Dusty Reads Review: Going Too Far

Review:

Going Too Far

by Jennifer Echols

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Purchase: Amazon | BookDepository
Release Date: March 17, 2009
Publisher: MTV Books
Age Group: Older Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Source: e-book Purchase
Special: 2012 TBR Challenge
Rating: Special Shelf

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About the Book:

HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO?

All Meg has ever wanted is to get away. Away from high school. Away from her backwater town. Away from her parents who seem determined to keep her imprisoned in their dead-end lives. But one crazy evening involving a dare and forbidden railroad tracks, she goes way too far...and almost doesn't make it back.

John made a choice to stay. To enforce the rules. To serve and protect. He has nothing but contempt for what he sees as childish rebellion, and he wants to teach Meg a lesson she won't soon forget. But Meg pushes him to the limit by questioning everything he learned at the police academy. And when he pushes back, demanding to know why she won't be tied down, they will drive each other to the edge -- and over....

"That's the worst idea I ever heard," I told Eric. Then I took another sip of beer and swallowed. "Let's do it."

I'd been telling myself forever that I was going to read this book. Of course I really liked Echols' Boys Next Door and The Ex-Games novels, and so, after hearing talk of the swoonalicious sexy John After, I couldn't resist FINALLY reading Going Too Far for very much longer once it was actually in my possession. Because that would be stupid, right? And I learned something valuable once I was done with that final, breathtaking page. Bad girls can be more like crack than the bad boys. Slow and searing is the romance. Heart-pounding and emotional is the plot. And the characters stick close to the heart even after the book is closed because the story is never really over there and continues on. But, Meg, our oh-so-lovable wild child protag beckoned me aboard first and really quickly.

Ever watch those cruise commercials on TV and imagine yourself there, vividly, and when the narrator tries to sell you on how wonderful the place is, you wonder why he's even bothering because there are no words needed! Of course, you want to go there! Endorsement isn't required by this point. You would go so far as to kick baby kitties in their jaws if it got you anywhere near a ticket. Everyone wants to go there! Meg is Going Too Far's main attraction, and there is no need for further convincing once she enters the scene. Bad girl to the bone, a little bitter, about 50% obnoxious, Meg leads a very crazy lifestyle, her cavalier attitude toward sex and her constant search for thrills showing just how jaded she is when we first 'meet' her. Her life seems to be bumping along just fine, until Officer John After arrests her for underage drinking while doing some serious trespassing. Like strolling along train tracks and tiptoeing death serious. And when, consequently, Meg is forced to play tagalong with the same stupid, annoying cop responsible for her arrest throughout the duration of what should've been an amazing spring break, she's none to pleased with this young, confusing, MEGA HOT guy weirdly chained to her ridiculously unimpressive hometown. Her endless resentment of John's desire to show her the error in her ways only fuels the animosity between them... and the sexual tension.

BUT NO. They do not go on to have hot jungle sex like crazed monkeys. There's this Opposites Attract slow burn, a peeling back of layers to reach the soft, vulnerable centers of who they are. They discover each other, misunderstand one another, and make mistakes. They unravel secrets and talk pasts and old wounds, overstep and soothe, gradually exploring, constantly testing and toying and teasing. Circling each other. Delicious intensity, Sexy Times, and gooey sweet moments, the story is wonderfully wrapped up in the romance, but it doesn't overrun the crux of it. Mostly, it's about change and healing, of letting go and beginning anew, and how loving someone and having them love us back can be perfectly unplanned and exactly right. Can make us better. And both aspects--the romance and the message--stuck with me tighter than the effects of crazyglue. I'm cuckoo in love with this book.

Going Too Far may just be the best Jennifer Echols will ever have to offer. My heart broke a little when that last sentence led to nothing more.

"...Why would I be embarrassed to be seen with you?"
He asked so earnestly that I felt like I had to explain the obvious. "My hair, and the way I dress."
"You dress like you're Japanese," he said.
"The clueless Japanese who work at the car factory and wear those weird plastic sandals? Thanks."
"No, the cute Japanese girls you see at the mall in Birmingham."
He looked down at his forms, pen poised. But he didn't write anything. That blush crept up from his neck and across his cheeks. He had just realized he'd called me cute.
"I mean, the Japanese girls," he said, still looking down. "You know how you dress. With your T-shirt and your jacket and you jeans and your shoes and your weird socks and your hairpins and your blue hair."
He was digging himself a deeper hole. Now he had told me he'd noticed every detail of what I looked like. (22%)