Review: Such A Rush by Jennifer Echols

Title: Such A Rush
Author: Jennifer Echols
Expected Publication Date: July 10, 2012

From Goodreads:


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 Thoughts:

Leah Jones is a few months away from graduating high school. She lives with her mom, whenever she decides to show up, in a trailer park near the airport. In fact, Leah has only ever lived in trailer parks by the airport. After having Leah as a teen, her mother hasn't exactly been the best parent. She makes Leah pay the bills, leaves her home alone for weeks at a time and is constantly moving them from one place to another any time a man shows interest in her and promises her a new life.

It's been almost four years since Leah and her mom arrived in town, moving into the trailer park. After living next to airplanes for so long, Leah has become a little obsessed with them. She gets a job at the airport and eventually starts taking flying lessons from Mr. Hall, the owner of a banner business. His twin sons, Alec and Grayson, also work for the business and take flying lessons. When Mr. Hall suddenly dies, the twins decide to keep the business running. Grayson then blackmails Leah into working for him, and not just at the airport.

I'm going to get straight to the point on this one: BUY THIS BOOK!!! I knew that I wanted to read Such A Rush as soon as I saw the cover. I didn't even need to know what it was about. Then I read the synopsis and was even more desperate to get my hands on it. By chance, I saw a Facebook post by Jennifer Echols showing off her box of ARCs. I had to have one! So I sent off my very first review request to an author (gulp!) and anxiously awaited the verdict. I was approved! Yes, I did a big happy dance. Don't judge me, I know you do it too!

The ARC arrived very quickly and I dived right into it. In fact, I didn't do anything for the few days it took me to read it. My house may have become a disaster area, but I didn't care. I was loving this book!

Leah was a very strong character, yet still very naive and innocent at the same time. She is bullied at school and has only one friend. Without even realizing it, she has picked up some of her mother's unfortunate traits and uses her sexuality as a way to communicate. While she is by no means promiscuous, she still knows how to make all the boys love her and all the girls want to kill her. Being poor and alone has also set it's toll on her and she is struggling to keep her head above water.

I loved the dynamics between Grayson and Leah. Even though they were enemies, Leah still couldn't help falling for him. Their relationship was interesting to watch as it grew and I couldn't help but keep my hopes up that they would end up together (even if Grayson was kind of a jerk. Ok, a big one).

Besides the rocky relationship with Leah and Grayson, there was so much more to this story. I felt awful for Leah every time she was left to fend for herself. I wanted to jump into this book and pummel the mother. So much was happening to this girl and it didn't seem like there was even one person in her life that would step up and put an end to it. Besides Leah, each side character was dealing with their own personal turmoil which greatly affected the way they connected and communicated with the others.

This story completely sucked me in. I found myself getting angry and my heart racing, then fighting back tears at different turns. Very few books have the ability to pull this off. I am easily distracted and not a very emotional person so I knew this was something special. Everything about this book was perfect. The beautiful prose, the dynamics between characters and the feeling it gave me after I turned the last page was something I hope I come across again and again.

I really can't tell you in words how much I loved this book. What I can tell you is this: I rarely, and I mean rarely, reread books. I will be reading this one again. And again. And again. And very soon. Please don't miss out on this one! You can pre-order it now at BN.com, Amazon or The Book Depository.

Unbelievably HUGE thanks to Jennifer Echols for the opportunity to read and review this book. I'll be taking a trip to the bookstore and purchasing every other book you have ever written.








*I received this book for free in exchange for my honest review. This did not influence my opinion in any way and all opinions and views expressed are 100% my own.