Review: Dare You To by Katie McGarry

Dare You To (Pushing the Limits, #2) by Katie McGarry
Publisher: Harlequin Australia
Publication date: June 1st, 2013
Number of pages: 479 pgs
Format: Paperback
Purchase: Amazon | The Book Depository

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....

I said this during my review for Pushing the Limits -- but YA Contemporary has never been my favourite thing, and I am very picky at which books in this category I choose to read. After the first book in this series I knew I had to follow through and read the next one, and boy was I glad I did.
At first I was a little weary about the book being Beth's as I was never a big fan of her in Noah's book, but she did prove me wrong, and showed me she was capable of more than I assumed at first.
Katie McGarry just knows how to hook you in, not only with the story but also with the characters and mystery which these characters seem to have attached to them.

Our two main characters, Beth and Ryan couldn't be more different from one another if they tried. Ryan is the sort of boy who has dreams and thinks he knows what he wants in life, or at least, what his family wants from him. He is the golden boy.  With Beth though, she is the opposite of that. She takes life by as each day comes. She has had a rough life and is still going through the rough patches.  When these two meet though ---  it's like you just know they are just meant to be.  It won't be easy, but the things they bring out in one another just make everything else worth it.

Beth and Ryan find themselves playing a game of cat and mouse after Ryan's friends get him involved in a dare. As he gets to know her... will he have to decide whether the game is over, or has it just began?
Our lead characters each have their own demons that lurk in their personal lives, but the cure to make everything disappear just may be in each other's arms.

That's not the only relationship that changes in this book.  Beth's relationship / friendship with her closest friend, Isaiah  splits down the middle when he basically makes his feelings for her known, and she has to decide how to feels, and try not to hurt him in the process.
Some of their conversations just broke me heart. Just seeing him so hurt.. after being in love with her for so long... I just wanted to hug him, and tell him he will find the girl for him.

I admit, at first.. I was a bit disappointed that this story was not going to be Beth and Isaiah, because I adored them and how it was obvious he really liked her, but after reading the book, I know now that Ryan is the best person for her.  And now, Isaiah will just have to find that person who is the one for him.

This was a absolute stunning book,. but I should not have expected anything less when it concerns Katie McGarry. I can't wait to see Isaiah's book.. who broke me heart more than almost anyone. Hopefully he'll find the perfect girl for him.

Rating: 4.5/5