Rowena’s review of Crash into You (Pushing the Limits #3) by Katie McGarry.
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.
I’ve been looking forward to reading this book since I read Beth’s book, Dare You To. The way that Beth broke Isaiah’s heart left me anxious for him to get his happy ending. I liked Beth in her book, even though she got on my hot damn nerves more than once in her book but I was looking forward to Isaiah moving on from Beth and finding his own happy. I’ve been seeing lots of people who have read this book, talk about how much they loved it so that fueled my desire to read it.
When I finally opened it up, I couldn’t wait to dig right in.
Isaiah’s mother has been out of his life since he was a young kid and thrown into the foster system. She went to prison and left him behind, so he carries a lot of resentment toward her because she’s been out of prison for over two years and she hasn’t made any effort in trying to see him…until now and Isaiah feels like it’s too little, too late. Isaiah has survived some pretty harsh things in his young life and he’s real street. Street smart, street strong and all of that.
When Rachel Young comes into his life, all Isaiah wanted was to make some quick money racing so that he can pay rent on his shitty apartment that he’s sharing with his best friend and foster brother, Noah. What he gets instead was a young girl around his age, in over her head with the street crew that runs the racing circuit and cops storming into break up the races. On the run because he cannot risk getting caught, Isaiah stops to help Rachel escape the cops too.
Little did he know that that one act of kindness will change his life forever.
The romance between Isaiah and Rachel was good. And it was very young. All of their firsts together were Rachel’s firsts and I thought McGarry did a great job of conveying Rachel’s feelings and actions. I felt that each interaction with Isaiah was authentic and even her interactions with her family. Coming from a large family, I could relate to Rachel’s feeling that she had to please them in order to keep everyone happy. It drove me up the wall each and every single time that her brothers and father put their needs and wants before her own, but it helped strengthen her as a person and I liked that.
Isaiah was just as great as I knew he was going to be. Everything he went through, everything he felt and everything he did, he was doing because he felt he had to do. He was so strong and at such a young age, my heart hurt for him. He didn’t have very many people to lean on and when Noah, Echo, Logan, Abby, Beth and the rest of the gang come together in the end for Isaiah and Rachel, my heart swelled because I loved the little family unit they formed amongst themselves. I loved that Isaiah finally realized that he wasn’t alone in the world and that he had people to share his burdens with. He had a lot of them.
But as much as I loved this book, there were a lot of things that bothered me. Things like how Rachel never told West about his stupid ass friends that got her in such trouble with Eric. I hated that West didn’t know what douchebags he hangs out with. I hated that Isaiah never once visited them in the hospital to find out what happened to the money and at least get a few knocks in himself for putting Rachel and him in the position that he found himself in. I hated Rachel’s family for most of the book and even in the end, I still wasn’t a fan of her parents or her brothers…except Ethan. And West.
But I am looking forward to reading West’s book. But I’m hoping for a book for Logan and Abby…hopefully together. Maybe. I think they both have great potential so I’ve got my fingers crossed that they’ll get their stories told.
This book was a good one, another great addition to Katie McGarry’s backlist and I’m looking forward to reading more from her.
Grade: 4.5 out of 5
This book is available from Harlequin Teen. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
I really loved this one. I hated the previous one with Beth, she never grew one me to be honest and neither did Ryan. But I love Isaiah and I grew to like Rachel so much, though her family left plenty to be desired – except for Ethan – like her parents were really psycho.
I’m really looking forward to the next book
I liked Ryan but Beth took some warming up for. I wanted to choke her out throughout her own book so many times.
This one was good and I liked Isaiah. I’m looking forward to reading West’s book.