Review – Crash Into You by Katie McGarry

Posted September 24, 2014 by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction in Reviews / 10 Comments

Review – Crash Into You by Katie McGarryCrash Into You by Katie McGarry
Series: Pushing the Limits #3
Also in this series: Pushing the Limits
Published by Harlequin on 11/26/13
Genres: Love & Romance, Runaways, Social Issues, Young Adult
Pages: 484
Source: Library
My rating:
4 Stars

From acclaimed author Katie McGarry comes an explosive new tale of a good girl with a reckless streak, a street-smart guy with nothing to lose, and a romance forged in the fast lane.

The girl with straight As, designer clothes and the perfect life—that's who people expect Rachel Young to be. So the private-school junior keeps secrets from her wealthy parents and overbearing brothers...and she's just added two more to the list. One involves racing strangers down dark country roads in her Mustang GT. The other? Seventeen-year-old Isaiah Walker-a guy she has no business even talking to. But when the foster kid with the tattoos and intense gray eyes comes to her rescue, she can't get him out of her mind.

Isaiah has secrets, too. About where he lives, and how he really feels about Rachel. The last thing he needs is to get tangled up with a rich girl who wants to slum it on the south side for kicks-no matter how angelic she might look.

But when their shared love of street racing puts both their lives in jeopardy, they have six weeks to come up with a way out. Six weeks to discover just how far they'll go to save each other.

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My Take

***NOTE: This is a review of book #3 in a series. This book is pretty much a standalone, but my review contains slight spoilers for the first two books. You can read my review of book #1 HERE and book #2 HERE.***

I didn’t love Crash Into You quite as much as the first two books in this series, but it was still a great read!

This story centers around Isaiah, who is feeling alone after losing Beth. When finances threaten to take Noah away from him too, he decides to make money the one way he can – by racing. Things get complicated, though, when the race gets busted by the cops and he flees with Rachel, a good little rich girl who showed up at the race for thrills. The police are the least of their problems, though. The slimy thug who runs the races thinks that Rachel helped steal money from him and he plans to be paid back – either with money or in blood. Rachel and Isaiah find themselves racing (both literally and figuratively) to come up with the cash before they have to pay the ultimate price.

What I LOVED:

  • Isaiah. I’ve loved Isaiah since the first book in this series, and he did not disappoint. Isaiah is sometimes full of fire and a bad boy attitude, but he protects the people he loves with complete passion and dedication. He puts himself out there for Rachel the same way he always did with Beth – pretty much one of the most altruistic book boyfriends out there!
  • The danger.  This book had plenty of it. Rachel and Isaiah are pretty much in constant danger of being seriously messed up or worse. And every time things it looks like they might dig themselves out of the hole they’ve created, their world comes crashing right back down. I was in constant suspense, wondering what was going to happen to them next and how they were going to escape their situation – sometimes it looked pretty hopeless!
  • Rachel. For the most part, I liked Rachel, though I did sometimes wonder why she let everyone walk all over her the way she did. She was living in her dead sister’s shadow – the only reason she had even been born was as a replacement for the daughter that her mother had lost. Because of this, she had some serious complexes (who wouldn’t?). I loved Rachel with Isaiah, though – I felt like they really brought out the best in each other.
  • Racing. I’ve never been a huge racing fan, but I actually really enjoyed reading about the races that Isaiah and Rachel were involved in – the adrenalin, the danger, the suspense – it was all there!

The negatives:

  • Rachel’s family. These people were really messed up. I could understand why her parents were devastated over her sister’s death, and even why Rachel’s mother might want Rachel to be just like the daughter she lost, but I couldn’t quite understand why everyone else in the family just expected Rachel to live a complete lie and even sacrifice her health just so that her mom wouldn’t have to feel bad. I especially hated the way her brothers, who supposedly loved and supported her, treated her like she didn’t have a right to have a say in her own life.
  • Tell someone!  The biggest problem that I had with this book was the fact that it seemed incredibly unrealistic to me that Rachel would rather face being beaten and/or raped and/or killed than go to her family and tell them that she was in trouble. I mean, I understood that she felt like she had to hold it all together for them and be the perfect daughter to replace the daughter they lost, but she was facing some incredibly horrific consequences and was still unwilling to even try to get money from someone in her family. Heck, make up a lie or something – anything! This was life and death – she was putting both herself and Isaiah on the line, and I just couldn’t figure out exactly why. Get someone to help you rather than die! It made it harder for me to connect with the story when I just felt like Rachel was being a bit ridiculous.

While I didn’t love this installment quite as much as the others, I was definitely still wrapped up in the story and really enjoyed it overall. I give it 4/5 stars.

About the Author

Katie McGarryKATIE MCGARRY was a teenager during the age of grunge and boy bands and remembers those years as the best and worst of her life. She is a lover of music, happy endings, and reality television, and is a secret University of Kentucky basketball fan.

Katie would love to hear from her readers.



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10 responses to “Review – Crash Into You by Katie McGarry

  1. Joycedale

    I totally feel you on hatred for her brothers. Not only do they not stand up for her to their mother they steal her money! They didn’t even question why she had that much or if she needed it. That’s when I would’ve told Wes what his “friends” got me into and hopefully make him sick with guilt.

    • Yes, yes, yes! At that point, I kept thinking, “Now, why wouldn’t she say something to those jerks?!!” And you’d think they’d be a bit more concerned about her since she was obviously on the verge of some sort of mental breakdown. But they all just basically told her, “Deal with it. You have to take another one for the team.” Sigh.

  2. I think Crash Into You is my favorite, by like .0001%. They’re all SO good that it’s hard to pick just one! I guess I just have a soft spot for CIY because it was my first from McGarry 🙂 I completely agree with you about Rachel not telling anyone – it just seemed a bit too improbable. But I found that it was pretty easy to ignore, mostly because I absolutely adored Isaiah and Rachel together <3

    • Yeah, if you read this one first I can see how it would hold a special place for you. I read Dare You To immediately before this one and REALLY loved it, so I think I was playing the comparison game in my head a little. I did love Rachel and Isaiah together, though!

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