The blurb as seen on Goodreads:
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
462 Pages
Ryan lowers his lips to my ear. "Dance with me, Beth."
"No." I whisper the reply. I hate him and I hate myself for wanting him to touch me again....
"I dare you..."
If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk's home life, they'd send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom's freedom and her own happiness. That's how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn't want her and going to a school that doesn't understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn't get her, but does....
Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can't tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn't be less interested in him.
But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won't let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all....
I was first drawn to this book based on the description. At
the time, I didn’t know it was a follow-up to another book. After having read
Pushing the Limits, I found that I enjoyed Dare You To much more.
In Pushing the Limits, we meet the character of Beth. She’s
the troubled, bitchy friend of Noah who has no problem speaking her mind. You
don’t really get to know a whole lot about her, just the bare minimum: Noah
& Isaiah are her best friends, she’s poor, and her mother’s boyfriend beats
both of them. And honestly, I wasn’t a huge fan of hers.
In Dare You To, so much more of Beth is revealed. Taking the
fall so her mother won’t go to jail, Beth is forced to go live with her uncle
who abandoned her years ago after promising to come back for her. Her uncle,
Scott, it turns out, was able to leave his old life behind and make a life for
himself as a professional ball player and now that he has the funds, he wants
to help Beth escape her life. Scott takes her to a new town, a new home, and a
new school. But Beth can’t get over the feeling that she doesn’t belong in this
new life, that she’s abandoning her friends and most importantly, her mother.
Enter Ryan, star baseball player on a fast track to the
pros. On a dare, he approaches a stranger in a Taco Bell in order to get her
number. She shoots him down and her rejection stays with him because Ryan is
the type who never loses. When his baseball idol asks him to show his niece
around, imagine his surprise when he discovers its Beth, the mystery girl from
Taco Bell.
I adored Ryan. One of my favorite males of the literary
world. Yes, on the outside he has the perfect life, but as we all know, there
is no such thing as perfect. His father keeps pushing him for more and Ryan
finds that he’s not sure if he’s living his dream or his fathers. On top of
that, his home life has completely shattered when his brother drops a bomb on
the family and then leaves, abandoning Ryan. Feeling completely alone, he tries
to reach back out to his brother only to realize he didn’t go that far.
How could I have been
so blind? He never left me. My brother – he never left me.
Can I just say how much I love Mark? (And yes, I teared up
at that moment). When Ryan gets to know Beth, she not only challenges his ego
but also his entire world. Ryan, to me, was the perfect Prince Charming. He
wasn’t perfect, but his actions speak louder than words and believe me when I
tell you, he had a lot of actions.
While Ryan is coming to terms with who he wants to be vs.
who he is right now, Beth is struggling to cut ties with her mother. She
realizes that her mother needs help; she’s drinking all the time and continuing
to stay in an abusive relationship. Everyone is telling her to leave, she can’t
help her mother, etc. But it’s her mother and she feels like it’s her
responsibility. She refuses to believe that she can thrive in her new life
almost to the point of losing everything. When her relationship with Ryan is
questioned, she’s so quick to believe everyone else but him because she doesn’t
believe she’s worth it.
Dare You To is not a happy-go-lucky fairytale story about
love. It’s dark and gritty, and the people are scarred and extremely fragile.
But I loved every moment of it. This one, in my opinion, surpassed the first in
so many ways. My one issue had more to do with formatting, because it was an
ARC there were no chapter breaks or breaks between the POV’s so in the
beginning it was a little confusing during the switches.
Thank you to Harlequin
Teen and NetGalley for providing me this ARC in return for an honest review.
I loved Pushing the Limits, and I've recently read Dare You To--also got at NetGalley--, but I still haven't figured out which one I like the best. I missed Noah and Echo, but I also fell in love with Ryan and Beth.
ReplyDeleteBeth's life is so screwed up, you just want to hug her until all the pain go away. And Ryan's story is also heartbreaking, his parents are so dumb! As someone who did go through the whole shock in the family after a sibling "came out of the closet," I wanted to slap his dad so hard while I was reading it.
I really liked pushing the limits, but I haven't read it in so long. I wonder, do you have to have read (and remembered) pushing the limits, to understand dare you to? I hope not. I also received it for review from netgalley, and I've been putting it off, but this review made me curious about it so I really want to read it now! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteShae @ Understanding Shae's Story
I don't think that you really need to read Pushing the Limits to understand Dare You To. The same characters are mentioned, but it's a completely different storyline from the first. Since you've read it, even if you don't remember much, I think you'll be fine. Who knows, you may remember more as you read :)
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