Review: Pushing the limits - Katie McGarry

Title: Pushing the limits

Author: Katie McGarry

Pages: 392

Goodreads

My rating: 

ONE BAD BOY

ONE LOST GIRL

THEY'RE EACH OTHER DESTINY..

Plot:
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.

My thought:
This book was oustanding, and I really cried my heart out.. Noah and Echo (this name is so touching, so sweet, so out of time.. *_*) are the characters I love the most: troubled, terrified, alone against the world but strong enough to fight and discover love. I  lost my mind for them, I cried for them and felt as they were real..
Noah and Echo are lost souls whose hearts are broken in thousand pieces: Noah has lost his parents two years ago in a fire and as a conseguence, he has been divided by his little brothers. He wanders through foster families, too busy to take care of him or unable to give him the love and protection he needs. From being a school star, a basketball champion and good student, he becomes the 'bad boy', the one everyone avoids and the one with 'bad company' (that is not bad at all, mind you! Isaiah and Beth are sweet hurt guys, even if they act as badass..).
Echo is one of the best characters I found in books since forever. I really really really love her, I respect her and maybe I'm a little bit envious of her strenght and her bravery. What she has been through, all her memories.. Really, they broke my heart in tiny pieces. I wish I wer Lila, her best friend, to hug her and hope that all the evil would have gone away..
Everytime she remembered something, my hairs raised on the arms: how could a mother do something as terrible as what Echo's mother did? I wasn't able to understand, really!
When Noah and Echo found themselves, I was soooo happy! They really deserve being together, because their love is so sweet, so pure, so perfect that I was believing in them since the start.
Echo's dad and Ashley made me so angry.. I don't know if in such situation, I would have been able to forgive.. But I'm happy Echo did, because it couldn't be any different!
I cried when Echo thinks about her brother and how he would have acted if he was alive..

Aires would have loved this baby, regardless of who his mother was, regardless of how our father treated him. Why? Because that’s the way he’d loved me. Aires loved me unconditionally. He loved me when I was a scared child. He loved me when I was a bratty preteen. He loved me as a hormonal teenager. When nobody else in this world could love me for being an unsure, self-absorbed, timid scaredy-cat, he loved me.

I'm looking forward to read the second book by Katie McGarry, because she's so damn good in describing broken bodies and souls.. :')

They all asked the same questions and promised help, but each of them left me in the same condition as they found me—broken.

We’d read about sirens in English this fall; Greek mythology bullshit about women so beautiful, their voices so enchanting, that men did anything for them. Turned out that mythology crap was real because every time I saw her, I lost my mind.

[My father] had never paid this much attention to my mother. If he had, I wouldn’t be the school freak.

“I won’t tell anyone. I promise.” Noah brushed my hair behind my shoulder and tucked a straggling curl behind my ear. It had been so long since someone touched me like he did. Why did it have to be Noah Hutchins, and why did it have to be now? “Look at me.” I met his dark brown eyes. His fingers skimmed the back of my hand. The sensation tickled like a spring breeze yet hit me like a wave rushing from the ocean. His gaze 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. My entire world collapsed around me as I answered, “Yes.”

Beth had been both wrong and right. Echo couldn’t hurt anyone, especially when she seemed so breakable herself. But the need I felt to be the one to keep the world from shattering her only confirmed Beth’s theory. I was falling for her and I was fucked.

Echo pulled her hand away from mine, ending perhaps the most erotic moment of my life.

Young girl, tragically scarred, attempts to return to her normal life, only to find out her normal life doesn’t want her back.

I must have killed a lot of cows in a past life for Karma to hate me this much.

My mother might be crazy and she’d tried to kill me, but she was still my mom.

[Echo was] my opposite. And right now, everything I wanted.

Kissing her became my single reason for breathing.

Just like she’d said, she’d gone back to her life and, in theory, I’d gone back to mine. Problem? I didn’t like mine, not without her.

Echo was becoming essential, like air.

The term boyfriend didn’t seem to fit Noah. I liked to consider us … together.

Noah Hutchins, in fact, a human being, was overtly, on purpose, touching my scars.

Fuck me and the rest of the world, I was in love.

“Baby, no one would ever make the mistake of using the word ugly with you. Especially with me around.”

The worst type of crying wasn’t the kind everyone could see—the wailing on street corners, the tearing at clothes. No, the worst kind happened when your soul wept and no matter what you did, there was no way to comfort it. A section withered and became a scar on the part of your soul that survived.

There’s nothing you can do wrong when just breathing makes everything right.

I gazed into those beautiful eyes and knew I loved her more than I loved myself.

Review: Being Henry David - Cal Armistead

Title: Being Henry David

Author: Cal Armistead

Pages: 270

Goodreads

My rating: 
Expected publication: 2013,03,01

Plot:

Seventeen-year-old "Hank" has found himself at Penn Station in New York Ciry with no memory of anything -who he is, where he came from, why he's running away. His only possession is a worn copy of Walden, by Herny David Thoureau. And so he becomes Henry David or "Hank" and takes first to the streets, and then to the only destination he can think of -Walden Pond in Concord, Massachussetts. Cal Armistead's remarkable debut novel is about a teen in search of himself. Hank begins to piece together recollections from his past. The obly way Hank can discover his present is to face up to the realities of his grievous memories. He must come to terms with the tragedy of his past, to stop running, and to find his way home.

My thought:
I really liked this book!

First of all, the main character (Henry David, Hank or Daniel.. He has lots of names!) is so sweet, tender and perfect to cuddle I fell in love with him!

We follow Henry David while he's looking for his identity: who is he? Where does he come from? Why did he run away? Slowly, he starts to rembember things from the past: he's more than good in playing the guitar; he can ran really fast and he has a sister. But this memory is painful and he tries so hard to remember something.

During his journey, he finds friends, such as Jack and Nessa, two brothers who run away from their violent father or Thomas, a Thoureau's expert and lover who accepts Hank in his house without questioning.

Page after page, we find out more about Henry David and his sorrowful past.

At the end, when he remembers his life, I cried a lot! And I really wanted to hug him!

Despite my high rating, I didn't quite liked the end, because it's short and doesn't explain all the things that needed to be explained. Just to tell, ehat about Jack? What about Tessa? And Hailey?! I really wanted to read about the reconciliation between Daniel and his family.. Though his meeting with his dad is really marvellous! *__*

I want to know about his future, his choices, his life aterward.. I don't like to imagine too much!!

Review: My dead friend Sarah - Rosch

Title: My dead friend Sarah

Author: Peter Rosch

Pages: 288

Goodreads

Rating:    

Plot:

Mere months into recovery, Max, an alcoholic with twisted control issues, meets Sarah - the same woman that for years he's habitually dreamt will die after a botched abduction. "Doing the next right thing", a popular AA phrase he's picked up in the rooms, means befriending Sarah long enough to warn her and hope she takes him seriously. But when Sarah fells in love with Max, his newly sober thinking drives him to choose his overly devoted wife, and abandons Sarah - even when it condemns her to death. When Sarah goes missing, the NYPD suspects Max's dream may have been a prpe-crime confession. The truth, all of it, lurks inside of Max, but only by drinking again does he recapture the nerve and clarity vital to free his wife, sponsor, and himself from a life imprisoned by lies.

My thought:

When I saw the cover of this book, I was so "Oh my god, that's something interesting!".. Then I read the plot, and found it so charming I asked for the book on Netgalley. I have to be honest: if it wasn't for NetGalley, I wouldn't have finished it. Or maybe it would have asked for too much time.

Problem is that everything is spoilered in the plot: there isn't much more in the book to entartain the reader.. The idea about dreaming that a girl was going to be kidnapped and killed and then actually meeting her is challenging, no doubt about that! But then? Reading the book and finding almost nothing.. It's appalling. The story starts in medias res when Sarah is nowhere to be found. We follow both Max and Sarah in first person, but there are two big problems: they are unreliable tellers because they can't help themslves in being liars and they tell the story without any respect to logic, ratio and temporal factors.

I quite enjoyed the first part, maybe because I was still hoping that something was going to happen.. Second part? So boring I risked to fall asleep many times.

I did and did not like the way the story is written: sometimes I found it interesting, other way, quite disturbing.

Plus, Max and Sarah are strange characters. I didn't feel anything towards them ans more often then not, I found them not so enjoyable!

I liked Rachel, a strong woman who doesn't want to leave his husband even if he's an alcoholic, a violent man who has cheated on her and who is an unmanageable liar..

I liked (till it began the real subject of the book) the fact that alcoholism is threated without shame but in plain sight! Then Rosch started to tell us about every single AA's encounter.. And I became sleepy!

Review: When love comes to town - Lennon

Title: When love comes to town

Author: Tom Lennon

Pages: 175
Rating: 

Goodreads

Plot: Meet Neil Bryne -try-scorer on the rugby field, prizeiwinning student, one of the in-crowd at the disco, regular guy, gay. Presenting one face to the world and burying his true feelings in fantasy, Neil manages to keep his secret. But when fantasy isn't enough and he becomes caught up in the bizzarre subculture of Dublin's gay nightlife, the pretense must end. It is the time for truth. The conseguences are both hilaroius and painful. Told with honesty, humour and originality,"When love comes to town" brings a new type of hero to modern Irish fiction.

My thought:

There are two Neils: the one that has lots of friends, who enjoys going to the bars with them and who is happy and the other that is probably the loneliest person in the whole world. He can't share with his family and his friends a frightening secret: he's gay. When he decides to reveal it to his best friend, Neil discovers a new world in which he isn't the only gay boy in the world. and he meets lots og guys like him.

I really liked the first part of this book, because Neil is such a sweet boy.. He made me feel so protective! The second part losts part of its brilliance and it's a little bit confused.

Furthermore, some themes ought to be tretead in a less superficial way, such as Daphne's death due to AIDS..

I would have liked to read about Ian and Neil! 

Praises for this book: it feels real and is peopled by great characters.. As I said, Neil is a sweetheart! *_*

By the way, the title refers to a song by U2.. :)