Review: Dare You To – Katie McGarry

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….

Series: Pushing the Limits 2
Release Date: May 28, 2013
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Source: NetGalley
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Reviewer’s Thoughts

Aye!  This was a tough one!  When I picked this up, I had been in a bit of a reading funk and wanted something to pick me up.  It wasn’t one of those happy go lucky books, but it was one that blew me away with it’s storyline and fabulous characters.

Beth Risk wants nothing more than to protect her mother.  But when her mother’s bad habits land her in trouble with the police, the uncle she looked up to but lost comes back into her life and tries to set her on the right course.  But Beth’s sense of duty to her mother goes against everything her uncle wants and into the path of Ryan Stone, the one boy that makes her wish for a different life.

This was one of those stories that reminded me of how not everything is as it seems.  Both Ryan and Beth hide behind people’s perception of them but their stories were actually very different.  Despite the circumstances on how they came together, Ryan and Beth both were able to see each other for who they are.  They found kindred spirit in each other and discovered just what they were capable of when they had each others backs.

The subject matter was tough.  Abuse, drug use and homophobia were key elements to Ryan and Beth’s story and weren’t pretty.  Those elements of the story were gritty, dirty and unpleasant.  But they also brought out a strength and determination in the characters that was remarkable and awe inspiring.

This will definitely not be my last Katie McGarry book.  She has me hooked with her engaging characters and storylines.