Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

What a sweet, sad, wonderful, heart wrenching, beautiful story about two damaged teenagers just trying to make it, to be loved for who they are and to overcome the crappy hand that life dealt them. This book pushed me to the limit with every twist and turn and pulled on my heart strings, It broke my heart over and over again. I give it a solid 5 out of 5 stars, from the very beginning I was hooked and couldn't put it down. This is the first book in the Pushing The Limits Series and I can't wait for the second book, Dare You To, expected release date May 28, 2013.

Echo Emerson lost everything that ever meant anything to her in the blink of an eye. She was the schools golden girl with all the popular friends and the golden boy friend, until the night she can't remember. She now has scars all over her arms, she is withdrawn from everyone and there is a restraining order against her mom and she doesn't understand why. She lives at home with her dad and pregnant step mom who she hates. She has no one in her life that understands her, her father pushes her to be perfect, to get the best grades and become herself again, but it just isn't that easy. She starts working with the school counselor, Mrs. Collins to try to get her memory back. This is her senior year and she wants to make a change, she agrees to start trying to hangout with her friends again and to make some extra money she agrees to tutor a student that Mrs. Collins has picked for her.

Noah Hutchins, has also been assigned to Mrs. Collins to help workout his issues. He has been in foster care for the last 2 1/2 years, being bounced around from house to house. Everyone thinks he's trouble, no one wants to hear his side of the story. He has learned along the way not to trust people, especially adults. Mrs. Collins makes a deal with him, that if he gets tutored and brings up his grades she will help him see his two younger brothers who are placed in another foster home. Noah agrees, he will do anything to see his brothers, to help them remember him. He doesn't expect that his new tutor will be stuck up goody two shoes, Echo Emerson.

Like always, she stared straight ahead as if I didn't exist. Hell, I probably didn't exist in her mind. People like Echo Emerson irritated the crap out of me. "You've got a fucked-up name," I mumbled. I didn't know why I wanted to rattle her, I just did. 

"Shouldn't you be getting high in the bathroom?" So she did know me. "They installed security cameras. We do it in the parking lot now." 

"My bad." Her foot rocked frantically back and forth. Good, I succeeded in getting under that perfect facade. "Echo...echo...echo..." Her foot stopped rocking and red curls bounced furiously as she turned to face me. "How original. I've never heard that before." She swept up her backpack and left the office.

Echo is trying really hard to fit in again and keep what happened to her a secret. She has been talked about and laughed at ever since she came back to school and she isolated herself from everyone. The only person that stayed her true friend was Lila, the only one who knew about her scars. Now that she is back with her friends her social status is rising, but tutoring Noah may be social suicide. The two of them fit together like oil and water, they argue all the time and are at each others throats.

Guys like Noah Hutchins ticked me off. He used girls, used drugs and had made me feel like crap this morning. Not that I should be surprised. I'd had a couple of classes with him last semester. He'd stride into the room like her owned the earth and smirk when the girls fell all over themselves in his presence. "What a jerk."

The more time they spend together, they realize they were wrong about each other, that they are more alike than they thought. Being friends with Noah, means giving up her friends and going back to being the school outcast, is that something she is willing to give up for him? Can Noah overcome his trust issues enough to let this girl be apart of his life?