BOOK REVIEW: DARE YOU TO by @KATIEMCGARRY

DARE YOU TO

by

KATIE MCGARRY

Publisher:  Harlequin Teen

Acquired: Digital copy for review from Publisher via NetGalley

MARISSA'S RATING:

5 DOUBLE DOG DARE STARS!

GOODREADS DESCRIPTION:

 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....

 MARISSA'S REVIEW:

Katie McGarry does it again! 

After reading the first few chapters of PUSHING THE LIMITS,  I knew Katie McGarry was thrusting us into a series of NOT TO MISS books. Focusing on the damaged and flawed instead of the perfect and popular - McGarry gives us a set of characters that, individually, have amazing strengths and so many layers that each well deserves their own book.  And DARE YOU TO is Beth's story.......

DARE YOU TO captures the reader's mind and heart, gives it a hard shake and pours out a cocktail of emotions you only had reserved for watching The Notebook!

Beth Risk is a broken soul in need of mending.  She's had it pretty bad and as a result deals with life by not "feeling" - turning her heart and mind to stone when required makes moments pass without too much emotional damage.  She's a rough cut diamond that Ryan is determined to dig up and polish - and make his own.

Ryan Stone is a sports star in the making and with his dad's single minded guidance, will be the next big baseball star to come from their town.  His dad's persistence in staying on track has driven a wedge of resentment between father and son - one that a stubborn father refuses to see and a "good son" refuses to admit.  Life isn't always perfect and Ryan's family has a few home truths that can knock them off their pedestal.

Beth is placed in the care of her uncle, Scott Risk.  The only person left that can save her (well try) - but of course her reluctance is  understandable - her left and her mother when she was little to the unloving hands of her father (Scott's older brother)....he promised to come back and take them to safety but never did.  How can she possibly trust the one adult that she idolised a long time ago?  If it gets too hard will he just leave her again?

Beth's reluctance to be in Scott's care is compounded with her persistence that she is better off in her own world with best friend Isaiah.  They are each others' rock and survive their lives just fine.  

   

DARE YOU TO continues along the raw, gritty and emotional line that McGarry gave us in the first book PUSHING THE LIMITS.  Outcomes can sometimes never turn out as you pre-empted - and this is one of those instances.  But with that, McGarry gives us the desire and need to impatiently wait for CRASHING INTO YOU - Isaiah's story and book 3 in this series. 

ENJOY!

MARISSA