Going Too Far
By Jennifer Echols
Pocket Books/MTV Books, 245 pages
Published: March 17th 2009
HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO?- Goodreads Description
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....
3.5 out of 5
Initially I had reservations about reading this, mainly because it seemed pretty obvious what would happen. Rebellious teen kid has to ride around with young attractive cop, sexual tension ensues. Yup, pretty much what happened.
I liked the characters to a certain extent. Meg is rebellious and has a thing for alcohol and douchebags. She does however have the right amount of nice girl left in her for her not to be annoying. I thought the parts with her & Tiffany were incredibly sweet and tender. As I read through this I did wonder a lot, what could have happened to make her turn out like this, and when you find out, I think it's as much a shock to the reader as it is the characters. Unlike a lot of other rebellious female characters I've read, I didn't want to smack her in the face a lot of the time, but I also didn't have any real emotions towards her until she tells John about her past. I loved the part near the end where she gets Tiffany to help her dye her hair. The way one seemingly insignificant thing had such meaning and symbolism was a vital part of Meg's character starting to grow up at last, and that one scene and the implications behind it were definitely my favorite part of the book.
Now John. He's a character that confuses me. When we're first introduced to him, we're given the impression that he's an older guy, Meg definitely believed he was at first. When it's revealed he's not, it wasn't really that much of a shock (after what I'd gleaned from other reviews, I'd already gathered that this was meant to have a teenaged romance in it) but when I read his backstory some of it was surprising. His connection to the bridge was a little predictable in my opinion, given how (do I really want to use the word obsessed? Yes, yes I do) obsessed he is over it, but I get why his reactions to what happens there with Meg are so strong. He definitely grew on me as the book progressed, much more than Meg did.
As a side note, is it really bad that I liked the supporting characters of Tiffany & Will much more than I liked Meg & John. I just felt that their characters (while being very similar to each other in a lot of ways) were more well rounded, and more real than Meg & John, eventhough we hardly saw them.
Downsides
I didn't love this book. I liked it, plain & simple. While I didn't dislike it, there was nothing outstanding about it, nothing that would make me say to someone else 'you have to read this book, right now'. There were also a few things that I had issues with:
1) John's age. Am I the only person who thought he was really young for a cop? I know you get young police officers, but this young? Maybe someone who is a police officer/knows someone who is can clarify the age limit for me. This was one of those niggling little things that bugged me all the way through reading this. If he'd been a couple of years older I probably wouldn't have any issues with it, but like I've said, it seems a really young age for the job in my opinion.
2) The coupling. Five days to fall in love? It all happened way too quickly for me, especially for two people (one of whom for definite) never looked twice at each other before. It's teen fiction so I know fast falling is kind of the norm, and I'm being picky, but it did annoy me a little that they're expressing their love for each other so quickly.
3) The ending. I don't usually have issues with the endings of YA books. There's usually a romance element in all of them, and most of them have happy endings. This happy ending was far too rushed for my liking. Yes the book had to end, but I thought everything was resolved a little too fast. One minute they're arguing, the next it's shiny happy people all over...
