Dare You To by Katie McGarry

Title: Dare You To (Pushing the Limits #2)
Author: Katie McGarry
Publisher: Mira Ink
Release date: June 7th 2013
Source: Netgalley
Format: egalley

Rating: 4.5/5

Buy on: Amazon.co.uk | BookDepository

You can read my review of Pushing the Limits - here

If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk's home life, they'd send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom's freedom and her own happiness. That's how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn't want her and going to a school that doesn't understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn't get her, but does....

Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can't tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn't be less interested in him.

But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won't let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all...

I have been waiting impatiently for a year to read Dare You To, which is the story of Beth and she was introduced in the first book as Noah´s sort of adoptive sister and Isaiah's romantic interest, so when I read the synopsis for the first time I almost had a fit because I realized it was not going to be the story of Beth and Isaiah, but her story with a certain Ryan ......... and I was ready to not like Ryan because in my head ...... Isaiah was indicated for her but I was wrong.

Ryan is a really good guy, he´s sweet, with good feelings, is a baseball player with aspirations of playing professional, he doesn´t do drugs, rarely drink alcohol....he´s swoon worthy  .... is impossible not to love him ...... the only detail that I found is that he takes the dares too seriously. It is precisely by a dare that he meets Beth, because she's not the type of girl that he´s usually like, she is a  tough girl, very blunt and very intimidating. So Dare You To is the story of the "bad" girl meets good boy ... the opposite of Pushing the Limits and most contemporary books that I've read so far.

To be honest, in Pushing the Limits did not like Beth much, but thanks to this book we see why she the way she is, the problems she has with her alcoholic mother, what happened when she was little, why she has trust issues and the reasons for his father's abandonment. And meanwhile Ryan is also having problems at home, because he has very strict parents who have planned all his life and Ryan begins to doubt whether his dream of being a professional baseball player are really his dream or his father´s dreams. So Ryan is at a turning point where he must decide what he wants to do with his future.

Overall, Dare You To is amazing! This book is beautifully written, is a sweet, poignant, and heartbreaking  love story. Something that I really liked is that Echo and Noah from Pushing the Limits appear in some scenes, as well as Isaiah.

I highly recommend this book if you love poignant contemporary novels. And I can not wait to read the last book of the trilogy, Crash Into You, which will be the story of Isaiah.

Thanks to Mira Ink for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Favorites Quotes

Beth feels like this storm. Constant and persistent as a whole, but the more I get close and try to clutch the individuals drops of rain, the more the water falls out of my hands.

You're a lot like that bird in the barn. You're so scared that you're going to be caged in forever you can't see the way out. You smack yourself against the wall again and again and again. The door is open, Beth. Stop running in circles and walk out.

Book trailer