By: Jennifer Echols
Publisher: MTV Books
Release Date: July 10, 2012
Genre/Age: YA Contemporary (older YA)
Pages: 320
Source: ARC from Around the World ARC Tours
A sexy and
poignant romantic tale of a young daredevil pilot caught between two brothers.
High school
senior Leah Jones loves nothing more than flying. While she’s in the air, it’s
easy to forget life with her absentee mother at the low-rent end of a South
Carolina beach town. When her flight instructor, Mr. Hall, hires to fly for his
banner advertising business, she sees it as her ticket out of the trailer park.
And when he dies suddenly, she’s afraid her flying career is gone forever.
But Mr.
Hall’s teenage sons, golden boy Alec and adrenaline junkie Grayson, are
determined to keep the banner planes flying. Though Leah has crushed on Grayson
for years, she’s leery of getting involved in what now seems like a doomed
business – until Grayson betrays her by digging up her most damning secret.
Holding it over her head, he forces her to fly for secret reasons of his own,
reasons involving Alec. Now Leah finds herself drawn into a battle between
brothers – and the consequences could be deadly.
It’s no secret that I ADORE Jennifer Echols. And
whenever I’m asked which book is my favorite, I say The Boys Next Door pretty much automatically, because it is. But
overall, between her romantic comedies and her romantic dramas, my heart melts
a little more for her dramas. SO. What does this have to do with Such a Rush, you wonder?
To me, Such
a Rush felt like the perfect combination of The Boys Next Door and her romantic dramas. Some of my favorite
elements of The Boys Next Door are
there: a girl getting caught up in the drama between two brothers, fake
relationships, real fights, and more secrets than anyone knows what to do with…
But it has that mature, intense feel of her dramas, both in terms of actual
content (we all know Jennifer can write a steamy love scene like nobody’s
business), and in terms of motivations and consequences. This isn’t just fun,
high school fluff, this is real life, and the tension (sexual and otherwise :P)
that Jennifer builds is fantastic.
And through it all is that signature style of sass
and humor that she does so well and
that I am so in love with. One of my favorite lines, and I’m not even sure why
it stuck with me so much, is after a helicopter unexpectedly lands at the
airport and a group gets out and heads toward Leah and the other people working
at the airport:
“The
lieutenant leading the group was a tall blond. I couldn’t tell for sure since
he was wearing mirrored shades, but I thought he was boyishly handsome, like
Alec. He came straight for me because, dressed in a bikini top, I was obviously
in charge of this airport.”
HA! The whole book is full of that snarky kind of
humor. I love it.
And if you’ve ever harbored any kind of secret
desire to become a pilot, Such a Rush
will completely hit the spot and make you look up the nearest flight school.
Both the emotional and the practical details of flying a plane were incredible;
I felt like I was right there with Leah every step of the way. Oh, and going to
prom in a limo? Officially not cool enough. (No offense to any limo-goers out
there.)
I absolutely LOVE Such a Rush. Jennifer Echols has totally outdone herself and this
is possibly my new favorite from her. I’m so excited for her next book (as
always) but at the same time I just want to bask in the awesomeness of this
one. Such a Rush has characters that
will wrap you around their little fingers and make you care SO MUCH about them,
drama that will make you laugh, cheer, and growl in frustration, sexy times
that will make you sigh and swoon, and a last line that will put a smile on
your face and (if you’re as emotional as I am) a tear in your eye.
You MUST read this book. This is contemporary at
its finest, folks, right here. <3
