Verdict: 5 Stars
Even though studies have shown that teens are the demographic of readers who are least likely to opt for personal digital reading, choosing instead to reserve their devices for social connection or school work, there is a wealth of great content coming out in digital format for the young adult audience. McGarry’s Pushing The Limits (Harlequin Teen) is just one example of the kind of edgy YA content that digital fans are clamoring for.
Echo Emerson went from ultra-popular girl with an equally popular boyfriend to a social outcast with bizarre scars all over her arms. Despite having friends who would love to be supportive and enemies who are waiting for her to crack, Echo can’t make everything go back to normal because she can’t remember how she fell from normal in the first place. Just as she’s beginning to get some kind of control over the life she used to have, the school’s new counselor who is bent on “fixing” Echo assigns her to tutor Noah, one of the most notorious losers in school. Echo’s precarious return to the cool kids’ table is hanging by a thread when she realizes she and Noah have more than just feelings for each other, they just might be each other’s savior.
McGarry’s work is the kind of book that digital was born for, because it’s the riskiest kind of teen writing. In an era in which publishers no longer feel the need to play it so safe and stick to the tried-and-true story lines, books like this one get to portray the very real issues that teen readers and YA fans face.
Pushing The Limits is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and more.
Mercy Pilkington is a Senior Editor for Good e-Reader. She is also the CEO and founder of a hybrid publishing and consulting company.
