Dare You To by Katie McGarry

Series: Pushing the Limits, #2

Publication:May 28th 2013 by Harlequin Teen

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.... 

My Thoughts:
Firstly I am not putting a picture of the book cover in this post because it is completely deceiving! Do not judge this series by it's book covers. It is one of those great series that is cursed with awful covers (like Jennifer L Armentrout's books). This is a companion series but you can definitely read Dare You To without having read Pushing the Limits but I would recommend reading Pushing the Limits (you can read my review here!) 

I absolutely loved Dare You To! It was such a fun read but had some heavy emotional parts too. I love going into Katie McGarry books knowing next to nothing and being surprised and that's what I did for this one and I was so excited when I figured out what kind of story it was going to be. I liked it even more than Pushing The Limits and so much that I don't know i the next book in the series can top this one!

Beth was my favourite character in Pushing the Limits so I partly loved this book so much because Beth was the main character. I loved how complex and layered she was. In the story she really struggles with her more girly feminine side and how she represses it in favour of the more tough I-don't-care attitude. Her character arc was paced perfectly and there was some lovely character development evident in Dare You To. I loved her in Pushing The Limits but admired her so much more in Dare You To; she slowly changes over the course of the story and it is great. Dare You To is essentially the story of Beth learning about herself and growing up.

I also really liked the main male character, Ryan. He was just such a nice guy; it was hard not to like him. I did have an internal struggle for a good part of the book about Isaiah because I felt like I was betraying him because I wanted Ryan and Beth to be together even though I shipped Isaiah and her in PTL. I loved how Ryan was portrayed as this perfect person until we started to get to know him and then we realised maybe his life isn't as perfect after all. 

I loved the romance between Ryan and Beth; it was so much fun because they are both so different from each other. Their personalities complemented each other so well and made it so interesting to read their dynamic. I also liked how well paced it was; there was no inst love here! It was also great how they had storylines going on that were completely separate from each other.

Dare You To definitely has its emotional parts and I there were bit and pieces here and there that were hard to read. There are some heavy topics to be aware of before reading such as domestic abuse and abuse in general are a big aspect of the story. I can't speak for the representation but I felt like they were handled well. 

Echo and Noah (from Pushing the Limits) do pop into the story but only for a few pages which I was grateful for. This is Beth and Ryan's story and they didn't need to play big roles. They were just thrown in there to keep fans happy and to connect the books as this is a companion series.

Overall, I had a lot of fun reading Dare You To and can't wait to pick up the next book in the Pushing the Limits series; although I don't know how it can beat this instalment!

Thanks for reading,
A :)