ARC Review: Crash Into You (Pushing the Limits, #3) by Katie McGarry

Publication date: November 26th, 2013
Publisher: Harlequin TEEN
Links: Goodreads|Amazon|The Book Depository
Stars: 4/5
Source: NetGalley

From acclaimed author Katie McGarry comes an explosive new tale of a good girl with a reckless streak, a street-smart guy with nothing to lose, and a romance forged in the fast lane 

The girl with straight As, designer clothes and the perfect life-that's who people expect Rachel Young to be. So the private-school junior keeps secrets from her wealthy parents and overbearing brothers...and she's just added two more to the list. One involves racing strangers down dark country roads in her Mustang GT. The other? Seventeen-year-old Isaiah Walker-a guy she has no business even talking to. But when the foster kid with the tattoos and intense gray eyes comes to her rescue, she can't get him out of her mind.

Isaiah has secrets, too. About where he lives, and how he really feels about Rachel. The last thing he needs is to get tangled up with a rich girl who wants to slum it on the south side for kicks-no matter how angelic she might look.

But when their shared love of street racing puts both their lives in jeopardy, they have six weeks to come up with a way out. Six weeks to discover just how far they'll go to save each other.

REVIEW

After Pushing The Limits (Pushing The Limits #1), in which Echo and Noah's chemistry blew me away, I've always looked forward to more of Katie McGarry's Pushing the Limits series. Crash Into You is about Isaiah, a foster kid, who was never my favourite character but not my least favourite either; someone we always caught glimpses of in the previous books and seemed so let down in Dare You To. He's practically Noah's brother, was mooning after Beth and finally, in Crash Into You, we get a close-up of him.

I finally understood him and respected him so much for everything he had made of himself despite the odds that are stacked up against him. 

Despite having the punk-boy-meets-rich-girl-and-there-are-obstacles storyline that has the potential to be so cliched, Crash Into You was funny, sweet and surprising. The credit, I think, goes to the characters who popped out of the page and refused to be pigeonholed into a "type".

Isaiah meets pretty, wide-eyed and car-crazy Rachel Young at a drag race and their story accelerates from there. It's partly told in Rachel's point of view which I really enjoyed as Rachel had this innocence about her that was so refreshing! Seeing Isaiah through Rachel's eyes was incredible- even for Isaiah. She saw the best in him, made him feel worthy and in the process, we get to see how strong and loyal she is, despite the people around her overprotecting her. She's definitely not the textbook-private-school-girl teen reads love to portray. The girly, giddy rush that accompanies first love was written so well that I was grinning like an idiot whenever we got to read about the events from Rachel's perspective!

Isaiah's social worker, Courtney, was pretty awesome too. I loved how while she was still learning the ropes, she cared enough to make sure Isaiah knew she was there for him in the long-term. Abby, Isaiah's friend, came off shady in the beginning but ended up being endearing and yes, a little strange but in a good way. Echo, Noah, Beth and Logan make cameo appearances while we also get acquainted with the Rachel's brothers: Ethan, West and the lot. There is also a "villain", street thug Eric, who is not-so-three-dimensional and a little over-the-top but it kind of went with the adrenaline-junkie-cars-backdrop, so I don't think it made the story flawed in any way.

Isaiah and Rachel make perfect sense in a way that made me cheer for them throughout! I loved how they never for a second doubted their feelings for each other and accepted that Rachel's parents weren't going to greet him with open arms immediately; two things that might've been a source for relationship theatrics in most books. By throwing light on the weight that comes with the prospect of aging out of the foster system and painting the beginnings of a relationship that is joyous, transforming and far from superficial, I enjoyed reading Crash Into You even more than Dare You To. I was reading this on my phone non-stop, through bus rides, in the supermarket, you name it, and it was definitely worth the ride!

Rating: ★★★★☆