Dare You To by Katie McGarry
Series: Pushing the Limits #2
Published by Harlequin Teen on May 28, 2013
Pages: 456
Format: Hardcover
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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 really looking forward to Dare You To, thanks in large part to the sneak-peeks we got of Beth in Pushing the Limits. Dare You To definitely did not disappoint!

I really wasn’t a fan of Ryan in the beginning. He was cocky and way too full of himself. He was also highly amusing – The big, tough jock boy who hits on girls for dares, yet he doesn’t like a girl who curses. It was kind of hilarious. He definitely does grow throughout the book, though it happens very slowly. He’s stubborn and refuses to give up the dares right away, which in my opinion, holds him back a lot.

But Ryan also has a lot going on in his life that makes him vulnerable. He has a tough home life, one that looks perfect on the outside but is far from it on the inside. His parents fight, his dad threw his brother (Mark) out for.. reasons that I won’t go into to avoid spoilers. But I will say they were dumb reasons! We don’t see a lot of Mark, but the few times we do, I really loved him! And, of course, Ryan wants to do one thing with his life and his father wants him to do another, so that causes all sorts of drama.

About halfway (maybe a little more) through the book, Ryan reveals something to Beth and, it’s silly, but it made me really like him a lot more. He and Beth were so sweet together when they let their walls down, and Ryan could really be pretty romantic when he wanted to be!

Beth is great. Honestly, so far she’s my favorite of the female characters. She has a really tough life. She has a lot of trust issues and refuses to let people in. She builds this wall up and refuses to let it down. I completely shipped her and Isaiah the whole time, from the beginning of Pushing the Limits until the end of Dare You To. Several people told me I’d understand why their relationship ended the way it did in Dare You To and that I’d stop shipping them, but I still totally want them to end up together! Maybe my feelings will change in Crash Into You, when I see Isaiah with Rachel. We’ll see. But for now, I want Isaiah and Beth to fall happily ever after!

Beth deals with so much in Dare You To: her mom’s self-destruction, her uncle swooping in to “save” her, a new school, new friends and way too many changes than she is comfortable with.

I had a lot of trouble figuring Scott out. One second he was an ass and I hated him, the next he was like a big Papa Bear, ready to defend Beth from all the evils of the world. It was hard to figure out his motives at first. I really wanted to trust him and I really wanted Beth to be able to trust him. I do like where there relationship ended up, though, when all was said and done.

Lacy was such a great character! I loved that she wasn’t completely popular, wasn’t torn between befriending Beth and staying in with the popular crowd. She stuck by Beth no matter how many times Beth tried to shut everyone out. She stood up to Gwen and even fought with her best friends – Ryan, Chris (her boyfriend) and Logan – when she felt she had to in order to defend Beth.

And Chris and Logan were… Ah. Well, they had their moments when they were great friends to Ryan, but they also had moments where they let Beth’s reputation and their obsession with baseball get between them and Ryan. It was a slippery slope throughout the book.

The end was heart-pounding and insane. The stakes were much higher for Beth and Ryan’s actions in Dare You To then there was with Echo and Noah in Pushing the Limits. Lives were literally at stake at the end of Dare You To.

Katie McGarry is an amazing writer. I love how she can tie up all the loose ends at the end of each of her books while still leaving enough open for the possibility of a sequel. I also love the way she carries her main characters from one book over to the next book. They play integral parts in the storyline, but they don’t overshadow the true main characters of the book. It leaves you truly excited for the next book in the series! I know, for me personally, I’m DYING to start Crash Into You! We saw a good amount of Isaiah in Pushing the Limits but because of his ties to Beth, we saw a lot of him in Dare You To and I’m really eager to see how his story unfolds now.

While I didn’t like Ryan as much as Noah, I loved Beth and Ryan did grow on me! Overall, Dare You To was an amazing read and I can’t wait to read more of McGarry’s books!