Review: Pushing The Limits by Katie McGarry - Farah

Title: Pushing The Limits

Author: Katie McGarry 

Publication date: July 31st, 2012
Publisher: HarlequinTeen

Genre(s): Young Adult (Contemporary)

Challenges: Contemporary, Debut

Source: NetGalley
Format: Digital ARC

Pages: 384

Add to Goodreads

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.

I was very excited to start Pushing The Limits. Everyone who read it immediately fell in love with it, and I was excited for that to happen to me as well. I was in the mood for a fun, cute, contemporary novel. Now, that's where I was wrong. Pushing The Limits wasn't just a cute, funny, contemporary book. It was more of a serious contemporary. It wasn't just two teenagers in love with eachother. It more than that. Pushing The Limits was full of love, emotions, and feelings. It revolved around a lot of their personal and family problems, which gave it the feeling where the readers actually knew the characters. The story revolved around the two main protagonists, Echo Emerson and Noah Hutchins. 

Echo Emerson is the girl with the straight A's and high scores at school. She never broke a rule, and her dad plans to keep it like that. Echo was also the popular girl, until the day when her own mother decided to hurt her. Everything for Echo goes down the toilet, and her life is over. Her mom is crazy, her dad is married to a bimbo blonde, and her brother whom she really loves, is dead. On top of all that, everyone in school is concerned she tried to commit suicide, and is cutting herself up. Not knowing the real truth, everybody in school judged Echo, and she was no longer popular. Leaving Mrs.Collins office after her therapy session, she meets Noah. Noah Hutchins, the bad boy who smokes pot, gets high, and sleeps with a different girl everyday. Stuff happens, and Echo has to tutor someone in order to get paid the money she wants to fix her dead brother's car. That "person" she needs to tutor, is Noah. 

Their relationship evolves. They both seem to understand each other very well, because they both got a lot of problems in their life. Noah's parents are both dead, he lives in a foster care, and has limited visitations to see his two younger brothers. Echo seemed like a very disturbed girl. I really felt sorry for her, and I sometimes hated how her friends acted like the most important thing in the world was to be "popular". Despite Noah being the bad guy, he was very sweet. The two were such a cute couple, but I felt like their extreme "love" towards each other was a bit to much and unrealistic. They're both in high school, and they're just kids, so how can they be in love after only knowing each other for less than a year? Anyhow, Pushing The Limits was very touching and heart breaking. It really made me thankful for having a great family who loved me. Pushing The Limits was definitely one of the heavy contemporaries, but I loved it anyhow.