Pushing the Limits - Of My Reading Pleasure!

"I won't tell anyone, Echo. I promise." Noah tucked a curl behind my ear. It had been so long since someone touched me like he did. Why did it have to be Noah Hutchins? His dark brown eyes shifted to my covered arms. "You didn't do that-did you? It was done to you?" No one ever asked that question. They stared. They whispered. They laughed. But they never asked.  

"An edgy romance that pulls you in and never lets go. I was hooked!"-Gena Showalter,  New York Times bestselling author of the Intertwined series

So wrong for each other...and yet so right.

No one knows what happened the night Echo Emerson went from popular girl with jock boyfriend to gossiped-about outsider with "freaky" scars on her arms. Even Echo can't remember the whole truth of that horrible night. All she knows is that she wants everything to go back to normal. But when Noah Hutchins, the smoking-hot, girl-using loner in the black leather jacket, explodes into her life with his tough attitude and surprising understanding, Echo's world shifts in ways she could never have imagined. They should have nothing in common. And with the secrets they both keep, being together is pretty much impossible.  Yet the crazy attraction between them refuses to go away. And Echo has to ask herself just how far they can push the limits and what she'll risk for the one guy who might teach her how to love again.

(From Goodreads)

This is one of those rare books that comes along and challenges you every step of the way. It challenges your perceptions of people, their motives, and what their true natures really are. For m, that is a very good thing. I don't like stories that are so predictable that I get bored half way through and can't even finish them. I much prefer stories that grab me by the shirt and demand that I read, from start to finish, in as little time as possible because I just have to get to the end to see how it all works out. Pushing the Limits is such a book.

I was hooked from the beginning of this book and it dragged me through to the end, a captive audience of one. I lost sleep over this book, staying up into the early hours of morning, because I just couldn't put it down. i had to find out what would happen to Echo and Noah. Let me just say this: I loved these two characters. They were, at first glance, so different from each other that they seemed like an unlikely pair doomed to failure. But as the story progressed, it turned out that they weren't so different after all. They both have secret desires, secret agendas, and pretty messed up lives. The only difference being, hers is a more privileged upbringing than his. Despite their differences, they find a common ground and before they know it, they are very involved with each other, and the story just takes off from there. I won't spoil any of that here - you'll just have to read it and decide for yourself. For me, this was an enjoyable, slice-of-life read.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of Simone Elkeles, Sarah Dessen, and Jennifer Echols.

(Copy provided by NetGalley)