[Review] Dare you To

English Hardcover

English Paperback Cover

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‚Dare you To‘ by Katie McGarry

Pushing the Limits # 2

Synopsis:
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…. (Source: Goodreads.com)

My thoughts about the book:
I was really surprised and sooo hooked by the first book of this series and accordingly of this, my expectations for that book were also really high. Particularly because now it was about Beth, who though seemed to me in the first book a little bit unfriendly, but has already shown in the first part briefly, that her life isn’t anything but perfect and hence, I could understand her behavior and also her defense.

As well as also here in the second part, in which I still got a lot bigger and more exact look at Beth and her life – particularly on her mother and her relation to her, and also on her flubbed childhood, which I even wouldn’t wish my worst enemy. Therefore I can understand as already said, Beth’s reticence and her actions, which would have led to shaking my head with any other character. Beth often runs away and wants to close her eyes before problems, but then her uncle Scott gets custody for her, she has to live with him and his wife and there she gets to know the sportsman and god-boy Ryan. And, yes, here we also have found our romantic, male protagonist of the book.

First I had my problems with Ryan because he apparently has everything what one can wish for and looked rather superficial. But luckily this has changed during the book and a part for it, was probably also due to the fact that he’s a baseball player, a sports with which I have no interest in it at all. Luckily this aspect became less and less. 😉
I find Ryan was quite okay and a nice character, and then also Beth was a better, but they weren’t as awesome as the couple Noah and Echo from the first book. Unfortunately here I’ve missed this ‘wow-effect’, for which I can’t really find a reason.

Other readers often don’t like it, that in a further book you still see how happy the couple from a previous book is, when they whisper sweet nothings and kisses and so on, but I found that nice and I liked it, that Echo and Noah also showed-up it this book briefly – very briefly – and that they are still happy. I find something like that always absolutely sweet and also okay, if it’s not too much as it was here.

What has disturbed me very much was the fact that there were many clichés in the book, especially Beth, who comes from bad house, and Ryan, from a putatively intact, good and rich family. Also the bet, the reason because he has spoken at first to Beth, was not for my taste. It was not original and too similar to ‘Perfect Chemistry#1’ by Simone Elkeles, even if it has turn into a differently course.

I’m really sorry, but for me the big enthusiasm was missing, because there happened much surprising or special things in it, anyhow it was just too poor. Although I found her uncle Scott very great and it was a pity that at the end, there wasn’t more with him, or more together with him and his wife – or also that there weren’t any more occurrences with her friend Lacy, which I found also very interesting and I liked her at first sight.

At next the third book is coming out in autumn/ winter 2013‚ which will be called ‘Crash into You’, which will host the story of Isaiah. At the moment I’m not so glad about it, because right now I don’t really care much about Isaiah, but I will read it nevertheless, because I would like to conclude the whole series.

Cover Hardcover:
I like this cover as much as the first book and again, here are people on it, which fit well to the descriptions in the book (that’s not always the case ^^)

All in all:
It was a good book and all in all, I also had my fun while reading it, but nevertheless, I’m a little disappointed, because this great wow-effect was missing, which I had with the first part.

Rating:
3,5 of 5 points – (I really liked it)
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Thanks to netgalley.com for the reviewer’s copy!

© netgalley.com

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Quotes:

Chris to Ryan: „You need a girlfriend.“
Lacy: „Exactly! I’ve been saying that for months. Not an evil girlfriend. We are not doing evil again. I was tired of wearing crucifixes. I considered carrying holy water, but then I would had to sneak into a church and then-“
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Ryan: „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.“
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Beth: ‚That must be love: when everything else in the world could implode and you wouldn’t care as long as you had that one person standing beside you.‘

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Succession:

#1 Katie McGarry – Pushing the Limits »»
#2 Katie McGarry – Dared to You »»
#3 Katie McGarry – Crash into You

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(© goodreads)

About the author – Katie McGarry:
KATIE MCGARRY was a teenager during the age of grunge and boy bands and remembers those years as the best and worst of her life. She is a lover of music, happy endings, and reality television, and is a secret University of Kentucky basketball fan.

Katie would love to hear from her readers. Contact her via her website, katielmcgarry.com, follow her on Twitter @KatieMcGarry, or become a fan on Facebook and Goodreads.
(Source: goodreads.com)

Visit her Website »».

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Review: One Moment

English Cover

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‚One Moment‘
by
Kristina McBride

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Synopsis:
„This was supposed to be the best summer of Maggie’s life. Now it’s the one she’d do anything to forget.“
Maggie remembers hanging out at the gorge with her closest friends after a blowout party. She remembers climbing the trail with her perfect boyfriend, Joey. She remembers that last kiss, soft, lingering, and meant to reassure her. So why can’t she remember what happened in the moment before they were supposed to dive? Why was she left cowering at the top of the cliff, while Joey floated in the water below-dead?
As Maggie’s memories return in snatches, nothing seems to make sense. Why was Joey acting so strangely at the party? Where did he go after taking her home? And if Joey was keeping these secrets, what else was he hiding?  (Source: Goodreads.com)

My thoughts about the book:
Sometimes the insignificant books surprise you more than the books for which you’ve waited for months and you’ve started to read cheerfully. This book here I’ve found by chance on netgalley and I started to read it only because I wanted to read a not addicted-making book and I thought this book won’t carry me away so much or occupy me. There I’ve been so completely wrong! Because the book didn’t let me go anymore and now that I’ve finished it already a few days ago, I still think or sympathize about it.

Right at the beginning of the story happens the tragedy, which is also described in the synopsis, and where Maggie’s boyfriend Joey dies in an unnecessary accident. Nevertheless the police intervene and some inconsistencies are being thrown up in connection with Joey’s death and bring some secrets to light, which some would have rather liked to be buried with him.

But who thinks now, this book is about a thriller or a crime novel, than that is wrong, because in the focus stands unmistakably the grief processing and above all the emotional life of the main protagonist Maggie, from whose view the events are told, full of flashbacks from her time together with Joey.
In so doing the author has made it possible that the readers could also get to know Joey, although the reader knows the whole time that Joey is already death. Although I also know that all along I nevertheless felt with Maggie as she remembered her first date with him, their first kiss and everything and I could only cry all the time, because it’s so sweet and sad at the same time – and I have also grouted some tears during this book!

Beside Maggie, it also tells much about the other characters and friends of Joey and how they deal with his sudden death. The narrow clique existed of 3 girls and 3 boys in whom now an important part is missing and instead that Joey’s death bond them together even more, they and also their friendship threatens to break.
I could also like most of these other central figures, but right from the beginning I had problems with Shannon and I also didn’t get along with Tanna from the start but it got better during the book. In return Adam was at the same time my chosen hero and favorite and he could convince me more and more during the plot, although he has also twisted himself in the story and has turned in different directions.

The end remains, let us say‚ half-open‘. I liked that, because I could play a little with my own imagination, but at the same time not too much and without an end. I’m very glad how the story has developed throughout the book and I could feel and hope with the protagonists, also despair, though. Hence, the end after all this strain was that what I’ve wished for and I’m really happy about it. 🙂

Cover:
The cover was what got my attention first. So for me the cover shows very felicitous the feelings in the book, the melancholy and naivety, and it also gets the reader into the right mood for the story.

All in all:
A heartbreaking book, which has gripped and hasn’t let me go anymore up to the last pages. The author has made it greatly to bring the emotional life of Maggie by her words on paper and let them share with the reader. I wasn’t caught for a long time into such an emotionally story. *great*

Rating:
3,5 of 5 points – (I really liked it)
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Thanks to netgalley.com for the reviewer’s copy!

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Quotes:

„Running.
We were running.
Almost there.
But the thunder of my feet crashed through something in my consciousness.
And I knew.
It was like I hit an invisible wall.
One that did not exist for Joey.
I had been so close to flying.
Then, suddenly—I stopped.“

Maggie: „What if it’s as simple as one moment? One tiny thing, like that kiss on the rocks? What if I’d kissed him a little longer? Would he be alive right now? Or what if I’d stayed with him Friday night, what if I’d been with him… wherever he was?“.

Maggie: Above, leaves fluttered in the moonlight, and I wondered if their whispers were meant for me, if they were imprinted with a code that I needed to decipher. Some kind of important message that would help me get this right.

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(© goodreads)

About the author – Kristina McBride:

Kristina McBride, a former English teacher and yearbook advisor, dreamed of being a published author since she was a child and lived across the street from a library. Kristina has published two novels for young adults – The Tension of Opposites (May 2010) and One Moment (June 2012). She lives in Ohio with her husband and two young children.
(Source: goodreads.com)

Visit her Website »».

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