Review: Dare You To (Pushing the Limits #2) by Katie McGarry

Posted July 23, 2013 by Lola in Contemporary, Review, Romance / 4 Comments

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Dare You To (Pushing the Limits #2)
by Katie McGarry

Blurb from Goodreads: Ryan lowers his lips to my ear. “Dance with me, Beth.”
“No.” I whisper the reply. I hate him and I hate myself for wanting him to touch me again….

“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….

My Review:
I was so looking forward to reading this book, because I loved Pushing the Limits, but for some reason this book was just missing something for me. I am always a bit scared to start a book for which I have high expectations, because I am scared it won’t be as good as expectated and on the other hand I am really hoping it is as good as expected.

I really like Katie McGarry her writing style and that’s probably one of the reasons I kept reading. The story was okay, it just missed something. In Pushing the Limits both characters had some big secrets and difficult issues to deal with, the same is true for the characters in this book. For some reason the story just didn’t interest me as much as I hoped. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. I could put this book down too easily and my main problem with this book probably lies with the characters.

There are some great scenes that I enjoyed, but overal this book was just okay for. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t awesome. And I expected this book to be good, very good, but it wasn’t. I am picking up the next book in this series, but I will turn my expectations a bit down.

Beth and Ryan are very different than Noah and Echo. I just couldn’t stand Beth, I don’t know why, but there where all these little things that annoyed me about her. She is really bitter and full of hate and there are even some depressing parts. She comes from a really bad place and I felt bad for her, but sometimes I just wanted her to drop her attitude and was gratefull for what she had. I had the feeling she only did that at the very end of the book and it was only then that I started to like her a bit. Also there is some big issue concerning her mom, that has been going for so long and I don’t get why she never really did something and the plans she had didn’t seem to make sense. Also I can’t wrap my head around that the fact that she could actually run away Ryan so often. Ryan was a nice guy, but I wished he was a bit stronger and do what he really wanted to. He did seem to have the courage in other aspects of his life, but for some reason he couldn’t say no to either his parents or Gwen. And I didn’t like the fact that he went after Beth because of a dare. Really I am not sure if I am making sense or if I can really explain why I didn’t like them. I just couldn’t connect with the characters and didn’t care what was going to happen to them.

To conclude: I had such high expectations of this book, but it just fell flat to me. I really like Katie her writing style, but the story just didn’t held my attention. I didn’t connect with the characters and I got annoyed at beth most of the time, I just couldn’t stand her. There are some great scenes, but overal this book is just okay for me.

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You can add Dare You To to your to-read list on Goodreads

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4 responses to “Review: Dare You To (Pushing the Limits #2) by Katie McGarry

  1. I didn’t read Pushing the Limits, so for me, this book was great. I think when I finish reading PTL, I might have second thoughts though. I know a lot of people think the first book was better. I did like Isaiah, though.

    • I think a huge part of why this book was only okay for me is because I loved PtL and had too high expectations for this one. I also like Isaiah, he was always there for Beth. The next book will be about Isaiah, so I am really curious about that.

  2. I loved Pushing the Limits, and I agree, it was a much better book. I did enjoy Dare You To and I finished it in one day, but that was because I was stuck in a car for 10 hours straight one day and the only to do was read. I can definitely see and understand your issues, though I think I liked it a bit better. I’m stuck between lowering my expectations for Crash Into You because Dare You To didn’t blow me away, and hoping that it’s better than Dare You To. Good review.

    Sandy @ Somewhere Only We Know

    • It took me a few days to finish this, but even though it’s a pretty large book I still read it reasonable fast, I think mainly because of the writing style. Even though the story and characters didn’t really do it for me I did keep reading. I think I am going to do the same, lowering my expectations for Crash into You and hoping it’s better than Dare You To!

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