Katie McGarry takes YA to a new level with this series. This is gritty and real, heartbreaking at times, but also more on the level of teens and young adults who DON'T have that perfect home life so often written about.Beth's life is about as far away from perfect as it gets. Since her Mom is a drunken addict who blames Beth for her father's leaving them, she's been living with her aunt. But Beth still wants her mother's love, even thought the woman seems to use Beth as her rock instead of the other way around. So Beth ends up taking care of her mom, stressing about money and food, and putting herself into really scary, messed up situations trying to protect the woman who should be protecting her. Beth's best friend in the world is Isaiah, whom we met in [b:Pushing the Limits|10194514|Pushing the Limits (Pushing the Limits, #1)|Katie McGarry|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1322770025s/10194514.jpg|15093690]. Now, I was a bit bummed, along with the rest of this series' readers, when I realized that Isaiah would not be Beth's love interest in Dare you To!! Man, I love Isaiah! I think McGarry took a big chance pulling in someone different to love and tame the hot mess that is Beth. And I think she pulled it off.........When Beth gets arrested for taking the blame for something her mother did, her absent father figure of an uncle finally steps in and takes responsibility for his niece. He sure had a hard road ahead of him. All Beth wants to do is get back to her Mom and Isaiah, and she immediately begins to make plans to run away. And in steps Ryan...the high school jock, star of the baseball team, kid with the perfect family, perfect friends, perfect reputation, perfect life. All of that perfection is superficial, however...and therein lies the thing that bonds these two together. Neither really understands the trials that the other person is going through, and yet because of a Dare...they meet. Through mutual attraction, an awareness lingers. And amid their crazy lives and the hard knocks that life continues to throw at them, despite poor decisions and horrible situations, they grow together and form an unlikely bond. The perfect All American boy, and the tattooed, pierced, troubled bad girl. They actually worked together, more than I thought possible. And although poor Isaiah is left all by his lonesome, he gets to star in his own book next, which I'm SUPER excited about!!! Makes me wonder what girl will be good enough for him...will their story be reminiscent of Noah and Echo's bad boy/good girl? Not sure, but I'm stoked!!
