Review Detail

I usually never read contemporary, so this is me going out of my comfort zone. I've seen many (many) rave reviews on this book and when Harlequin Teen sent a copy to me, I just had to give it a try. Who knew I'd fall in love with it so quickly?
Okay, that last line wasn't entirely true.
I did love it, but it took me a while to realized that I did.
Pushing the Limits is definitely a 'wow' book. It's got the forbidden romance, the nail-biting suspense, the heart-stopping moment where everything finally pieces together. It also had it's frustrating moments where I just wanted to skip a couple of pages because either one of the characters was acting really unbearable or I just wanted to get to the good part.
This is one of those books that takes patience... lot's of it.

The whole book is written dual POV's (Echo's and Noah's).
Echo's character is really super troubled. She's a narrator you can't trust (So be warned). She has a twisted way of seeing things (And I don't mean that in a nasty way). The problem with her is that she believed everything her dysfunctional mother told her, and she expresses these beliefs by mouthing off a couple of times. She lost her memory of the night she got all those scars, so most of her opinions of that night in the beginning of the book are assumptions. And most of the book revolves around the mystery of what really did happen that night.
Echo is a very realistic character, especially for a troubled teen. She's indecisive, stubborn, unbearable at times, hormonal, emotional, and insecure. But her character develops impressively throughout the book. I ended up loving her like a sister.
Noah, on the other hand, is... well, a handful. He's hot. Like super, incredibly, bad-boy with tattoos HOT! He's funny (hilarious!), really really sweet, and did I mention he was hot? He's awesome, I loved him!
He's definitely, 100%, positively swoon-worthy all the way.
He's ten times more rational than Echo is... even though he has a couple of mind slip-ups here and there.
He fights for what he loves, and he knows that sometimes letting go is the best thing to do.
I just... wow... he left me breathless. He made me want to cry.
His relationship with Echo wasn't forced. It wasn't one of those insta-love things, it slowly progressed over time and it was perfect. McGarry added the perfect amount of drama and thrill to spice things up.
I'd give them the 'best couple of the year' award.

The story itself is beautiful. It's about how two broken people find a way around their problems and they fall in love while they do. Echo wants to remember what happened that night she got those ugly scars.
Noah just wants his brothers back.
They both want normal.
Even though this is a contemporary novel, McGarry seriously knows how to work magic in her words. I could not put this down. At. All. It's not easy to not think about this book, and it'll be even harder to forget. I'll probably be rereading it soon just to watch Noah and Echo fall in love all over again.
I don't even know what to say anymore. This is a MUST READ and I'm really really really happy that Harlequin Teen sent me a copy or else I'd never have read this and I would never have realized what an amazing author Katie McGarry is and I would have never read any of her books.