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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
[close] Contemporary Group Read

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What Members Thought

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.
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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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Nov 30, 2013 priya rated it did not like it

Shelves: dnf

I should start this out by saying I only made it around halfway through this book before I just gave up.

I pride myself on being able to withstand some truly terrible shit and finish books no matter the torture inflicted on my poor being. And this book wasn't horrible. It didn't have horrendous characters, plot, writing, etc. It didn't have crappiness seeping out of its pores and threatening to choke the life out of me. With that said, as you can see from my rating, I did not like this book. Mayb ...more

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Nov 20, 2012 Grace rated it it was ok

My two main problems were these:

1.) This was one of those books that I think the author could have worked more on. I think a LOT of stuff could have been cut to make a shorter book, because not all of it seemed absolutely crucial to the plot.

2.) Noah always calling her "baby." Seriously, that's what knocked this from 3 stars to 2 stars for me. It made the dialogue super unrealistic and made Noah seem like a cheese ball. Definitely scraped off a lot of realisticness in the story for me.

I did lik ...more

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