{Review} Breaking the Rules (Pushing the Limits #1.5) by Katie McGarry

Posted by Donna
Release Date: January 1st, 2015
Finished Date: December 30th, 2014

Publishers: Mira Ink
Genre: YA, Contemporary, Romance
Source: For Review
Format: Paperback

Pages: 464

Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US / The Book Depo

“I wish life could be like this forever,” I say.

“We’d be okay then.

We’d forever be okay.”

For Echo Emerson, a road trip with her boyfriend is the perfect way to spend the last summer between school and college. It’s a chance forget all the things that make her so different at home. But most of all, it means almost three months alone with gorgeous Noah Hutchins, the only boy who’s never judged her.

Echo and Noah share everything.

But as their pasts come crashing back into their lives, its harder to hide that they come from two very different worlds. And as the summer fades, Echo faces her toughest decision – struggle to face the future together or let her first love go…

The Review: DNF at page 101.

Pushing the Limits was an instant favourite of mine back in 2012 and since then I’ve been eagerly waiting for more titles from Katie McGarry because I’ve loved everything she’s produced, until now. 

Breaking the Rules is if I’m honest is hard to read, it’s the reason I’ve not finished the rest of book. I knew going into the story that not everything was going to be easy for the characters but, I almost feel like they’re in a worse place now then where they were in Pushing the Limits and it’s pretty much bursting my imaginative bubble of these characters living their lives happily together. 

As the story is told from alternative points of view, we see Echo and Noah battle with insecurities, pain, issues and honestly, it’s painful to read. One minute they’re basking in their happiness with each other, but the next, their issues bring them down and they’re arguing and second guessing everything. These aren’t the two characters that I came to love from the first book. They feel like different characters. Yes, they’ve grown but has anything really changed other than being together? No. I just don’t feel like this book was needed – not a full length novel anyway. I feel like drama has been created just for this book where it isn’t needed. Echo started to grate on my nerves and I found her a lot more dramatic than before where I’m rolling my eyes at her. And it makes me sad that I feel this way but reading it isn’t enjoyable. I don’t want these characters so sad. I want them happy and I want to remember these characters for how they were in Pushing the Limits, not Breaking the Rules.

I applauded Katie McGarry for writing a sequel for these characters and getting out more of their story because I’m guessing it doesn’t come easy when you have two very complex characters dealing with real life issues, but for me, I’d have had rather their story finished at the end of Pushing the Limits, where I can continue to imagine the characters living in a bubble of pure happiness and not having any drama to deal with. 

Thank you to Mira Ink for giving me the opportunity to review this book in exchange for an honest review.