Harlequinn Teen contacted us about reviewing this book, and I initially hesitated in saying yes. It didn’t really seem like my type of book. I’m not really one for “issues” books. I’ll read the occasional one, as long as it is fantastic, but they’re aren’t my preferred genre. Two things swayed me. The cover makes it very clear that, isssues or no, this is a kissing book.1 And everyone I follow on twitter was raving about this book.
It came to me in the mail and sat on my shelves for awhile. I had until September 15th to post my review so I just let it sit there. Until it became a little dire that I actually read it. So I decided to take it (and one other book) camping with me. I started Pushing the Limits at about two in the afternoon. And finished it at about two in the morning, huddling in my sleeping bag, shining a flashlight at it, and trying to ingore the sounds of animals outside the tent.
It was amazing. I loved this book. I loved the characters and the writing and emotions and the horribleness of it all. I loved that it presented itself as a “good girl falls in love with boy fromt he wrong side of the tracks” story but wasn’t that at all. It was more about two teenagers who had (mostly) normal families that fell apart around them and not having any idea how to deal with the new realities they were given.
And I really loved their relationship with each other and with their friends and their struggles with thier families and thier morals.
When I started the book and first met Echo and Noah I really thought that there woudn’t be any surprises. I thought we knew what had happened to them and the book was going to be about them falling in love and helping each other move on. But there were surprises. The past was revealed slowly with heartbreaking truths revealed about Echo’s and Noah’s loved ones. And just when you think you can’t dislike a character any more…wow..do you ever.
Also I liked that it wasn’t their relationship with each other that made them feel better. They weren’t healing by clinging to each other. More, it was seeing each others strength and courage that motivated Echo and Noah to heal themselves, to face their past and their future and figrue out what they really wanted and how to go about doing it.
And they both had an incredible amount of forgiveness in them. I’m not sure I could’ve forgiven some of the characters that they, Echo especially, forgave.
As a side note, if you get the hardcover of this book and want to read it in public but feel like hiding how much of a kissing book it is, well you’re out of luck. Once you take off the dust jacket it’s even more of a kissing book.
But don’t take my word for it, you can own one of your very own! Courtesy of Harlequinn Teen we are giving away a copy to a lucky resident of the USA or Canada who is above 13 years of age and only enters the contest one time.