Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Review: Such A Rush by Jennifer Echols

Such A Rush by Jennifer Echols

Release Date: July 10, 2012
Publisher: MTV Books
Pages: 320
Genre: YA Contemporary Romance
Source: ARC
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
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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.   ADD TO GOODREADS

Leah has lived in trailer parks by the airport all her life. While her mother hates the sound of them, she decides to embrace them. She gets a job at the small local airport and saves for flying lessons. Hall Aviation is one of the businesses located at the airport and after Mr. Hall gives Leah her first lesson she is hooked. Mr. Hall becomes like a father to Leah and she continues lessons and watches his three sons from afar, sort of wishing she could be a part of their family. She watches and slowly falls for Grayson, one of the younger twins. Mr. Hall's son's always ignored her and she even walked in on them discussing whether or not she was sleeping with their father. That broke her heart and made her distance herself further from them.

Three years later Mr. Hall's oldest son dies and he soon follows. Leah is worried her flying career is over. Mr. Hall had offered her a summer job flying advertisement banners on the beach. Then Grayson shows up and tells her he plans to keep the business open and will run it with his twin brother Alec. Grayson is rude and insults Leah so she refuses but Grayson is very persistent. He shows up at her trailer blackmailing her into both working for him and dating his brother. Leah is tired of being seen as a whore but doesn't want to risk losing her chances of one day becoming an airline pilot. She has worked extremely hard to have a way out of the trailer park and into something better. This beginning part of the story was really sad. I felt horrible that Leah lost Mr. Hall. He was such an important person that believed in her. Leah thinks of him often throughout the book. I also hated the way everyone thought of and treated Leah. They all just assumed the worst of her because of her background.

Grayson angered me at first with his lies and blackmail. As I got to know him I realized that although he handled things badly, it was his desperate way to try to save Alec and the small family he has left. Grayson and Alec are very broken. Although twins, they were never close. Their oldest brother Jake usually held the family together. They really needed some open communication and honesty but instead they both deceive each other. Grayson slowly grows closer to Leah. They have a lot in common but Grayson is really standoffish. Alec was sweet. I liked his character but he also was kind of a jerk the way he handled some things. I was really worried about a love triangle, as they are the plague of my book life, but trust me when I say there isn't one. It may really really seem like it for awhile, but all will explain itself as you read. I promise! There is so much going on with the twins but they are not quite as naive as they think each other are.

Leah has had such a hard life. Her story made me appreciate my car, my mom, and even my washer machine. She has been on her own all her life, her mom is off with boyfriends and never home, so when Grayson, Alec, and her rich friend Molly don't understand why she can't drive or swim, I felt really bad for her. Molly was a weird friend. I can't say I liked her. I still don't understand why she hid some things and lied. Also Leah and Molly had one of the strangest friendships. I felt like Leah excused Molly's actions and wasn't honest with her because Leah felt like the charity case friend. Not a good way to strengthen and build a friendship. Leah definitely doesn't want pity. She never asks Molly for help. She worked really hard to try to learn to fly and to work her way into a new life. I loved the descriptions of her flying and how she felt. I've always wanted take flying lessons. There were so many twists to the story but I was paying close attention and saw the little clues. It was a highly addicting read cause I was dying for everything to come out to see if I was right about the clues.        

"Are you coming on to me?" I asked sternly.
He lowered his shades on his nose and looked over them at me, his big gray eyes serious. "Considering your reaction, I guess not."

"It was the first time in my life I felt like I was in control."
"I could see," I said. "For the first time, I could see what most people never saw. I could see the whole town, and how I fit into it, and how far I would have to go to get out of it. I got such a rush, seeing that. And until that plane ride, I hadn't realized how low I'd felt for years, because I didn't have a high to compare it with."

Rating: 5/5

26 comments:

  1. I love Jennifer Echols' books and am SO excited to read this! I need to start on my July books soon!

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    1. This was my first Jennifer Echols book but I want to try more of them. I scanned through a bunch and a lot of them had love triangles though :-( I think I'm going to try the amnesia one next because I love books where people lose their memory. It's one of my weird book fetishes.

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  2. I'm really excited for the release of this book. Your review has me even more excited.
    Grayson seems like a really rude guy and I wonder what my reaction to him would be. I love that the main character wants to be pilot. Leah seems like a sweet character that will no doubt end up loving. :D
    Thanks for the great review, Jennifer. :)

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    1. Leah was awesome! I really liked her but did read a few reviews where others didn't like her. Curious to see what you think. I am usually really hard on jerk characters like Grayson but I did slowly fall for him.

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  3. Sounds like such an awesome book! I can't wait to read this one! Loved the review :)

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    1. I hope you enjoy it! I was very impressed!

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  4. I don't get the cover....Ok I have not read an Echols book yet and have been meaning to. This sounds like a good one. Twists and turns troubling issues, no love triangle, no cliffhanger...all good reasons to read it not to mention you gave it five stars! I will be on the lookout for this one!

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    1. I think the cover is just supposed to be Leah. She has wild curly hair although the girl on the cover has straight hair. But it's a pretty cover. I'm still kind of new to contemporary but I've been impressed with quite a few lately. Really enjoyed this one! A big part of that was that the love triangle wasn't really one and so my heart didn't break.

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  5. This sounds like such a great book!! NO love triangle and NO cliffhanger! OH MY! I will be grabbing this book up as soon as its released!! Great review

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    1. Yay! Hope you enjoy it! Yes I am always happy when a book is love triangle free. :-D

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  6. Woo-hoo! Glad you liked it! I pre-ordered this book and now I can't wait to read it!

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    1. I was really impressed. I went in a bit unsure but loved it. I hope you do too!

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  7. Loved this book and Love Grayson. (well I actually have a few chs left, but close enough!) Great story. Nice review!

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    1. Glad you are enjoying it! I did end up loving Grayson. I loved both the twins.

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  8. Oh my gosh, I wish wish WISH I had this book in my hands right now! I've had it on my TBR pile for weeks but never really marked it as a priority read, but recently I just found out how amazing it is and your amazing review isn't helping my craving at all -- I want this even more now! x) I'm pretty sure my love for any book with twins in it is clear, and it's nice to know that this book is love-triangle free! I'm sure gallons of people are dropping at your feet in thanks hehe ;)

    Amazing review, Jen! <3 Thanks for feeding my new obsession of this book! :')

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    1. Books with twins are cool! I was most dreading the possible love triangle and I was really happy the way it turned out. I was worried while reading that is was going to make me mad but she made everything turn out perfect. Very gripping read with lots of romance, pilot action, and life lessons. Hoe you enjoy it!!

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  9. This sounds great. I've heard very good things about Echols. I'm interested to see how Leah and Grayson evolve since it sounds like Grayson was such a jerk at the beginning.

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    1. This was my first Echols book but I have heard great things about her work. I plan to try another one of her books. Grayson and Leah's relationship develops in a very interesting way. I was worried but everything worked out surprisingly well. I hope you enjoy it!

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  10. Oohhh ohh.. this sounds really promising. I want to read this! I'm adding it for sure.

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    1. My first from the author but not my last. I was impressed and intrigued! Hope you enjoy it!

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  11. Looks like a great read! I have not read anything by this author, but have heard she is good. Great review :)

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    1. Same here. This was my first book by this author but I've been told all her books are great. I hope to try something else by her. I love the pilot storyline in this one! I hope you enjoy it too!

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  12. I am looking forward to reading this! It sounds great :)

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    1. I hope you enjoy it! Thanks for stopping by!

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  13. Wow, I'm really curious about this one, sound different from other Jennifer Echol's books... much more dramatic and sad indeed. It's really good that you like it! Considering she is one of my favorite authors! I am totally bullying you into reading Going Too Far :P it's a short read and I'm almost certain you'll like it, Read it :PP

    The plague of your book life xD Good to hear it's not a Love triangle! Can't stand them anymore! [except from Cassandra Clare...] The only problem here is the flying, I hate it, I'd get a heart attach if I took lessons, I always feel like I'll die in airplanes x) heck, I'm even afraid to fly kites....

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    1. Yeah this was my first Jennifer Echol's book and I did really love it! The other books sound just as sad and dramatic! LOL That is why I haven't read any of them. After this I do want to try another one so I was searching through the summaries of them all and it sounds like they all have love triangles, barf, but I like the sound of the amnesia one. I think you know how much I love my amnesia plots. Did you like that one? What you hate flying? I seriously want to take flying lessons sometime. Maybe one day when I have money. It's a bucket list thing.

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