyes away from him. And she isn't afraid to tell him to get his hands off her car. 

When the race goes bad and the police show up, Isaiah refuses to leave Rachel behind. In a new kind of race, they manage to get away, but they aren't free and clear. While the police didn't catch them, Eric thinks Rachel had something to do with the anonymous tip that was sent into the police about the race which led to a couple of guys ribbing him. Now he is hunting Rachel to make her pay. But Isaiah has no intentions on letting anyone get anywhere near Rachel. He will do anything he can to protect her, even if it means not calling her when she is the only thing he can think about. But when Eric finds her, Isaiah gives up his exile. Now nothing can keep Isaiah from his angel. Not her brothers, not her father, not even a homicidal criminal like Eric. 

Oh boy. Boy, oh boy. I cannot tell you how MUCH I loved this book. I really did not think it was possible to love a couple more than I loved Echo and Noah, but you know what? Isaiah and Rachel's story is now my absolute favorite. There is something so deep and so tormented about that boy that you just needed for him to find his perfect complement. And that complement was Rachel. She wasn't perfect- far from it- but she was perfect for Isaiah. Not only because of her love for cars, but because she was as damaged as he was. While her life might have appeared to be charmed, it was actually a complete mess. Together, Rachel and Isaiah made a whole. Apart, they were in pieces. That is the stuff of a beautiful (and complicated) romance, and I loved Every. Single. Page. Of. It.

When I describe these stories, I just don't do them justice, though. They appear to be your standard, run-of-the-mill romances, but they are anything but average. McGarry has this uncanny ability to make you love her characters as if they were really in your life. It sounds silly, but I felt like I knew Isaiah and Rachel by the time I finished with this book! She also has the ability to introduce supporting characters new to each book who are just as fantastic as the regulars. When you meet Abby, the snarky, tough as nails, drug dealing con artist, you are going to fall in love with her. You think I am wrong, right? How could you ever love a girl like that? Well, read this book and tell me you don't. I bet you will be begging for a book about Abby the same way I am!!

So here is my plea to Ms. McGarry. PLEASE don't stop writing these stories. They make me so happy and consume my life from the first page to the last. My husband tried to talk to me in the middle of Crash Into Me for about 20 minutes before he realized I hadn't heard a word he said. Luckily the boy understands what happens when I love a book this much! I am so excited for West's story, but the next one should be Abby's story! And by the time you are done with those two, I am sure I will find another supporting character to love just as much as I loved Isaiah and Ryan and Abby and West. I need more! Don't stop! Keep 'em coming! These are some of the best books I have read! I can't get enough!!

Mexican Hat Dance on My Heart

A good book makes you love the supporting characters as much as the main characters, so when Katie McGarry announced Dare to You, the story of Beth from Pushing the Limits, I was so excited I yelled loud enough to wake my husband and scare my dogs. And lucky for me, McGarry didn't disappoint.

Beth has always taken care of her mother. She buys food, pays the bills, and even collects her when the local bar owner wants her out. Beth has never known what it meant to be a carefree child, but at least she has a family with Noah and Isaiah. When a confrontation with Trent, her mother's abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend, leaves Beth in jail, her aunt calls the one person who can help them: Beth's uncle, the famous baseball player, Scott Risk. Scott is willing to help her, in fact, he insists on it, but he has some conditions. In fact, he tells Beth that if she doesn't live with him, go to school, stay out of trouble, and abandon everything about her former life, he will tell the police exactly what Beth's mom has hidden in her apartment. 

Beth can't imagine life in the sticks with prom queens and baseball games, but she will do it to protect her mother. What she didn't expect was to come face to face with the jerk who asked her out last week. Ryan has some demons of his own, but they are well-hidden inside the school's star baseball player. Never one to lose a bet, he continues to try his luck with Beth now that she is permanently in Groveton.  His friends bet him he couldn't land a date with her, and lord knows she has made it perfectly clear she would rather stab him that go on a date with him, but Ryan doesn't give up on anything. Especially a girl who seems like a nightmare on the outside, but turns into a whole different person when you get to know her. 

I don't think my description of this book can really do it justice. It sounds like a typical romance, but there is so much more to this book and this series. In fact, the romance is hidden within a dark, sad tale about a girl who had never had a stable life. Sure, Isaiah and Noah loved her unconditionally, but she never had real parents. In fact, Beth had to parent her own mother. And because of everything she dealt with growing up, Beth was a hard, angry young woman who was the antithesis of the suburbs her uncle transplanted her to. And who can blame her? Anyone growing up around abusive boyfriends and drug addicts would have to develop a wall around themselves just to survive. But I loved that there was so much more to Beth. She wanted to love and be loved, but she never fully believed she deserved it. Even with Isaiah's undeniable love for her, she never felt she was worthy. 

And her relationship with Isaiah was hard for me to accept. In Pushing the Limits, I wanted her to finally realize he was in love with her, so seeing this book wasn't about the two of them devastated me. But once I saw the story play out, I could see how Isaiah would have been wrong for Beth and she for him. She needed something different, someone new, someone whose romance didn't threaten one of the few friendships Beth had. And Isaiah could never be that for her. And trust me, it was heartbreaking. Watching her come to that realization and Isaiah, wonderful, tattooed, devoted Isaiah, come to that conclusion had to be one of the hardest things for me to read as a person who just loves these characters. 

And that is the thing about McGarry. She can make you fall in love with even the toughest and hardest characters. I mean, Beth?! She was the last character you would find yourself siding with in Pushing the Limits, but you always knew there was more to her than just the black hair and nose ring. And McGarry gave you more. And she gave it to you in a way that is absolutely heart-wrenching. I felt such an emotional attachment to these characters that even now, I am looking at this book thinking, "How can it be over?!" These are phenomenal books and I don't think anyone out there could read them and not feel a connection to the characters, even if they could never empathize with them. McGarry has a gift, and I am going to be waiting, very, very impatiently waiting, for Isaiah's story, because he has some unfinished business. I love this series, and I Dare You to read it and not love it too!

It Sure Crossed a Line!

Noah and Echo's relationship was so deep and so emotional in Katie McGarry's Pushing the Limits, that you can't imagine finding yourself just as invested in another relationship from McGarry, especially from a short story. However, in Crossing the Line, we see the budding love of Lila and Lincoln despite the fact that they have only met once. And it isn't a relationship to trifle with.

Lincoln's brother was killed in the same roadside bombing that took Echo's brother Aires. Lincoln's parents brought the whole family to Aires' funeral in an attempt to preserve a little bit of his life from the moments before he was killed, but Lincoln didn't expect to find answers at a stranger's funeral. He also didn't expect to find a girl he could fall in love with after only meeting once, either, but that didn't stop him from having hope once he met Lila. 

Lila was confused about a lot of things, but after watching her best friend, Echo, lose her brother, she was even more confused than ever. But one thing made sense: Lincoln. After the funeral, they agreed to write each other real letters twice a week At first, it was something whimsical, but quickly it became more, much more. Soon it became the impossible feelings of love that you shouldn't feel for a person you only met once. But when Lincoln lies to her, it all falls apart. From 12 hours away (10 if you ignore the speed limits), two lives have connected in a way that no one understands, not even them.

Leave it to McGarry to sucker punch me with only a few short pages. This was a relatively short story that was loosely connected to Pushing the Limits, but it was still amazing. I really loved the long-distance connection they had through letters, real letters. It felt like those letter collections you read from famous authors where they spent years of correspondance getting to know the one person who knew who they truly were. It was beautiful, and this story was a modern version of the same. You don't have to see a person every day to let them into your life. And that comes from a few short pages of letting Lila and Lincoln into my life!

There are No Limits

Do you know that feeling when a book far surpasses the expectations you had for it? When you read a book and think to yourself, "It is so good I don't want it to end!" When I started katie McGarry's Pushing the Limits, I expected teen romance. What I got was so much more.

Echo was once the popular girl with everything going for her, but two years ago she fell off the grid. Her brother died in Afganistan, her mother disappeared, and her father married her former babysitter, but Echo has a secret almost no one knows. Her arms are horribly scarred from something that happened to her at the hands of her own mother, something so terrible Echo has repressed all memories of that day. Living life like an empty shell, Echo is back in therapy, but something is different this time.

Noah lost his parents in a house fire, lost his brothers to foster parents, and the only thing that keeps him in line is the idea that he might get them back when he turns 18. After punching his first foster father (who was abusing his own son), Noah has been bounced from house to house, but he has been at this house with his foster brother and sister for a while. Isaiah and Beth are just as damaged as Noah, but together they make a decent but dysfunctional little family who actually care about each other. But when Noah continues to press the courts and the system to get more visitation with his brothers, their foster parents block him every time. In order to appear to be following the rules, Noah agrees to therapy to deal with everything he has lived through... as long as getting his brothers back is the end result.

What Echo and Noah don't expect is to be put together with Echo tutoring Noah by their mutual therapist. It seems like it would end in disaster, bad boy with tattoos and little rich girl with everything she ever wanted, but their mutual demons give them something in common. Two people who have not had the happy loving lives all children should have find comfort and respect in one another. Together they fill in each other's empty spaces until they become whole again. But there is more at stake than anyone understands. With the emergence of every repressed memory, Echo gets closer to the terrifying truth of what her mother did to scar her, physically and emotionally, and with everything Noah does, his actions and choices are scrutinized to the point where he could lose all hope of getting his brothers back. They know the risks, they fight the feeling, but how can you turn your back on the one person who makes your shattered life whole again?

Oh, sweet Zeus. I loved this book. I read this book, turned the last page, closed my eyes to digest for a minute, and started at the beginning again. This book defied all my preconceived assumptions with buckets of dynamite. With 50 pages to go, my husband came into the living room to find me holding the book with a troubled look on my face. He asked me what was wrong, and I said, "I don't want this book to end!" Yes, he laughed at me a little, but it was true. I didn't want to let go of Echo and Noah. They were the most dynamic, tragic, and beautiful characters I have read in a long time. By 50 pages into this book, you know these characters so well you find yourself laughing, crying, living, and dying along with them. I couldn't believe such characters could exist... especially with such a cheesy cover!

And why would publishers choose to cheapen this incredible story with such a craptastic cover? I will never understand that, but I hope people will look beyond the cheese to see the heart of this really fantastic story. It isn't just a romantic story. There is so much more to this story that the feelings between Echo and Noah are only a fraction of what makes this story so wonderful. The writing is so raw and real you will find yourself hanging on each and every word, living the story along with them. The demons these two carry with them are so difficult to digest, and you never really know the whole story. But most of all, the sacrifice they make for themselves, for their families, and finally, for each other, is beautiful. I loved this book both times I read it and I know I will be reading it again soon. This is the kind of book that stays with you for a long time. So give Noah and Echo some life, because every page makes them just a little more real.