From the Bookshelf of What's the Name of That Book???…

Pushing the Limits (Pushing the Limits, #1)

Katie McGarry

Why we're reading this: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...…more
[close] https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

No group discussions for this book yet.

What Members Thought

Mar 23, 2013 Abigail rated it liked it

Pretty good character development and the story pulled me along. I read this right after attempting to read Beautiful Disaster and I was struck by the differences in quality between that book and this one. The main characters backgrounds were terrible and frightening in a real way and actually provided a logical explanation for their deformed behavior. It was great to see how the characters supported each other and brought healing to each other instead of creating more dysfunction and pain. My o ...more

Like · see review

Dec 29, 2011 Liz rated it liked it

Shelves: 3-star, young-adult, contemporary-and-realistic

I’ve wanted to read Pushing the Limits since I first heard about its release. It looked like a steamy romance with page-turning tension. Pushing the Limits was as fast as I expected, and while I thought learning about Echo’s background was interesting, I wasn’t sold on the romance of this story and kept questioning the research that went into this novel.

In some ways, Echo and Noah are the perfect couple. Both of them have had a lot of family turmoil and are in need of a stable support system. Th
I’ve wanted to read Pushing the Limits since I first heard about its release. It looked like a steamy romance with page-turning tension. Pushing the Limits was as fast as I expected, and while I thought learning about Echo’s background was interesting, I wasn’t sold on the romance of this story and kept questioning the research that went into this novel.

In some ways, Echo and Noah are the perfect couple. Both of them have had a lot of family turmoil and are in need of a stable support system. The romance definitely had some sweet moments, but I wasn’t a big fan of Noah. The names he used when he talked about and to Echo were far too sappy for my taste. His character also raised some red flags for me—I couldn’t help thinking that he struck me as the type of boy who might turn abusive.

Echo and Noah both had intense back stories, and I can imagine that it was hard to write. Echo’s dealt heavily with psychology, and Noah’s intensely discussed the foster care system in America. In order to address both of these subjects in a book, I think one needs to be highly knowledgeable about them (which I am not) and be willing to do a lot of research. I didn’t see any obvious plotholes or anything that looked freakishly unrealistic, but I kept asking myself if the author had done her research or at least had someone with the appropriate knowledge look over this book. Normally this isn’t a question I find myself asking, but I just wasn’t sure where McGarry was getting the knowledge to write Noah’s part of the story. Then again, perhaps this is an unfair criticism, and there’s information about McGarry’s professional background that I don’t know.

Some readers are going to adore the romance in Pushing the Limits, even if it wasn’t quite to my tastes. A lot of reviews focus most on the love story, so you’ll have to decide for yourselves how you feel about Echo and Noah’s individual stories. While I think some other readers may agree with me and how overly sweet Noah’s character could be, I can see some teens loving his character and tearing through McGarry's debut ...more

Like · see review

Jul 31, 2017 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was ok

Shelves: young-adult, romance, bad-boy, contemporary-romance, cotton-candy, angst

This started out great, a delightfully sappy/angsty teen romance between two troubled and misunderstood kids, total cotton candy. But it just went on too long, and sagged beneath the weight of its multiple problems.

The writing just wasn't that great. I got tired of Noah thinking that Echo smells like cinnamon rolls and calling her "baby."

All of the adults are awful (except Mrs Collins, who is, apparently, a paragon), they are cruel and clueless and selfish. The kids are all pretty much cruel and ...more

Like · see review