Review: Dare You To

"I dare you..."

If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk's home life, they'd send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom's freedom and her own happiness. That's how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn't want her and going to a school that doesn't understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn't get her, but does....

Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can't tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn't be less interested in him.

But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won't let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all....

Title: Dare You To (Pushing the Limits ~ Book 2)
Author: Katie McGarry | Twitter | Goodreads | Website | Blog
Publication Date: May 28 2013
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
ISBN: 0373210639
Length: 304 Pages
Add it to your TBR Pile: Goodreads
Buy It: Amazon US / Amazon UK

Source: Direct from Publisher via NetGalley
Cover Love: Hot! I mean look at it...
Point of View:  Alternating 1st person between both Beth and Ryan

My Rating: 5 Stars

In 2012 I was blown away when I read Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry.  I went through every possible emotion while reading it and for sometime after, it was the book that I judged all others by.  I was over the moon happy with the way it ended so when I saw there was a second book I was frightened.  I didn't want anything to go wrong for Noah and Echo.  But then I saw it was following Beth and I was once again overjoyed.  Beth needed her story to be told and she needed to get her happy ending.  But then again I found myself frightened.  Ryan?  Who is Ryan?  Beth and Isaiah are together... they need each other... they love each other... right?

“A sliver of hope sneaks past my walls and I slam every opening shut. Emotion is evil. People who make me feel are worse. I take comfort in the stone inside me. If I don't feel, I don't hurt.”

We of course know Beth already, dyed black hair, torn up clothes, foul mouth and bad attitude.  Now we meet Ryan, well to do family, high school baseball star and eyeing the major leagues.

“You're a lot like that bird in the barn.  You're so scared that you're going to be caged in forever you can't see the way out.  You smack yourself against the wall again and again and again.  The door is open, Beth.  Stop running in circles and walk out.”

Beth's uncle (Scott, her father's brother) has found her and has decided to take her away from the hell that is living with her mother.  Beth of course wants none of this.  She has grown up starving and fighting her way through everything life has thrown at her and she doesn't know how to react when new opportunities are handed to her.  She finds it hard to see past the intense need she has to keep her mother safe.  A mother who is really beyond saving...

Ryan lives in the perfect house, with the perfect family and his perfect pitching future has been mapped out for him since he was little.  At least this is what you would see from the outside.  On the inside his mother and father hate each other, he has an older brother that his been removed from the family by his father and baseball is not his only love.  Ryan loves to create stories and write.  This is not something he has the luxury of doing often as his father has trained him well; it is baseball all the way.

“Beth feels likes this storm. Constant and persistent as a whole, but the more I get close and try to clutch the individual drops of rain, the more the water falls out of my hands.”

I so adored Beth and Ryan.  Even though the circumstances that first bring them together, a dare for her phone number and then a date, is not the best way to start a relationship it seemed to work for these two.  If it wasn't for that dare they would have never met therefore we can put this down as fate.  Ryan falls hard for Beth.  He loves how she lives her life without apology and sees in her the attitude that he wishes he had toward life when making decisions for himself.  There are so many romantic and sweet moments between these two and I refuse to ruin any of them for you.  But I just want to leave it with one word.  RAIN.  When you read the book you will fully understand what this word means... it was the most romantic scene I have ever read.

“My fingers lightly trace her arm and I swear she presses closer to me. I'd love to kiss her right now. Not the type of kiss that makes her body come alive. The type of kiss that shows her how much I care - the type that involves my soul.”

I also loved getting little peeks at Noah and Echo.  As I mentioned before I fell in love with these two so I didn't want their story messed with but it was great to see them pop up every so often as a way of reminding us they are there and still in love.

All of my fears for Isaiah not having his own happy ending faded away when I saw that at the end of the acknowledgements there is a snippet of Crash Into You which will be his story.  There is absolutely no doubt that Isaiah's book will be amazing.  McGarry has proven herself to be beyond talented and her books have a way of drawing you into the story and you find yourself caring like you never thought you could about the characters.  Without a doubt read Pushing the Limits if you haven't already done so and then read Dare You To and make sure to mark your calendar for the release of Crash Into You.  You do not want to miss any of these books.

“How many more of us are faking the facade? How many more of us are pretending to be something we're not? Even better, how many of us will have the courage to be ourselves regardless of what others think?”

 

MORE QUOTES FROM DARE YOU TO