Series: Pushing the Limits #5
Published by HarlequinTEEN on July 1, 2015
Genres: Coming of Age, Contemporary, Contemporary, Dating & Sex, Drugs, Alcohol, Substance Abuse, Friendship, Love & Romance, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 298
Format: eBook
Goodreads
Tough and independent, 17-year-old Abby lets very few people into her inner circle. It’s common knowledge in her Kentucky town that she deals drugs, but not even her closest friends know why. But when a deal goes south and Abby’s suddenly in danger, she finds herself reluctantly forced to lean on daredevil Logan—a boy whose restless spirit matches her own.
Logan has his own reasons for wanting to keep Abby at arms’ length. But he never expected to find in her the one person who might help him face the demons he’s tried so hard to run from.
Together, Abby and Logan will have to make a decision: let their current circumstances weigh them down forever…or fight for the future they both thought was impossible.
By now any of you who’ve read Katie McGarry’s books know that she has a formula that works: take a troubled girl and an equally but differently troubled boy, push them together, put them through the ringer, and then make them work for a fantastic happy ending. And it’s always told in alternating points of view between the boy and the girl so you’re getting a good perspective on both sides. I know what to expect when I pick up one of her novels, and I quite enjoy each one since she writes an enjoyable mix of characters. They’re pretty unique in each book and she isn’t rehashing the same old things over and over again.
In Chasing Impossible, my two favorite characters from the Pushing the Limits series are finally brought together: tough, no-nonsense drug dealing Abby (who we first saw in the very first book, Pushing the Limits) and never-back-away-from-a-dare, risk taker Logan (who we first met in Dare You To). I was really excited to delve into both of their backstories, especially after seeing more of them in Rachel and Isaiah’s novel Crash Into You where they both took up more prominent space. And Katie McGarry really delivered a believable romance between these two sarcastic, hard headed teens with trust issues.
Abby’s life was the hardest space to occupy. She’s thrown into the life of drug dealing by her father, who is in jail for dealing drugs, and she now must do it because she desperately needs money. When she finds that she’s in the cross hairs of rivals and she’s in major danger, she turns to the only person that sticks his neck out for her and more importantly, who she thinks she can trust with her secrets. She wants out of this hellish life, but when it’s all you’ve known from the time you were born and it pays the way, how can you do anything else–even if it puts the boy you’re starting to feel things for in danger? Her life has never been stable and she’s scary, tough, and able to turn off the emotions towards the outside people. But in Chasing Impossible we get to see the real Abby, the scared little girl that she doesn’t show anyone else, because that would make her a walking target.
Logan’s kept his Type I diabetes diagnosis a secret from his best friends and his baseball teammates for years–always testing his blood sugar in secret and administering insulin hidden away from prying eyes. He doesn’t want to be seen as different or weak, so he’s always overcompensated by being the craziest, the most no-holds-barred, the least afraid to hurt himself. But when faced with the reality that he’s been left behind by all of his older friends and teammates, he now must start over at a new school with Rachel and Abby to finish out his senior year, and he has to move in with his new age-y mother instead of his more down to earth father. That also means deciding if he’ll play another year of baseball, which he’s not so sure about. But convincing his parents that he might not want to play, even though they’ve already set up the meeting with the coach. All he wants to do is hang out with Abby and his friends, make some extra money this summer helping out on his friend Chris’ grandfather’s farm, and keep up the charade that everything is normal. But when crap hits the fan with Abby, everything is upside down–his feelings, his wants, and his future.
I give Chasing Impossible a five out of five. This is the character pairing that I’d been waiting for, and while I was a bit annoyed that I had to pre-order Nowhere But Here, book one in Katie McGarry’s new Thunder Road series, just to get a copy of this book, I’d do it all over again since you still can’t get a copy of Chasing Impossible any other way. Most of the main characters of the previous books are here in some way–either in presence or in name–so it was nice to catch up with the other characters. All in all, this was another emotionally charged book that focused on Abby’s life of crime and Logan’s need to help dig her out, but ultimately she needed to save herself so they could have any kind of a chance at a relationship. Hopefully this will be widely released to fans of this series can enjoy this book as much as I did.
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Ahhh!! Why haven’t I read this yet!! *adding to immediate TBR* Great review! 🙂
Lisa @ Lost in Literature recently posted..Top Ten Books on Our Fall TBR’s!
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Chasing Impossible is hands down, my favorite Katie McGarry book so far. I hope you get to read it soon, Lisa!
Heather recently posted..Motor City Shakedown by Jonathan Watkins – Blog Tour – Guest Post and Giveaway
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I haven’t kept up with Katie McGarry’s series, though I have read the first book. Reading this review makes me want to dive straight back into it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Becki @ The Flutterby Room recently posted..Review: Led Astray: The Best of Kelley Armstrong by Kelley Armstrong
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In a way I’m a little jealous of you Becki since you can read most of the Pushing the Limits series without the wait time in between books. It’s definitely one of my favorite series.
Heather recently posted..Motor City Shakedown by Jonathan Watkins – Blog Tour – Guest Post and Giveaway
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Yes I agree with you …I waited for this couple and I wanted to see them together. But I didn’t like that I had to purchase it with another book. I agree that they are the fan favorites, and I wished that she was given her own book with the series, not as tie along to the thunder road one. I thought that the marketing on this book was bad. I wanted to get the book the same day the other book, but we had to wait for it. 🙁 I was happy to read it 🙂
julie@my5monkeys recently posted..Waves hello
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I was very happy to read Chasing Impossible, but I too wasn’t that happy to have to pre-order the new series book just to get the book that I’ve been waiting forever for. Definitely not what I would have preferred, especially since I might not have bought Thunder Road right away otherwise.
Heather recently posted..Motor City Shakedown by Jonathan Watkins – Blog Tour – Guest Post and Giveaway
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