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Pushing the Limits (Pushing the Limits, #1)

Katie McGarry

Start date: November 1, 2013

Finish date: November 30, 2013

Discussion: Group Read

Why we're reading this: Contemporary Group Read
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What Members Thought

Apr 04, 2012 Annie Brewer rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 5-star-worthy, romance, absolutely-amazingly-awesome, favorite, cover-love, favorite-hotties, irresistable-hot-guys, alternating-pov-s, favorite-authors, tearjerker

A MILLION STARS FOR THIS BOOK!!!!!! OMG, my emotions are all over the place!! I thought My Life Next Door was my favorite of this year, but HOLY HELL SHIT this book tops it....only by a little. But ummmmm, NOAH HUTCHINS IS MY NEW HOT SEXY BOOK BOYFRIEND. JESUS CHRIST I CAN EAT HIM UP!!!!!! I need a day to collect my thoughts before a proper review. So I am just going to say, well done Katie!!!! This was FANTASTIC!!!!

Full review soon!

Edited review:

I have no idea where to begin with this review, m A MILLION STARS FOR THIS BOOK!!!!!! OMG, my emotions are all over the place!! I thought My Life Next Door was my favorite of this year, but HOLY HELL SHIT this book tops it....only by a little. But ummmmm, NOAH HUTCHINS IS MY NEW HOT SEXY BOOK BOYFRIEND. JESUS CHRIST I CAN EAT HIM UP!!!!!! I need a day to collect my thoughts before a proper review. So I am just going to say, well done Katie!!!! This was FANTASTIC!!!!

Full review soon!

Edited review:

I have no idea where to begin with this review, my emotions are still very raw since I turned the last page of this book. But I will begin with the cover.....I LOVE THIS FREAKIN COVER. There are two different versions of this book. I got the hardback book the day it came out. OMG, as soon as it came out I was there. I called up my B&N and asked them to put this book on hold for me cause I was halling ass up there to get it! I feel like there was a wave of de ja vu. When I had this book in my hands, I clutched it to my chest and breathed in the book. Silly I know. But seriously, those two on the cover resemble very closely Noah and Echo. The other version is on ereader and I don't like that one as much. I am happy with the cover I've got. I mean look at them. First of all, the guy is smokin HOT and his position practically thrusting her up against the locker. Come on, that says enough right there. Oh yeah, I love it. And she's all leaning into him with her foot on the locker, supporting her. If I was her, I wouldn't be able to keep from collapsing with him that close. Damn! Anyway, you get the point, I love the book cover.

When I first heard of this book, I was all over it. I looked up reviews and so many reviews raved about this book. I also noticed ALOT of comparison to Simone Elkles' Perfect Chemistry. And if you know me well enough, you know how much I devoured that book. SO it was a safe bet that I would love this book just as much. But guess what? I love this book even MORE!!! I'll always love my Alex Fuentes....but my heart has now found Noah Hutchins and I can't help but say, HOLY SHIT! He will rock your world, I promise!

So now to get on with my review.

Echo Emerson lost everything the night her brother died in Afghanistan and she woke up in the hospital with no recollection of what happened to her...except the scars on her arms now her mom has a restraining order against her. She walks the halls like a zombie and is scared to be hersef around her friends that were there for her before the incident. Now they turn their back on her because she is different. They treat her like an outsider. She was dating popular boy Luke and when it got to be too much for her, she broke it off and quit going to school.
Her dad wanted her to get help. So she starts seeing social worker Mrs. Collins who tries everything she can to help Echo remember what happened that night that tore her family apart. Once she remembers, she might feel better and can finally sleep in peace for the first time in 2 years. In the mean time, she tutors a boy for chemistry, who is not much different than her....

Noah lost everything the night of the house fire 2 years earlier, which claimed his parents. His brothers were taken away and he was bouncing from foster family to foster family. Until Mrs. Collins became his social worker, claiming she could help him get his life back on track. Getting tutored by Echo was the last thing he expected...but maybe it was the best thing that ever happened to him. Together they worked to get answers about their past, that might help them both heal and face a future that is unknown. But can they do it together or will it shatter their world even more?

WOW, when I finished this book last night, I felt numb. I'm not saying there wasn't an HEA and I'm not saying there is. I'm saying from the moment I opened the book and started the first page, I felt every emotion from giddy, happy, funny, angry, sad, confused, back to angry, sad and everything inbetween. There were so many emotions going through me at once that it became hard to distinguish which emotion I was actually going through. The fact that both characters were facing such tough choices in their lives, it made my heart ache for them so badly. They started off kind of hostile toward each other. Noah felt that Echo was just this selfish, princess bitch that always got her way. And Echo assumed that Noah was this pot smoking, drinker asshole bad boy that everyone made him out to be. Their relationship grew slowly and intense once they realized that they were so much alike. They were both struggling with demons of their own, but trying to be themselves in the process. Noah was the sweetest, most wonderful guy Echo could have ever met. He supported her and even when he saw her ugly scars that covered her arms, he never turned away. Not once. And he even told her she was still beautiful. No one ever treated her the way Noah did. It was so beaituful to see their relationship blossom and intensify as time went on. I cried, laughed,smiled, cursed, pulled my hair, yelled at Noah, told some of them off throughout the book. There were some unexpected twists and dammit if I wasn't already distraught. Katie threw in some really crazy and sad shit in there. For giggles? I don't know, but I wasn't laughing. I cried so hard, I had to stop a few times to collect myself cause I couldn't see the pages. I understood their pain, losing a parent is never easy. My heart ached the whole way through with Noah. I wanted to hug him. Then at one point he tries getting custody of his 2 younger brothers once he graduates high school. OMG, that whole situation with that was hard to deal with. I had a hard time breathing, seeing the pain Noah went through. All he wanted was his brothers together again, their family minus their parents. And when you learn the truth about what happened that night, you're just even more broken up about it! It is truly sad!

I loved all of the secondary characters. Noah's best friends Beth and Isaiah were amazing! They were such good friends and support for Noah. They really looked after him and stuck by him, even when they were unsure about Echo. Beth kinda ticked me off at times. But I realized it was only to protect Noah's heart. I grew to love her.
I only liked Lila, Echo's best friend. Even though at first she pissed me off, she turned her shit around and showed her better side.I hate Grace and Luke and all the rest that were so judgmental and hateful. Little bastards! I punch their faces in! I loved when Noah and Luke fought at the dance. OMG, I was rooting for him to beat the shit out of Luke. Yeah, I'm volitile. Oh well.
I liked Echo's dad and her step mom, eventhough there was alot of drama with that. But OMG I wanted to kill her fucking mom!!!! I felt bad for her. I really did. But when I found out the truth, HOLY FUCKING SHIT, I wanted to slap myself for feeling sorry for that horrible bitch! I loved Noah's little brothers. OMG, my heart hurt for them. Their foster parents really warmed my heart but I still felt a stab of sadness for Noah because he wanted to adopt them so badly. But in the end, things worked out for the best. And my favorite character in this, Mrs. Collins...she was the glue to the whole thing. She was amazing! She never gave up on either of them. She showed them that to trust and put faith first, things will aways work out. I loved her so much for everything she did for them! Ugh, its bringing on the waterworks again! Just thinking about this book, makes me want to sob all over again. It was a beautiful story about love, friendship, trust, starting over, healing, and moving on.

The end. Oh my the ending was AMAZING! I loved it so much! Seriously, this book brought out so many raw emotions from me. I highly recommend this book to all romance lovers. Trust me, this book will consume you. And you'll be left thinking about it long after you turn the last page!! So all you PC fans, prepare for a story that will rock you, sock you, knock you on your ass! It's truly SPECTACULAR!!!! I am definitely reading more from this author!! Fantastic debut Mrs. McGarry!!!! ...more

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Jul 11, 2012 Justin rated it really liked it

Pushing the Limits really ended up being quite an amazing book. I had a little trouble getting into it at the start, because it really seems to start off in a very low mood. Granted it persists throughout the book, there are a lot of amazing high moments that really do this book great justice. Katie's writing is phenomenal to say the least, and you will be able to see that in the ways that she conveys the different moods throughout the book. And as you can probably guess by what I have been sayi Pushing the Limits really ended up being quite an amazing book. I had a little trouble getting into it at the start, because it really seems to start off in a very low mood. Granted it persists throughout the book, there are a lot of amazing high moments that really do this book great justice. Katie's writing is phenomenal to say the least, and you will be able to see that in the ways that she conveys the different moods throughout the book. And as you can probably guess by what I have been saying so far, Pushing the Limits is driven by the different moods throughout it. All the way from extremely depressing, to tearfully happy.

For a contemporary, Pushing the Limits has an extremely rich and enveloping story. Once I was able to get passed some of the more depressing aspects of the book, I was really able to be pulled into Echo and Noah's story. I will talk more about them later on, but I just want to give Katie some credit for creating such an amazing contemporary story, it is easily one of the better ones that I've read. It does have it's faults, but it wasn't really enough to take away from how awesome this story is.

Echo and Noah are absolutely amazing. I have a lot of characters that I consider favorites, and these two are among that list for sure. I am having such a hard time trying to come up with a way to explain just how amazing and touching these two characters are. They have both gone through so much, when I originally heard of this book I had it stuck in my head that is was only Echo going through things, but I couldn't of been further away from the truth. Noah has been through just as much trauma as Echo and I really feel like that drove their relationship even more, because they were able to connect with each other on a level that you can't even begin to imagine. I felt like when they were together they were able to escape everything going on in their own lives. Does this mean that their relationship was perfect? Not by a long shot, they had their lows throughout the book, but I think that really helped to show how much they truly cared about each other.

I'm not going to go into any detail about what Echo and Noah went through, it's all extremely sad and it's hard to see how it's all still playing such a huge burden on their daily lives. While a lot of the things that go on in the book are sad, there were also a lot of happy moments as I have mentioned several times. The ending of Pushing the Limits was a good mix of that sad and happy vibe you get from this story, I loved the ending. I wish I could talk about it more, because it just seemed like a perfect fit for this story even if there were a few things that I would of changed around just a little. I think Katie did such a great job with this book, and was able to wrap it up in that same amazing and touching manner.

I would highly recommend picking up this book. I know for a fact that Echo and Noah make my list for favorite characters of the year. That aside, this is an amazing book I can't deny that. I enjoyed Pushing the Limits for everything it brought, and I think Katie did an amazing job writing a book that can really tug on the hearts of those reading it. You would really be doing yourself a favor by reading this book whenever you get the chance to. ...more

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Mar 16, 2013 Angela Blount rated it liked it

Shelves: contemporary, ya

Echo is struggling to get through her senior year of high school. As if that trial weren't hard enough on it's own, Echo has the misfortune of having once been “popular.” Now she's a post-traumatic stress laden ghost of her former artsy self, with a distressing hole in her memory and a gaggle of “friends” who seem desperate to fix her social standing. Her emotionally absent father and air-headed babysitter-turned-stepmom aren't helping things. Fortunately, her new therapist has the idea to make Echo is struggling to get through her senior year of high school. As if that trial weren't hard enough on it's own, Echo has the misfortune of having once been “popular.” Now she's a post-traumatic stress laden ghost of her former artsy self, with a distressing hole in her memory and a gaggle of “friends” who seem desperate to fix her social standing. Her emotionally absent father and air-headed babysitter-turned-stepmom aren't helping things. Fortunately, her new therapist has the idea to make sure Echo tutors one of the school's resident tortured badboy player: Noah.

Noah has his own issues, of course. He's been bounced from one foster home to another since his parents' death orphaned him and separated him from his two much younger brothers—both of whom he's intent on gaining custody of as soon as he turns 18. But Noah's negative coping mechanisms are many.

Thankfully, this is more of a slow-burn romance with not an ounce of insta-love in sight. Katie McGarry shows a lot of promise in this debut (and having read a later novella by her, this reader is confident her storytelling prowess continues to grow.)

What I liked:

*One of the most authentic-feeling parts of this story was the dismal portrayal of parts of the foster care system. Noah got a bad draw—as too many foster kids do. But I know as a teenager, I didn't take much into consideration concerning foster kids at my school. I see potential in this book for extending some empathy, or at least patient attempt at understanding, for kids in displaced family situations.

*It does seem as though the author was trying to send responsible messages to impressionable young readers, including: don't have sex before you're “ready,” get on birth control if you -think- you might have sex, and keep a condom handy. And if you're going to sleep with every random girl who offers herself, you should get yourself tested for STDs now and then. (Though I have concerns about how realistic it is to think a guy as admittedly promiscuous as Noah would be willing to just stop pressuring and wait indefinitely when he figures out Echo is a virgin...I could at least appreciate the general idea that decent guys take 'no' for an answer and don't just move on to the next willing warm body.)

What I didn't care for:

*Most of the side-characters had a certain forgettable flatness about them. Mrs. Collins, the therapist/clinical social worker, was about the only one that seemed to come to life. (Nice to see at least one positive adult figure depicted, btw.)

*I just didn't like Noah. At all. Despite the dead-parents background and crappy foster care situation...the underlying angst still felt forcibly overdone. (His flagrant overuse of F-bombs and the word 'siren' got to the point of drinking-game comical for me.) It was as though his situation conjured pity, but no real connection. He was short-sighted, judgmental, about as deep as a kiddie pool...and it took much too long for me to start to feel otherwise about him. Granted, the badboy+goodgirl trope has never really done it for me.

*Echo's repressed memories issue didn't sit quite right with this reader—but maybe I was hoping for more focus on the far more common functional issue of PTSD. The buildup to the big reveal felt a bit drawn out, and the revelation was actually more mild than I'd been expecting all along.
...more

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Oct 31, 2012 Renuka rated it it was amazing

Shelves: young-adult, romance, realistic, e-book, owned, reviewed, fav-couples, livebrary, mean-girls

Ahhhh oh my god. It’s unusual for me to read realistic fiction. I’m more of a fantasy, dystopia, sci-fi, omg magic kind of junkie. But this turned out to be one of the most heart-wrenching beautiful books I have ever read. Seriously. By Katie McGarry.

The Plot: So much is going on. Both Echo and Noah are incredibly damaged teenagers. Both find it hard to trust adults and have multiple issues in their personal lives. One day Echo is popular and untouchable, the next she is gossiped about because o Ahhhh oh my god. It’s unusual for me to read realistic fiction. I’m more of a fantasy, dystopia, sci-fi, omg magic kind of junkie. But this turned out to be one of the most heart-wrenching beautiful books I have ever read. Seriously. By Katie McGarry.

The Plot: So much is going on. Both Echo and Noah are incredibly damaged teenagers. Both find it hard to trust adults and have multiple issues in their personal lives. One day Echo is popular and untouchable, the next she is gossiped about because of the mysterious scars she can’t remember getting on the day she almost died. She wants to know, but she can’t. Her broken mind has suppressed the memories. Not only that, her mother has a restraining order and her controlling father has remarried with her previous babysitter. Yes problems. Noah’s parents died in a fire and ever since then he has struggled through multiple brutal foster homes. Labeled a bad boy, he has turned to drugs and using girls. He has one goal, to get his beloved younger brothers (my god they were adorable) out of the system that hurt him so badly. Both are brought together by a school guidance social worker named Mrs. Collins (a.k.a. The best adult in this whole dang book, I want to meet her) and start to fall for each other as they struggle to solve their problems.

The Characters:

Echo: Brave, brave, Echo. She struggles to remember what happened to her on the dark night she almost died (yes she eventually remembers what happened) and it’s terrible. No person should ever have to go through that. Not to mention how she has to deal with her overbearing, pressuring, so controlling father. Honestly, it’s amazing how she doesn’t just break and go stark-raving mad. She is just so heroic and fierce no matter what she goes through.

And then came Noah….

Noah: Asdfghjkl. Can’t describe him. Ahhhhhh so gorgeous, with a wounded soul. So perfect and daring and brave and omg his love for his brothers. One thing I thought was stupid was dude, really? Drugs? How are you going to get custody over them if you do drugs? He drops them though, so I was ok. Anyway, of course being a struggling, single dad-like older brother is not a great plan but hey, all he wanted to do was spare them his own experiences. He is so protective really, it just broke my heart into pieces, over, and over, and over again.

Mrs. Collins: I loved this woman. Every single bit. Omg the bad driving, the random rapid-fire questions, the supportiveness, how she lives up to her word, everything. Especially the bad driving. I couldn’t stop laughing. Anyway, she is a freaking genius and I am so glad I have adults similar to her in my life. She is god-sent to Echo’s and Noah’s lives and I love, love, love how she blackmails Noah into being a good, little boy haha. If she wasn’t in the story, it wouldn’t have been half as good. Or it wouldn’t have even taken place, because honestly, she is the best thing that happens to Noah and Echo (other than each other).

The Friends: Lila, Isaiah and Beth. I’ll start with Lila – even though she is popular, she is genuinely a friend to Echo. She really cares about her, is there for her, and doesn’t drop her just because Echo has weird scars and a crazy mother. She is another really supportive character who I loved. Isaiah and Beth. Hmm…also drug addicts (I hate drugs so not cool with me) but the love they kept denying between them was so cute. I felt so horrible for Beth with what she has to go through with her mother and her mother’s deranged boyfriends. When Noah and Isaiah went to defend her I almost cried (I did cry a lot throughout the book)but I was so happy. However, the trouble she gave Echo was not okay with me. She was just annoying at times. Isaiah was just adorable, with his obsession with Beth and cars. They were Noah’s family in a way and they also made the book special.

The Romance: Noah and Echo were perfect for each other. The end. Just kidding but seriously they were so beautiful and adorable. I couldn’t stop smiling, or laughing, or crying. Ahhhh gods. When they admitted they loved each other (Noah, why the heck did it take you so long you were making me NERVOUS!) it was just so flawless. Their love was pure and untainted by their pasts and it was delicate and vulnerable yet strong and unbreakable. Does that make sense? Probably not, but it was magnificent all the same.

Overall: This book is a mad crazy, wild rollercoaster ride. If you can’t stomach incredible emotions just coursing through you with no control over them, then don’t read this book (if you are this person you are a ninny and a wimp with no feelings). Otherwise, get ready for tears and laughter and OMG WHAT JUST HAPPENED and OMG PLEASE NO and I LOVE YOU SO MUCH I’M GOING TO BALL UP AND CRY. Cause that’s how absurdly good this book was.
...more

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Sep 29, 2012 Kimberly rated it it was amazing

I really really really love the book! I think I can reread it a million times without getting bored. I really love how the story alternates between Echo and Noah. I get to see both Echo and Noah's point of view at the same time.

I wasn't really expecting both main characters having "dark" pasts and how the story is about the characters trying to overcome their pasts. It is still a really beautiful story nonetheless.

Echo, who lost the memory of the day where she almost died, is going to a "shrin ...more

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Apr 22, 2013 Manda rated it really liked it

Shelves: ya-na

I had my doubts about this book I must be honest because upon reading the back cover of the book I thought personally it sounded a bit strange and didn't sound very exciting.

Popular girl turns unpopular or was it the other way round? I forget, anyway the point is apart from that it seemed nothing much was going to happen according to the back cover.

I pushed on though and began reading and glad that I did because from what I've learned from reading this book is that it doesn't need too many thin ...more

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May 18, 2012 Katie_la_geek rated it it was ok

You can read this review and more over on my blog

*I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for a review.*

Pushing The Limits is one of those books. I read it, I recognized that it was quite good but I didn’t like it. Quite simply this book was just not for me, which makes this review rather hard to write.

The problem was that this book was just too dramatic for me. It was drama piled up on top of drama with a touch of what I felt was unrealistic-ness. It pushed me to the edge of my patie ...more

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May 21, 2012 Megan (The Book Babe) rated it really liked it

Shelves: reviewed-on-my-site

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Win. Can it seriously get any better than reading a super smexi, awesomesauce romance on the day after Christmas, AND ON A SNOW DAY? I don't think it can, LOL. This has nothing to do with my review...moving on, so that I can run back and read the sneak peek of Dare You to.

First off, I gotta say that I wasn't very sure about this when I started--it's been getting so many good reviews that it had me nervous, because (usually ...more

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