Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

Title: Pushing the Limits
Author: Katie McGarry
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Release date: July 31st 2012

Rating: 5/5

Buy it at: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository

Read first chapters here.

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 of that horrible night. 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. They should have nothing in common. And with the secrets they both keep, being together is pretty much impossible.Yet the crazy attraction between them refuses to go away. And 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.

Pushing the Limits is a contemporary novel and I loved it, is a heartbreaking story (yes, I cried), but in the end it left me feeling that all was well with the world.

The story is told from two points of view, alternating between Echo and Noah, and I loved that because it made me understand them a little more, especially Noah. I loved the characters of Echo and Noah (I adored him!).

Echo is a 17 year-old girl, she´s in her senior year, she used to be popular but now she´s a freak and subject to gossip and speculations because of the scars on her arms, which she covers with long-sleeved shirts and gloves, she attends therapy weekly with a social worker at her school because she can´t remember anything about the day she suffered the accident. Echo lives with her father, whom she blindly obey and with her stepmother, whom she hates. Noah is 17 year-old too and also like Echo is in his senior year. Noah is considered a bad boy with a bad reputation for been a womanizer, he is an orphan and lives in a foster home and also attends therapy with the same clinical social worker as Echo.

"I won't tell anyone, Echo. I promise." Noah tucked a curl behind my ear. It had been so long since someone touched me like he did. Why did it have to be Noah Hutchins? His dark brown eyes shifted to my covered arms. "You didn't do that-did you? It was done to you?" No one ever asked that question. They stared. They whispered. They laughed. But they never asked.

Echo is a very good student and is assigned to tutor Noah, so they begin to spend time together, at first they did not get along, but as they spend more time together the attraction between them is undeniable. And they found in each other something they needed and hadn´t so far managed to find, understanding and acceptance; they needed to feel normal.

"But I wanted normal and for a few minutes that´s what I was. Like two years ago...like before..."

 Normal. She wanted normal and so do I. "You know what´s normal?"

Another great character is Mrs.Collins, the social worker who provides therapy to Echo and Noah. I loved her interaction with both, especially with Noah because he was the most reluctant to trust an adult.

Pushing the Limits is the debut novel of Katie McGarry and she did an outstanding job, with a plot that keep me hooked from the beginning and I could not put it down. I could connect with the main characters and understand them. Pushing the Limits is a story with romance where the protagonists embark on an emotional journey where they learn to forgive, to trust and end up seeing the world differently.

This is a book that I recommend and is a must read. I can´t  wait to read next book of this author, Dare You To, is Beth´s story, she appears in this book, she´s like a sister to Noah.

Book trailer