Going Too Far

Author: Jennifer Echols
Publisher: MTV Books
Released: 2009
Genre: YA Romance

In their words:
All Meg has ever wanted is to get away. Away from high school. Away from her backwater town. Away from her parents who seem determined to keep her imprisoned in their dead-end lives. But one crazy evening involving a dare and forbidden railroad tracks, she goes way too far... and almost doesn't make it back.
John made a choice to stay. To enforce the rules. To serve and protect. He has nothing but contempt for what he sees as childish rebellion, and he wants to teach Meg a lesson she won't soon forget. But Meg pushes him to the limit by questioning everything he learned at the police academy. And when he pushes back, demanding to know why she won't be tied down, they will drive each other to the edge - and over...

What they don't say: Meg gets arrested by John, and part of her punishment when she's arrested involves spending a lot of time with him. And they both fall for each other, but there are plenty of real complications in the way as they both have o learn to trust and to get past their pasts.

I'd been reading a lot of good things about Jennifer Echols, and Going Too Far does not disappoint. The characters are real, the emotions are raw, and you feel every bit of the story along with Meg and John. The relationship develops naturally, so that when everything blows up and they still get back together, it makes sense, and more than that, as the reader you're rooting for them both by that time.

I love how the positions are reversed in this story - it's usually the bad boy that the good girl is attracted to, but here it's the other way around. And there are real layers to both characters in the book. Meg is not a stereotypical "bad girl," which makes sense, as she is the heroine, but John is also not a stereotypical "good guy" either. They're real, complex characters, and they both have to learn to deal with traumatic events - and the way they do that, separately and together, is what makes this story.

A good read, with both fun and tender moments.