Crash Into You - Katie McGarry

Synopsis: 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.

I’m not sure what kind of magic Katie McGarry weaves into her books, but it’s certainly powerful. Her stories are magnetic and her characters are so well written they feel like people you’ve known your entire life. I finished this book a few days ago, but as I was getting ready for bed last night I thought – I should read more of Crash Into You before I fall asleep…and then I remembered that I’d finished it. But she just writes the kind of stories that don’t feel like the characters stop existing when the words stop coming, so it’s easy to think you can just slip back into their narrative.

Every time I read a new book from Katie, I meet characters I could never imagine I’d love so much. Noah and Echo just stole me away, but then Ryan came along and he was everything you could want in a fictional boy. So I went in prepared to love Isaiah and Rachel, but they were so much more than I could have hoped. Isaiah surprised me completely and won me over quickly. Rachel was actually my favorite of the three girls, with her strength and determination. She was unique and ballsy, despite her situation and I completely admired her. Then you put Isaiah and Rachel together and they’re just intense, powerful and amazing.

One of Katie McGarry’s strengths as a YA writer is her ability to write teenagers that don’t exist in a bubble. Isaiah has his social worker who is trying to get him to talk to his mother and Rachel has her crazy family to deal with. Despite the street politics and the threats over their heads, everything just feels so authentic because of the exceptional way secondary characters are written. Even better, she builds secondary relationships, and I don’t know how she does it without it being overwhelming. Both Rachel and Isaiah have strong relationships with people outside of each other and the dynamics shine through so well.

Katie has definitely turned into a drop-everything-and-read writer for me. Every time, I think her books can't be better than the one before, but she always out-does herself. I dare say that Crash into You is my favorite book from her so far. The story was amazing and kept me turning the pages. I was on edge, I was nervous, and scared for these characters because they just went directly to my heart. 

Dare You To - Katie McGarry

Synopsis: 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....

I fell in love with Katie McGarry's writing and storytelling in Pushing the Limits. I had very high expectations going in to Dare You To and McGarry definitely met all of them. She has the power and skill to create such well-rounded characters that feel as though they are really off living their lives somewhere. Even after I finished Pushing the Limits, I would find myself, days later, thinking about Echo and Noah and what they were up to now. I felt the same way after finishing Dare You To - Ryan and Beth don't disappear when you close the book.

Ryan stole my heart in the first page of this book. He is the ultimate. I love baseball, I love writing, and I don't know why I didn't realize before - but OF COURSE the most perfect boy on the planet is an extraordinary pitcher and an eloquent writer. Plus, he's daring and sweet. He knows exactly what he wants and he's not afraid to fight for it. I could write poetry about this boy. If I could sing, I would definitely sing songs about him. I love him, I love him, I love him.

Overkill? Nah. He really is all kinds of amazing.

Beth was frustrating in so many ways, but you can't help but totally be on her side. It's hard because sometimes she seems so determined to keep doing things that make her miserable or to help the people who hurt her, and she seems completely blind to the good things in her life. But the flip side of that is that she's wonderfully stubborn, determined and fiercely loyal. And she balances Ryan out so nicely. She makes him step up and fight for what he wants and she makes him fight for her. Where she teaches him to fight, he shows her that her life doesn't have to be a constant struggle.

I love the way they come together. Their relationship happens organically, it starts out slowly and then it just happens all of a sudden. I like the way the dares play into their story as well. It's a way for Ryan and his friends to just be boys - to be competitive and to liven up a small town. But Ryan meets Beth because of one of those dares, but where it matters, he's totally up front about it. Even where they both seem to self-sabotage, they still manage to turn it around to make their relationship strong and real.

One more thing I love about Katie McGarry's books is the way that adults come in to play. She writes really strong adults that come in and do their best to help out the teens in their lives. In Dare You To, it's Beth's uncle who is just amazing and he puts up with so much just to make sure Beth's life will improve.

This was another amazing book from Katie and I can't wait to meet the other characters she has waiting in her brain for a chance to spring to life. The same way I still occasionally think about what Echo and Noah are up to, I know I'll be thinking of Beth and Ryan and wishing they're happy. I have a feeling that as Katie keeps writing, I'm going to have a group of friends that I'll have to keep reminding myself are fictional. 

July Top 5

OH hey last day of July. I think I say this every month, but how in the world did we get here? I don't know about you, but my July has been kind of life-altering in a scary, but great, way. Caralyn has been doing a fab job keeping up the blog while I've been out - I've popped in here and there, but she's been pretty much running the show. It's hard to, you know, have a life AND maintain 6 blog posts a week, so I've been very happy to have someone to rely on. Anyhow - I've still managed to sneak a few books into my schedule and I have read some pretty awesome stuff. This month, though, Caralyn and I are splitting our top five. Here are the books that rocked our world in July:

1. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Hannah says: Such awesome fantasy. This novel is joining an already rich genre and it so deserves a spot up there as one of the best. Read my review here. 

2. Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

Hannah says: It's been a few weeks since I read this incredible book and I still miss these characters. Whenever I see the book cover my heart leaps. I think it's safe to say this book is pretty permanently etched into my mind. Read my review here. 

3. Rift by Andrea Cremer

Hannah says: YES. Andrea Cremer's new series is SO wicked and intense. I loved the Nightshade series, so it's pretty epic to see where Calla's world all started. Review to come. 

4. Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Caralyn says: I loved the futuristic retelling of Cinderella and the strength of Cinder's character - it definitely has its own innovative twists on the classic story. Read my review here. 

5. Wings of the Wicked by Courtney Allison Moulton

Caralyn says: This sequel to Angelfire was packed with more romance and more butt-kicking angels. Still love Ellie's sarcasm and Will's selflessness. Wellie forever! Review to come. 

What were your top reads this month? 

Pushing the Limits - Katie McGarry

Synopsis: 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. (From Goodreads)

There are literally mascara marks across the pages of this book. Actually, I'm pretty sure my hands were entirely black from trying to avoid black streaks down my face at certain points of this book. The thing is, this is one of those books that doesn't really warrant bawling, but it kind of happens anyways. I was just hit so hard by these characters whose lives were great until a certain event caused it all to turn terrible so fast. Both Noah and Echo lived relatively normal, so their failed attempts to get back to the life they knew before was just devastating. They worked so hard to get past their issues and it wasn't easy.

But I really think what got me going was that these two are so frustrated, so let down by all the people in their lives. They really don't have anything or anyone they can count on and they have every reason to be bitter and to shut out the world. But they don't. They feel things so fiercely, there is so much passion and life in their relationship that it's intense and just beautiful. I think one of the strongest things you can do is hold the reasons not to love, and love anyway. And this strength just shone through these characters.

This book does have hints of Simone Elkeles's Perfect Chemistry. This book has those elements of a boy with a bad reputation meets a rich girl who has problems of her own. They shouldn't be together - especially in terms of social acceptance - but they find they can't stay apart. Those are the bones of this story - but McGarry's story is so much more intense, raw, and real than Perfect Chemistry.

Noah is perhaps one of the most amazing characters I've read in a long time. He starts out as a boy who's earned his bad reputation and he grows so much - and it all happens after a lot of work and adjustment on his part. Because that's the other thing that's real about this book. Noah and Echo have a lot of issues but they do really work at them. They don't just meet each other, fall in love, and find everything is miraculously solved. They work at changing things in their lives, at understanding what happened that caused them trouble, and working at finding a new kind of happiness. They are there to support one another when they need it, they're there to defend one another, but they don't function to actually fix the other's problems.

And the secondary characters in this book are all so wonderfully written. I loved their clinical social worker. I couldn't even imagine doing her job. But she does it so well and she helps Noah and Echo so much - even just getting them to trust her was impressive. Noah has a couple friends who support him (or sometimes cause him grief) like a family - and they were vibrant characters. And Echo's best friend - I just wanted to hug her. Echo used to run with the popular crowd- and all of them pretty much give up on her except her best friend who demonstrates unconditional love so well.

I completely devoured this book. I couldn't get enough Echo and Noah, no matter how much they made me cry. Even when I wasn't reading they were on my mind. Even now I find myself wondering how they're doing, as if they are live friends of mine I knew in high school. I so highly recommend this book. It's such an amazing novel that it's easy to forget it's fiction.