Katie McGarry

Where do I start? Seriously, Pushing The Limits is everything I want in a book. Great characters, solid plotting, and the type of story that makes you want to cry and smile in equal measures. This is contemporary writing at its finest. No mermaids, no werewolves. They aren't necessary here. All the reader has are Echo, Noah and their stories, and you know what? It's perfection.

I truly don't believe that there will ever be two characters that I will love so wholeheartedly as I love Echo and show more Noah. Both broken in their own ways, these two fit together perfectly. Echo Emerson is a shell of the girl she once was. The death of her brother, the loss of her mother, and the inability to remember how she got her terrible scars, all eat at her on a daily basis. Meanwhile Noah Hutchins is lost in his own world. Fighting the foster care system and trying his best not to get close to anyone. If there's one thing Noah knows, it's that getting close to someone means you can get hurt.

Then, they meet. Did I mention the word perfection? There's no insta-love here. Just a slow progression of two people who go from being wary of one another, to slowly trusting one another, and finally to having that pure feeling of contentment every time they're together. Echo and Noah have the type of romance that makes you sniffle and giggle in the same sentence. I'll be the first to admit that I have a massive crush on Noah Hutchins. Don't let his bad boy persona fool you. There's a great guy under there. So great in fact, that he's my new favorite male character. I dare you not to swoon.

What is really impressive about Pushing The Limits though is how well it deals with so many different issues all at the same time. Echo and Noah may be facing two very different backgrounds, but their problems are deep. Problems that range from high school issues, to the foster care system. Their lives are the type of gritty reality that a lot of teens face, and most people don't want to acknowledge. Life for these two is far from normal. It's this that teaches them that sometimes, just sometimes, you have to make your own normal.

There really aren't enough words in the world to describe my feelings for this book. You should know that love is all I have for Katie McGarry and her characters, and that I am so happy that I took the time to meet Echo and Noah. I hear that there's another book coming out from one of the other character's point of view! If Pushing The Limits is any indication of the brilliance that will be within those pages, I can't wait. show less

You ever finish a book and realize that, on one hand, you really need to get your thoughts down on paper right away before you explode, but at the same time you feel like you need to collect your thoughts because you are so emotional? That is kind of how I feel right now.

I have read every book in this series thanks to Netgalley and the publisher. I have loved every book in this series. But this one was, by far, the biggest roller coaster right yet.

I really do not know how she does it. The show more author of this series continuously seems to capture the hardest realities that could exist for a teenager and finds ways to make them beautiful. I am absolutely in awe.

West and Haley meet under the worst possible circumstances and their story is one of strife and turmoil and struggle, and yet they endure and they survive.

Throughout this series, I have seen circumstances and situations that are so unbelievably real. The realization that there are teens that really live through things like that is heartbreaking and emotional and it shredded me to my core. And I loved every minute of it.

In this and the other books, the characters are real and human. They are the types of characters that people can connect to. For some, reading through this book will make them face their own demons. For others, it will remind them that no matter how bad you think it is, there is always someone else who has a worse situation. For still others, it will seem unreal, unimaginable, and nothing more than the work of a gifted story teller. For me, it is all of the above. I feel like for having read this book, I am more in touch with the harsh realities of the world in which we live. I am a better person for it.

Thank you, Katie McGarry, for writing books that make me think, make me face reality, and make me strive to create a better world for my children. I will be forever changed. show less

This is one of the best contemporaries that I have read in a long time. Both of the main characters have been through so much and show so much strength and determination to live and press through. It is amazing how Katie McGarry wrote them to both be in so much pain and deal with things differently but still connect on such a deep level.
Echo really came into her own throughout the book, and the journey was hard, emotional and affirming to watch. She was a character that I connected with show more right away and I rooted for her to stand up to her dad in the right ways, connect with Mrs Collins who is her councelor working through things with her, and to find her own normal. It really does add an element to the story about her brother Aries. He was a Marine and died in service. I feel for her loss, but I feel that through her memories he made such an impression. His sacrifice, and his love for his sister when he was there. This is such an important topic to read about too, I have friends who are serving and I used to be in JROTC, but honestly, I have no idea what it's like to sacrifice so much for our freedom, both the men and women serving, the families back home waiting or the ones who have died and again the families feeling the loss.
Noah personifies bad boy, but we get to see his soft spots, his love for his brothers, and how he slowly lets people in. Like the councelor said to him at the beginning there is so much potential in him, academic and otherwise. I really loved how he admired Echo, and how he treated her with respect. He brings out the best in her, and that is quite a quality in a guy. Sure, he has his moments where he is a jerk, especially before he knows her, but when their friendship really develops, its beautiful to watch. It really melts my heart how he doesn't define her by what happened to her, and how comfortable he is with her scars, where it freaks most others out. He really did it for me, and I loved the hotness going on between them. There were some really swoon worthy moments, hotness and sweetness both were covered.
The layers to Noah really amazed me though. It wasn't only his attitude and actions towards Echo, but his all encompassing love for his brothers. It is such a beautiful relationship drawn out here, and I can't say much without spoiling, but Noah's heart and motivations where they were concerned made me almost cry. Katie McGarry painted some amazing pictures here about family--through Ashley and Echo, how their relationship changed, to Echo and her brother Aries relationship. Also with Noah and his blood brothers that he is seperated from (in different foster homes) to his non-blood brother and sister Isaiah and Beth, how circumstance can really draw people together, closer than family in some ways.
I love the dual perspective of the book, hearing from both Noah and Echo really adds to the story, and it also attributes to the good pacing. We have all of these internal battles going on, but it never feels repetitive, and it plays on my emotions.
Once I picked this book up, I did not want to stop reading it. Their story was like crack and I couldn't get enough. show less

The romance didn’t really work for me, it felt like they went from barely knowing one another to in love in a short time span (even though the book was fairly long). I like a slower, more reluctant burn. Another personal preference thing, Noah constantly refers to Echo as “mine,” or “babe,” I’m sure there are readers who enjoy that in fiction and in their real lives, but for me those tend to be cringe-inducing endearments.

Actually a lot of the stuff Noah says repulsed more than show more it attracted me. There are so many times he refers to women as bitches, so many times he throws overtly skeevy come-ons at Echo that I guess were supposed to be a turn on but I just kept thinking if I were in her shoes and some guy talked to me that way, I’d want to be anywhere he wasn’t. Also, while greeting everyone with “sup” isn’t offensive, I did find it irritating. Again, though that’s all personal preference stuff.

The way Noah talked was part of an overall feeling that this was trying too hard to come off as edgy. Rather than seeming authentic by heavily peppering the teens’ conversations with sex and weed, to me, it kind of had the opposite effect, it made the characters (especially those “from the wrong side of the tracks”) seem less dimensional than they might have been had their conversations and vocabularies been as varied as conversations and vocabularies usually are in life no matter someone’s age or background.

Fortunately this novel also had some family drama and that’s what kept me reading even if at times that too was a bit more heightened than I would have preferred, it was certainly closer to the “realistic” fiction that I’d hoped this would deliver. Noah’s quest to be reunited with his brothers and the grief and trauma Echo’s grappling with throughout her story, that’s where my three stars came from, that’s what held my interest and had me invested, and wishing all the more that some of the stuff I’d struggled with had been dialed back if not excised altogether to make more room to go deeper into the counseling sessions, the visits with the brothers, the tension with the father and stepmom, etc.. I felt like this was a stronger book whenever it delved into those areas. show less