Crash into You (Pushing the Limits #3)

The third book in the Pushing the Limits series puts Isaiah as the main character, along with a new girl, Rachel Young, a rich private school girl keeping plenty of secrets from her family. She has a love for cars and for speed, which leads her to a street race where she meets Isaiah. With both their lives threatened after events of that street race, they have even more secrets and six weeks to find a way out.

This is by far my favorite of the series. I enjoyed the first two but everything about this one just seemed amplified, from the chemistry to the tension to the danger. We get to see so much deeper into who Isaiah is as a person and the events that lead up to how be became a foster child and why he lets so few people into his life. It was so heartbreaking. Rachel’s story was no less touching. Trying to be the perfect daughter to keep her mother happy so the rest of her family is happy, hiding how unhappy she is and having to pretend she’s fine when she’s not. It was easy to relate to both of them, fear of getting hurt, wanting to keep people happy, insecurities, feeling like a burden. These are two characters I found so easy to root for and wanted to see happy in the end.

The side characters were great as well. So many side characters and all with distinct personalities so it was easy to tell them apart. Noah, Echo, Beth, and Logan are all back for multiple scenes and Ryan shows up as well but he has less time than the others. I really liked Logan in Dare You To but in this one, it made me want to know so much more about him. Favorite new character is a toss-up between Rachel’s twin Ethan, her brother West, or Isaiah’s friend Abby. All three had moments that left me wanting more about them(and with West there is more coming in Take Me On). I also really liked Courtney, Isaiah’s new social worker. She was awesome in her handling of him and she cared about him. The only character I had slight problems with was Eric, the bad guy of the book. I didn’t find him as menacing and dangerous as the characters did until closer to the end.

The book is almost five hundred pages but it never felt like it. It kept me reading every time I had a spare moment until 3am because I just had to find out what was going to happen. Katie McGarry definitely did research into drag racing and cars for this book and it showed in the writing.

Included in this book is also a preview for the next in the series: Take Me On, which has Rachel’s brother West as the main character. The preview is good and I’m definitely looking forward to that one.

The amazingness of this book was spectacular! I got it on release day and started it the day after. It finished it at 1:30 in morning. Less than 24 hours after starting. It was that good. Crash Into You was everything that Dare You To wasn't. The first book, Pushing the Limits, was perfections incarnate. Dare You To was good, but just didn't interest me as much. Crash Into You basically exploded into my mind and wouldn't let it go. I had to know what happened next. I'm not a huge contemporary reader, there are only a few on my shelves, most by the same couple authors (Katie McGarry, Ally Carter, and Simone Elkeles). But Crash Into You blew them all away! It focuses on drag racing and cars as its central theme, something I'd never read about before. I swear, I learned more about cars in that one book than I have in my entire life.

The book is dual POV, between Isaiah and Rachel. Rachel is awesome. She is kick-butt, she has a bunch of awesome over-protective older brothers, and she knows way more about cars than I do. She had a slight problem with panic attacks though. And have I mentioned her family life? It kinda stinks. The one thing I hate about Rachel is that she refuses to tell her parents about her panic attacks, which are a risk to her life. I wish that she'd just realize that, despite how much she wanted to please everyone else, she had to put herself first. Her parents could only be happy if she was. Her family comes out of a good place, and they really do love her, but they have a really hard time of showing it.

Isaiah is, I can't even. He is simply spectacular. We've known him since book one, and the entire time, we the readers have been wanting a happy ending for him. Isaiah grew up in foster care, which has not treated him well. He's best friends with Noah, the protagonist of book one. Isaiah can fend for himself, and knows cars like nobodies business, but he has a hard time admitting he needs help. He also doesn't know the full story, and tends to make hasty judgements. Overall, I find Isaiah an awesome character, who grows into a wonderful person by the end of the story. He's complex, which is something I love to read about. The romance between him and Rachel was a bit sudden, but it also built at the same time. It was like an insta-attraction that built into something more.

Has anyone heard the Avril Lavigne song 17? If not, check out the lyrics here. This song is basically Rachel and Isaiah's relationship. The feel of the song is how they are. How they're living free and in love. A few of the lyrics really stood out to me though. "Flicking lighters just to fight the dark. My favorite place was sitting in his car." "We were running red lights." The first line immediately makes me think of when Isaiah gave Rachel his lighter, which had great sentimental value to him. The whole purpose of the story was cars, and that was where they would hang out together. We were running red lights could reference the drag racing, or just plain ole driving that Rachel would do. What do you think? Do any other songs come to mind?

The end of the book (before the epilogue). I swear, my heart stopped. I did not believe that Katie McGarry would do that to me. I had only recently suffered through the end of Allegiant, and my heart was still healing. Thankfully, the author saved my heart from total destruction and the book did not end in weeping, though it definitely hit the feels in the heart. The writing of the novel was superb. It couldn't have been done better. Oh, and I forgot to mention Abby. She was easily my favorite character in the novel, and I demand that she get a novella or novel all to herself! She was in such deep trouble, I just had to see how she dug herself out. Actually, I have a list of characters I want to see with their own story, with Abby on top, closely followed by Logan and with Ethan coming in for a close third. The characters are so original, deep, and intense. The plot was non-stop action, and I couldn't help but squeal when old characters came back into the story. There was a lot of squealing. Basically, read the book. It will be worth every second you have it in your arms. Crash Into You easily gets a full five stars!

Could Hardly wait for this book to come out it was not a disappointment

Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this one as much as I was hoping to.I found Isaiah to be controlling and while some might call it protective, I saw a young man who hadn't been able to control much in his life and lo and behold comes Rachel. She is young,naive and in my opinion, a doormat.

Rachel's family dynamics were interesting. After a family tragedy happened before Rachel was born she must now step in and be the daughter and sister that her parents and brothers lost.Her willingness to do this infuriated me. She just agreed to whatever her parents wanted. If it had to do with the daughter they lost, Rachel bent over backwards. She should have just been herself and made them deal with it. Instead, her parents (well mostly her mom) leaves a shrine to the lost daughter and sister and Rachel allows her parents to decorate her room in a color she hates,she accompanies her mom to the malls and she reads her mom's fashion magazines.

Personally, I would not have stood for it. I would have shut it down a long time ago. I was really kind of pissed that it took a guy for Rachel to stand up to her parents.Her self-esteem had been shot down while she dealt with the panic attacks but it's only Isaiah who is able to raise her self-esteem. I'm sorry but seriously? Where is the confident, self assured woman that Rachel should have blossomed into?

Isaiah bugged me too. However I did like the story with his mom. I had wondered what had happened to land his butt in foster care and it was really interesting to see him come face to face with his mom. Yet I finished that part of the book a little unsatisfied.It felt like this story could have continued just a little more.

All the car stuff really bored me. Big time. I am not a car person, so I got bored preeeety quickly.The one thing that came out of the car thing was Abby. I loooooved Abby. She seemed like a softer version of Beth (who I also love) I loved the friendship that developed between Abby and Rachel.

I loved seeing Ryan, Beth, Echo and Noah again too. It was good to see that they played their parts in this book. The scenes near the end with Beth and Isaiah were perfectly written and I may have let a few tears fall. I loved how Ryan's friend Logan played a big part in this book. Watching the friendship grow between Isaiah and Logan was totally awesome.

Let's get to the romance part of the story. I didn't feel the same chemistry with Isaiah and Rachel that I felt with Noah & Echo, Beth & Ryan. I didn't root for the couple at all. And no it's not because I was secretly dreaming that Isaiah and Beth would come to their senses because it wasn't. Beth clearly chose right with Ryan.

I think a lot of it had to do with the insta-love as well as the cheesy nicknames that Isaiah called her. Angel,really? It was almost as cheesy as Noah's Siren talk in Pushing The Limits.The only reason that Noah's nicknames for Echo didn't bug me was because the back-stories for Noah and Echo were super strong.

The ending was pretty good and it raised the rating a half star. It was scary and no one knew what was going to happen. I love how all of the couple's friends came together to help. It showed that friendship is a very strong theme in this book which I love.Friendships are very often underrated and not given the attention that they deserve. Katie McGarry changes that in her books, which is awesome.

It kills me to give this one 3.5 stars but I have to. It wasn't as strong as the previous two were and Rachel & Isaiah drove me bananas.Plus I didn't feel the chemistry between them. However i am excited to read the next book in the series which is West's story.