Title: The Promise of Amazing
Author: Robin Constantine
Series: No series
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Published: December 31, 2013
Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3 out of 5) Continue reading
Tag Archives: Contemporary
Every Last Promise by Kristin Halbrook
Title: Every Last Promise
Author: Kristin Halbrook
Series: No Series
Publisher: HarperTeen
Published: April 21, 2015
Rating: ★★★★★ (5 out of 5) Continue reading
Things We Know by Heart by Jessi Kirby
Title: Things We Know by Heart
Author: Jessi Kirby
Series: No series
Publisher: HarperTeen
Published: April 21, 2015
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5) Continue reading
A Desperate Fortune by Susanna Kearsley
Title: A Desperate Fortune
Author: Susanna Kearsley
Series: Standalone (although some character crossover with other novels)
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Published: April 7, 2015
Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3.5 out of 5) Continue reading
Nowhere But Here by Katie McGarry
Title: Nowhere But Here
Author: Katie McGarry
Series: Thunder Road Series
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Published: May 26, 2015
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5) Continue reading
Jesse’s Girl by Miranda Kenneally
Title: Jesse’s Girl
Author: Miranda Kenneally
Series: Hundred Oaks
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Published: July 7, 2015
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5)
Continue reading
Book Review: Breaking the Rules by Katie McGarry
Title: Breaking the Rules
Author: Katie McGarry
Series: Pushing the Limits
Rating: ★★★★
After finishing Pushing the Limits, I felt satisfied with the ending. It wasn’t a happily ever after ending, but it still felt right for Echo and Noah. So I wasn’t really sure I wanted to read Breaking the Rules. I didn’t want to read more of their story and end up feeling let down by whatever came next for them. The little glimpses into their lives from the other novels in the series were good enough for me.
Thankfully, McGarry created a fantastic continuation of Echo and Noah’s story. It felt authentic to the characters, even if that authenticity meant they annoyed me at times. So many of their issues could be fixed, even avoided, if they just talked to each other. However, I do realize that it’s not entirely how their characters would act. They aren’t really talkative characters, at least about things that are difficult to talk about.
Echo is still trying to separate herself from her mother. She’s trying to make it on her own as an artist, relying only on her talent and not her name. She and Noah took a road trip to try and get her art into galleries and shows across the United States. She’s trying to become a better person, one that doesn’t let her past haunt her as much.
Noah is being the supportive boyfriend. He finds work where he can, and is just enjoying his time with Echo. When he learns just how close one of their stops brings him to his family, he has to decide if he wants to face the family his mother left behind, or continue moving forward in life, trusting his mother’s judgment in ignoring them.
Through all of this, their insecurities are working against them. Echo still feels like the girl who isn’t worthy of real love. She still feels like the “leftovers,” her father has a new family and she’s what left from his old one. Her mom’s focus is her art, and Echo gets whatever she attention her mother might have leftover. Noah knows he isn’t the person he wants to be for Echo. He wants to give her more than he can at the moment, and he’s worried that Echo will leave him before he can become the man he wants to be.
Like I said, a lot of their issues would have been solved if they could really talk to each other. Sure, they have meaningful conversations, but it’s rarely about their insecurities. If it does, it only grazes the surface.
In the end, I was happy McGarry added a little more to Echo and Noah’s story. Even though I was content with the ending of Pushing the Limits, the resolution of some open questions was nice to have. It also provided a little more information on how they went form the Echo and Noah of the first book, to the Echo and Noah found in the other novels.
If you enjoyed Pushing the Limits, I highly suggest reading Breaking the Rules. The look into their relationship is wonderful, and really wraps up their story well.
If you’d like to read Breaking the Rules, you can purchase a copy here:
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Book Review: Take Me On by Katie McGarry
Title: Take Me On
Author: Katie McGarry
Series: Pushing the Limits
Rating:★★★★★
I really didn’t think the books in this series could top Pushing the Limits. Not because they wouldn’t be as good, but because there’s something about that first book that has some sort of magic. It’s the first book, the first introduction to the world, and it’s hard to beat that first bit of magic.
It’s almost like eating a pizza. All slices of the pizza are delicious, but it’s that very first slice that melts in your mouth and reminds you just how delicious pizza is.
Take Me On is my favorite book of the series. It beat Pushing the Limits for that honor. It has characters that don’t need each other for completeness. They make mistakes, yes, but in the end, they make decisions based on what they need, not what the relationship needs. Haley has an amazing concept of wanting to be yellow. She’s yellow, West is blue. She’s not ready to be green yet. She wants to figure out how to be yellow before mixing and making green. I think that’s the perfect way to describe this novel. These characters need to figure out how to be yellow and blue before they can create other colors.
Haley has some trouble in her history. She was a fighter, but one incident took that away from her. She sees weakness in a moment of strength, and it costs her the thing that made her happiest. When she’s thrown back into that world, she resists. She doesn’t want to feel that weakness again. She fights against it with everything she has. West is there to challenge her, but he can’t bring her back to fighting. She has to decide to do that on her own, and the moment she makes her decision is perfect. I had a huge smile when she faced her demons and moved on.
West should have everything. We met him in Crash Into You. He has a rich family that looked happy on the outside. Then his sister met Isaiah and found herself in trouble. West blames himself for her accident and her injuries. He remembers clearly his actions that led to his sister being in a car crash. He can’t bring himself to face her. It was tough to read those emotions. It’s clear that he misses her, but to him, he doesn’t see how she could miss him. He doesn’t feel like he fits in with his family, and the accident was the final nail in the coffin. He acts before he thinks, and that’s how he ended up training with Haley.
The colors metaphor is probably one of the best I’ve read in a novel. Both characters have to figure out how to be their own person before they can work on relationships. Haley has to figure out how to be yellow before she can try to make green with West, or any other colors with the members of her family. She’s been belittled and lost sight of who she is because of her family’s circumstances. She’s a muddled grey at the beginning of the novel from trying to be everything to everyone else before owning who she is. West is trying so hard to be his family’s color that he forgot he’s supposed to be blue. The fact that the color metaphor can be applied to every single relationship in this book is perfect.
Take Me On is my favorite book of this series. The characters and perfectly imperfect, and their growth is amazing. The story was tense with some wonderful sweet moments. Mostly, I love that this book focused on finding out who you are before you try to add more pieces to your whole. You can’t be a whole person if you don’t know what makes you, you. I loved it.
If you’d like to read Take Me On, you can purchase it here:
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Audible
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Book Review: Crash Into You by Katie McGarry
Title: Crash Into You
Author:Katie McGarry
Series:Pushing the Limits
Rating:★★★★
I need good characters to like a book. A good setting is fine; a good story is nice to read. But for me to really love a book, I need good characters. They need to grow. They need to shed their tie to the book and become actual people. If I read a story with characters that I see as people, chances are, I’ll love it.
McGarry created wonderful people in this book.
Rachel looks like she has everything a person could want. From the outside, it looks like her family is perfect and happy. But her family is hiding secrets. Her mother wants her to be the daughter she lost. Her brothers and father want her to make her mother happy. They want her to be perfect, making up for the daughter gone too soon. But Rachel doesn’t want to be that girl. She wants to work on and drive her car. She doesn’t want to play the part of perfect daughter. She wants to make her family happy, but she doesn’t know when it’s okay to stop making others happy at the expense of her health.
On the other hand, Isaiah doesn’t have a family to make happy. He has Noah and Echo. He had Beth, but their friendship has been messed up. His mother wants back in his life, but he has years of pain in her way. He tries not to need anyone because he feels like no one needs him. He’s not completely lost, though. Cars provide his escape and hope for a better future than his present circumstances. It’s fast cars that bring him and Rachel together.
I really enjoyed this story, even though cars aren’t really my thing. I know how to change a tire, oil, and car battery. That’s pretty much the extent of my car knowledge. Even though some of the car talk in the book was above my head, it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the whole story. Rachel’s panic attacks really tugged at me. I’ve never had panic attacks like hers, but I have had panic attacks. The out of control feeling, of knowing that the panic makes no sense and that it doesn’t help anything, isn’t a feeling easily written. McGarry does a great job at writing those moments.
McGarry, once again, has a fantastic book on her hands. She creates characters that are the quintessential “more than their looks” characters. They appear on the outside to be one character, but there’s so much to them that the outside barely shows a piece of who they are. They aren’t characters; they’re people. I’ll keep reading and recommending McGarry because she does an amazing job of capturing people and weaving a story around them.
If you’d like to read Crash Into You for yourself, you can purchase it here:
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Book Review: Breathe, Annie, Breathe by Miranda Kenneally
Title:Breathe, Annie, Breathe
Author:Miranda Kenneally
Series:Hundred Oaks
Rating:★★★★★
It should really be no surprise that I’d probably read anything Kenneally wrote and published. This is the fifth book I’ve read from her, and with each book, I fall a little more in love with her writing, her settings, and her characters. Breathe, Annie, Breathe is no different.
Annie is training to run a marathon in honor of her boyfriend, Kyle. She blames herself for Kyle’s death, and the marathon is her way to staying connected to him, and completing the things he will never get to complete. She’s never been a runner, so she begins a training program that will get her in marathon shape. It’s hard and painful, but she is determined to do this for Kyle.
What she does not expect is for the brother of her trainer to show up. Jeremiah is an adrenaline junkie, and running provides him with a little thrill, but he’s always looking for more. He’s gotten into trouble for it, and is not working for his brother as a way to stay on a safe path.
I think what I loved most about this book was reading Annie comes to terms with her loss, and find a way to move on, while still preserving her memories. Annie is hurting. She blames herself for Kyle dying. She can’t help but think about all the “what ifs” that might have kept him alive. She’s determined to run the marathon to honor him, and she has people cheering her on. Kyle’s family is there for her. Her family is there for her. Jeremiah is there for her. As much as I loved the romance in this book, Annie’s growth is what made this book amazing for me.
I love the world Kenneally has created, and only love it more with each book. I love that she ties every book back to the previous ones in the series. It makes it feel like an entire world exists beyond the pages of the novels. These aren’t characters you read in a book and then never see again. They’re always woven into each other. It’s wonderful. Breathe, Annie, Breathe is another must-read book from a must-read series, written by a must-read author.
If you’d like to read Breathe, Annie, Breathe, you can purchase a copy here:
Amazon
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