ARC Review: Crash Into You by Katie McGarry

Title: Crash Into You (Pushing the Limits #3)
Author: Katie McGarry
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary Romance
Release Date: December 1, 2013 (Australia)
Source: Harlequin TEEN Australia. Thank you!

Goodreads rating: 4.33 out of 5.00 (750 ratings)
Goodreads | The Reading Room

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 by Nara


It really amazes me just how different each of Katie McGarry's stories are. I mean, I guess there's the signature Katie McGarry narrative style with dual perspectives, but it's just so interesting how she creates such different stories. I don't even know why I'm so amazed about this, because plenty of authors are able to do it. But for some reason, I just really appreciate how McGarry pulls it off.

Anyway, moving on, in Book Three of the Pushing the Limits series, we're back to bad boy/nice girl- with a twist. Maybe the good girl doesn't want to be such a "good girl"- she's not interested in makeup or shopping or doing public speeches at her mother's charity events. She loves cars. Oh, and who else in the series loves cars? That's right. BAM- Isaiah.

As always with McGarry books, the minor characters could perhaps use some development. But to be quite honest, whereas I might spew fire with other books about underdeveloped characters, I don't particularly mind with this series, because they're all just so focused on the two main characters' stories. And besides, the more interesting minor characters eventually get their own books anyway.

There were some aspects of the book which I normally might have called unrealistic, but for some reason, they really didn't bother me in Crash Into You. Maybe because the story was so riveting and all that, I didn't mind too much. Regardless, there were some gangland/criminal underground type plotlines that some people might find a bit extreme, but I feel that they didn't necessarily have much of an impact on how I viewed the novel (in terms of how realistic it was).

I don't really have much to say about the romance except that it was quite good. I mean, obviously it had to have been for me to give the book five stars, considering it's a contemporary romance. I feel like even people who really wanted Beth and Isaiah to end up together won't be disappointed by it- because you really can see how much better suited Rachel and Isaiah are.

Incredible

Ratings
Overall: 9/10
Plot: 4/5
Writing: 5/5
Characters: 4/5
Cover: 3/5