Sunday, July 15, 2012

Review: Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols

Such a Rush

Goodreads Summary:
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.

My Review:
First of all, I just want to say that this book is for older teens. As a parent, this is the kind of book I would read first before I let my teenager read it and I would read it with them. It has all kinds of content issues- sexual situations, fairly graphic sexual activity, and language. Wow, the language! I think that this book has one of the widest ranges of bad language I've seen in a YA book- pretty much every bad word except the "c" word. One of the words used...I was shocked.

Theme music for this post:

I know, obvious, but it is the song that popped into my head throughout this book. I like the character of Leah. I like that she's spunky and feisty and determined to make the best and most of her life. This was one of those books in which the characters were so real to me that when I stopped reading the book, real life was a little jarring. Also, I know I really like a character when I keep going back and thinking about what comes next for them- you want to know what happens next after the book is over. The characters in this book were so well written that even Leah's mother- who is mostly absent in the book- is such a large presence. The author is able to define her and make Leah's mother's influence and character felt in the "blank" spaces of the book. Basically, every single component of a well written book is here. Great characters, a fast moving and interesting plot, very readable, etc. My big issue of course is the language and sexual issues. This is one of those books that makes me wonder who this book is written for. In other words, are authors writing YA books for adults? Here's one statistic:
Hilary Murray Hill, managing director from Scholastic Books, which publishes The Hunger Games and other teen fiction, estimated 'more than one third' of teen books in its slate were purchased by adults. She said the books were hugely popular with the '20-50' age bracket and once they had found one teen series they enjoyed they were likely to seek out more.
And this statistic makes me wonder if the language and sex issues are a result of the trend of adults reading YA book. I've noticed that quite a few of the books I've read recently have had characters in high school who are 18 or who have graduated h.s. or just about to. That, technically, it's adults using this language and having sex so that makes it all okay, I guess. In any case, with those warnings, this is a good book with great characters. Overall rating: 3 1/2 stars Genre Rating: 4 1/2 school lockers Author's Website Author's Twitter Author's Blog
Such a Rush

9 comments:

  1. Great Review! I'm excited to read this! I heard amazing things about this book! Happy reading.

    Lisa @ Shatterbooks

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    Replies
    1. I hope you enjoy this book. I wasn't going to read it, but after reading other people's reviews, I put it on my list. I'm not really big on romance type angles in stories, but it was so well done. It felt natural in this book, not just a story arc forced in to appeal to as many people as possible.

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  2. This sounds like an interesting book.

    Hi,
    I'm a new follower via GFC, Linky Followers, and twitter. I would love it if you could stop by my blog sometime(:

    Katie @
    http://curseofthebibliophile.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm following you through all of those too.

      This is a good book, it makes me thing of Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman- which I've not read, but it's on my shelves. But the whole, girl wanting to escape her present situation.

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  3. I find your comments about sexual content and language in YA very interesting, and, sadly, I have to agree - these 'adult' literary devices are popping up more and more. Personally I think it's a great shame. One of the reasons I read YA is to avoid the smut and language that seem an absolute prerequisite to make an adult 'bestseller'. So even though the premise of this book sounds really good, and your review positive, I wont be reading it ): Although I don't comment often, I really enjoy your blog.
    Gwynneth
    http://todayinshenaya.blogspot.com

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    Replies
    1. I normally don't read romance type novels, but I normally don't mind YA ones that really have a lot of romance elements. Like you, it's mostly because I can pretty much count on them not having overly graphic sex scenes. Now, this is nowhere near an adult book, but I think it went way beyond most YA books. I'm kind of two, flip-floppy kind of minds. On the one hand, I just don't like sex scenes in YA. On the other hand, I can't deny that teens face situations where they have to make decisions about sex. And one way to very safely see the realities of sex is in literature. But, I'm a mom and most of me just wishes I could keep my kids in a box until they get married. So, after all that rambling I just did, the one thing I'm very firm about is that I'm conflicted about this issue. I guess the kids are right- adults do ruin everything.

      Thanks for your comment. I'm glad you enjoy reading my blog.

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  4. This books sounds pretty interesting actually and I'm not even a person who reads contemporary a lot.
    But I wanted to let you know some stuff about Battle Royale (in regards to the comment you left on the giveaway). I don't know how old your son is but Battle Royale does have some really violent scenes in it. And also the copy I'm giving away is the novel form of the story and not the manga. Personally though I prefer the book, the manga is very fetish oriented as well as violent. I'm not even that prude and I found some of the stuff in the manga to just be too much.
    I'm not trying to sound all preachy or bossy, that's not my intention, I just wanted to let you know so you can make your own decisions. I just should have put a mature content warning on that giveaway before like I had in the original post.
    It's still an awesome book though!

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  5. This sounds really interesting.Haha, I know what you mean about the disconnect between real life and the novel I'm currently reading. I loved that you put a song to your post, I love when people find the overlap between music and literature. I also enjoyed that you spoke about your concerns about the content of YA books. I don't see enough bloggers stick their neck out like that, but when I do I love it. I have to say that on some level I agree with you, but I'll also say that I'm fourteen-no stranger to YA books and their content- but I can relate with much of the content I see, and if not relate, then I'm very well educated by this point in my life. However, I know that books are not something largely monitored, so... I think it's a personal decision, but for me at least, I know that I'm getting into.
    okay, well this comment became quite, long, but to finish, I am now following you via GFC and would love if you'd check out my blog? Hope you don't find this rude!
    www.dogearedandcoffeestained.blogspot.com

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, I'm following you through GFC. I'm kind of an over protective type parent, so I read everything my kids read first. I do sometimes tell them I'm not comfortable with them reading a certain book. But if I get the feeling that they're going to read it anyway, I make them discuss it with me. I'm not under any kind of illusion that I can truly stop them from doing something like reading a book- that's something my son has made clear to me. So, I figure if they want to read something, I'd better read it too. At least it's an easy and natural way to discuss certain issues.

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