Such a Rush
by Jennifer Echols
Published by MTV Books
Publication Date July 10, 2012
Pages 320
Source: Southern Book Bloggers 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 her 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. (from Goodreads)
My Thoughts
It
took me quite a while to get into this story and it almost became a did
not finish. How is this even possible? At the 100 page mark, I set the
book down. Something about the story seemed a bit disconnected. There
was a lot of descriptive information but not enough action or dialogue
to keep me interested. BUT how is this even possible?!?! I love
Jennifer’s books - her characters and plots always keep me reading
furiously until the last page but it just wasn’t happening this time and
couldn’t understand why.
I
think that it may have been because, in much of the beginning of the
book, there was so much focus on Leah’s impoverished home life. While
they may be accurate, a lot of the descriptions used for the trailer
park seemed cliche, and they were so repetitive that it was off-putting.
Leah’s situation was dire, her mother was selfish and neglectful. I
didn’t need to be convinced. I got it. (Maybe this hit a little too
close to home for me).
Then
there was a turn around, I’m not sure the exact moment but it felt like
a Jennifer Echols story that I’ve come to know and love. I could have
been when there were more interactions with the characters. The story
wasn’t so much about Leah’s thoughts and every day routines.
Leah
was a character that I respected, rooted for, and cheered on. She knew
that she had to make her own way. She decided the life that she wanted
for herself - anything completely different from her mother and did what
she could without cheapening herself to make it happen. She was strong
and willful. But there were times when I was furious with her decisions -
I just wanted to yell, “Leah, I know that you are so much smarter than
this!” (thinking that Mark had any good intentions toward her at all).
What I did love about Such a Rush
is that it was more than story about romance (which was hot and I
appreciated, thank you very much), but it was about ambition and
determination and family. These kids flying airplanes were pretty
kickass. It was exciting to read and to think about doing such a daring
job at a young age when most teenagers would work in restaurants or malls.
Not
that it needed to redeem itself at the end, but it was a book that upon
finishing, I wanted to open up and experience again. I even considered rereading it
before posting this review to see how my thoughts changed because I hate
that my initial reaction was that I may not even finish this book. While this isn’t
my favorite Echols book (that would be Endless Summer),
it is definitely a book I would recommend (and plan to convince my book club to read). This is a book I want to
talk about some more.
Disclaimer: I received the book for review as part of the Southern Book Bloggers ARC
Tours. Thoughts and opinions are my own and I was not compensated in
any way for providing a review.
