Pushing the Limits

Author: Katie McGarry

Series: Stand Alone

Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Released: 31 July 2012

Summary: courtesy of goodreads.com 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.

My Review: Pushing the Limits was . . . good? (I’m waffling between “good” and “okay”) I   liked the idea.  For some reason I’ve been a little bit drawn to characters that have some type of disorder lately, and Echo definitely fits the bill.  Watching her slowly overcome her PTSD to reveal exactly what happened to her is what really kept me reading this one.  The relationship between Echo and Noah is good, but nothing really earth-shattering.  Honestly, the part of their relationship that I enjoyed was them uncovering the secrets that they believe are governing their lives together, more than anything else.

I mean, honestly, everything else in this novel bothered me.  I don’t know what is it, but why don’t YA characters have decent parents? I mean seriously? SERIOUSLY? And it was a little bit hard for me to handle Noah’s character changes.  He cares so much about his brothers, and yet he still smokes weed and gets high with his friends (until he meets Echo, the girl who will change everything. Obviously. Insertdrywithere)

My other question, how did Noah end up in the system when there were living relatives around?  Because there is mention in the novel of his brothers’ foster parents needing to fight off relatives in order to adopt the boys, but where did these magical relatives come from, and why has no one found them sooner?  There were a lot of missing pieces to this story.  It’s not that I hated it, I mean I wouldn’t give it three stars if I hated it.  It’s just that I would recommend others faster than I would ever recommend this one.  The writing is good, but . . . I guess what I want to say is: Echo. If the best thing if your life is a pot smoking pseudo-boyfriend trying to gain custody of his brothers, than really. Your life isn’t that great.

I liked the way that McGarry delved fully into PTSD, and I think she has an excellent understanding of the disease, I just felt like Echo’s life was sad enough with PTSD, the other sad (every major person in her life) stuff didn’t  need to be added.