Review : Crash Into You by Katie McGarry

*Warning: This review may contain spoilers. Read at your own risk.*

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Publication date: 11/26/2013

Pages: 496

Source: Own 

The Story:

From acclaimed author Katie McGarry comes an explosive new tale of a good girl with a reckless streak, a street-smart guy with nothing to lose, and a romance forged in the fast lane.

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.

- Barnes & Noble
 

Rating: FOUR GOLD STARS!!!!

My Review: One word: ACCELERATING

Opening Line:

Eleven years, two months, seven days.

Plot:

Rachel Young lives a charmed life. Perfect family, money, best schools and more. But there is more to Rachel's life than meets the eye. For as long as she can remember, Rachel has suffered from anxiety attacks. All of the pressure of trying to maintain the façade of being the perfect daughter, dealing with the knowledge of being her dead sister's replacement and all of the other holes in her family life takes its toll in the terror of public speaking. The only place Rachel feels like her true self is in her white Mustang, her baby.

And it is her white Mustang that led her to Isaiah and a heap of trouble. . .

Isaiah Walker is from the wrong side of the tracks. Literally. With his rough exterior, heart of golden and black Mustang he is a dark knight in rusty armor. Outside of Noah and Beth, Isaiah does not know what it means to have a real family. All he wants is to become a certified mechanic, drive his Mustang and for his criminal of a mother to stay out of his life. That is, until he met Rachel. Or rather, saved her butt from the scumbag of racing (among other, more unsavory things), Eric, who has it out for Rachel.

In a whirlwind of  family drama, forbidden love, fast cars and a race against the clock, Crash Into You is a thrilling YA book that will keep you wanting more. With that, I am beyond excited to say that I was pleased with this book. Maybe it was because I have an affinity for Mustangs? (hehe, just kidding) Having enjoyed Pushing the Limits and Dare You To, I was delighted that Crash Into You did hold up to my expectations. And I most certainly cannot wait to read more of Katie McGarry's work (Haley and West's story, Take Me On, is next).

Meet the Author:

Katie McGarry was a teenager during the age of grunge and boy bands and remembers those years as the best and worst of her life. She is a lover of music, happy endings, reality television, and is a secret University of Kentucky basketball fan.

Katie is the author of full length YA novels, PUSHING THE LIMITS, DARE YOU TO, CRASH INTO YOU, TAKE ME ON,  BREAKING THE RULES, and NOWHERE BUT HERE and the e-novellas, CROSSING THE LINE and RED AT NIGHT. Her debut YA novel, PUSHING THE LIMITS was a 2012 Goodreads Choice Finalist for YA Fiction, a RT Magazine’s 2012 Reviewer’s Choice Awards Nominee for Young Adult Contemporary Novel, a double Rita Finalist, and a 2013 YALSA Top Ten Teen Pick. DARE YOU TO was also a Goodreads Choice Finalist for YA Fiction and won RT Magazine’s Reviewer’s Choice Best Book Award for Young Adult Contemporary fiction in 2013.

Links:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Pinterest | Tumbler | Instagram

Happy Reading!

Feature Friday ARC Review : Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

*Feature Friday is a meme I came up with to feature YA books that have not been released yet by reviewing them on The Tattered Page.*

*Warning: This review may contain spoilers. Read at your own risk.*

Expected release date: July 31, 2012
Publisher: Harlequin
Pages: 392
Source: ARC

The Story:

So wrong for each other . . . and yet so right.

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. 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. Now 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.

- via Pushing the Limits ARC blurb

Rating: FOUR gold stars!!!!

My Review: One word: SHARP

Opening Line:

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

Plot:

Let me start off by saying I wasn't expected much from Pushing the Limits. But much to my surprise I was immediately drawn in when I met Noah Hutchins. He was real. His character wasn't some perfect guy that a lot of us readers tend to swoon over and dub as some knight in shining armor. He didn't always say the perfect words, nor do the perfect thing. What he did do perfectly though, was be himself. Be real. Noah was a broken prince who needed help to find his way.

It was refreshing to meet a character that I could relate to, in the sense of there are people like Noah Hutchins that live their lives every day. In Pushing the Limits, he had genuine life problems and he dealt with them has any teenager could or you could imagine would.

Speaking of problems, 17-year-old seniors Echo Emerson and Noah Hutchins had to deal and overcome some pretty messed up issues. Not only that but they grew as characters in their story, instead of staying in the same monotonous beat. And thank God, because there were so many times when I wanted to grab Echo by the shoulders, give her a little shake, and say: grow some cojones already! *excuse my Spanish*

I understand Echo Emerson had been given a crap hand but most of us have (including Noah). And as I was reading Pushing the Limits I grew tired of her authority issues. Nonetheless, said issues did indeed make for a good ending. I was ecstatic when she finally stood up for herself. *Go girl empowerment!* Some people never get the chance. Let alone when it's against the bipolar mother who tried to kill you or the father who abandoned you for your ex-nanny. To live a life feeling unloved is a difficult one I would never force on anyone.

Rewinding to fudged up parental situations, what about when you're parents die in a fire you ultimately feel is your fault? Not to mention when the only family you have left is ripped away from you as well. Being bounced around from foster home to foster home was no walk in the park for Noah Hutchins. Is it ever? But to add on to the pile of misfortune, Noah had to deal with the loss of his family (espcially the parents he could never get back), being stereotyped, mislabeled, a victim of a system that didn't give a crap about him or his wellbeing and being the troubled "emotionally unstable" teenager who was "violent" he had become as a result of all such events. When fighting to piece back to together what he could of a life with his two little brothers was all wanted.

Overall, Pushing the Limits is a wonderful debut for Katie McGarry on her journey as a YA author. It has been quite some time since there was a single novel that could make me laugh and cry. Bravo, Katie McGarry. Bravo.

Here is one of my favorite quotes from Pushing the Limits:

Noah: A shy smile tugged at her lips and at my heart. Fuck me and the rest of the world, I was in love - Page 219


Meet the Author:

Katie McGarry was a teenager during the age of grunge and boy bands and remembers those years as the best and worst of her life. She is a lover of music, happy endings, reality television, and is a secret University of Kentucky basketball fan.

Katie is the author of full length YA novels, PUSHING THE LIMITS, DARE YOU TO, CRASH INTO YOU, TAKE ME ON,  BREAKING THE RULES, and NOWHERE BUT HERE and the e-novellas, CROSSING THE LINE and RED AT NIGHT. Her debut YA novel, PUSHING THE LIMITS was a 2012 Goodreads Choice Finalist for YA Fiction, a RT Magazine’s 2012 Reviewer’s Choice Awards Nominee for Young Adult Contemporary Novel, a double Rita Finalist, and a 2013 YALSA Top Ten Teen Pick. DARE YOU TO was also a Goodreads Choice Finalist for YA Fiction and won RT Magazine’s Reviewer’s Choice Best Book Award for Young Adult Contemporary fiction in 2013.

Links:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Pinterest | Tumbler | Instagram

Happy Reading!