Review : Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols
Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols
Pages : 325
Genre : YA, Contemporary
Stand alone
My Rating : 3/5
About the Book :
But there’s one way Leah can escape reality. Saving every penny she can, she begs quiet Mr. Hall, who runs an aerial banner-advertising business at the airstrip, to take her up just once. By the time she’s a high school senior, Leah has become a good enough pilot that Mr. Hall offers her a job flying a banner plane. It seems like a dream come true… but Mr. Hall dies suddenly, leaving everything he owned in the hands of his teenage sons: golden boy Alec and adrenaline junkie Grayson. And they’re 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. Now Leah finds herself drawn into a battle between brothers—and the consequences could be deadly.
My Thoughts :
Jennifer Echols certainly knows how to hook you into a story. Such a Rush was my third book of hers, and as before, I was welcomed by a bunch of complex characters that kept me reading from start to finish. However, I was left with a bunch of mixed feelings : while I loved parts of it, some just didn’t click with me.
First of all, I absolutely adored the setting. I’m not much of a plane-person I’ll admit, but for the first time ever, I almost wanted to jump on a small plane and learn. Leah really had a passion for flying and I absolutely enjoyed learning about all aspects of it. It was so different! I felt like the author took a bit of a risk with this, but it worked. I love when authors innovate with unique passions and occupations for their characters!
And Leah was a great character and narrator. She’s complex, with a lot on her shoulders, and far enough from the typical shy-bookworm archetype to keep things interesting. Her point of view on life is hard and harsh yet sensible at times, too. I was rooting for her all along, and I hated how people used and treated her.
With all of this being said, my main problem with Such a Rush was the romance – and considering it’s at the center of it all, it was a bit of a huge problem. I liked neither Alex or Grayson, and was sort of disgusted by how Grayson used and treated Leah. I feel almost like an alien for saying this, considering all but one or two of my Goodreads friends seem to have been swooning over it, but I didn’t find the story romantic at all. I kept waiting for Leah to grow a backbone and tell them all off; instead, she fell even farther for Grayson. There’s something very wrong to me about the idea of young woman falling in love with the guy blackmailing her, and it being viewed as “okay”. It just doesn’t sit well with me and I found it to be very disappointing. It’s not even that I need my romance to be all rainbows and unicorns, but this one went a bit too far in the opposite direction for me.
I know I’m going a bit against the grain with this review, and that’s fine. I can see why so many readers love Such a Rush, even though I didn’t : Jennifer Echol’s writing is slow but it’s good, and she writes intriguing characters and if you make abstraction of all the icky threats, her romance writing is quite hot, too. I’m glad I gave the book a try, especially for all the aviation talk, but I wish I could have enjoyed it a bit more.
Hm, except for the setting, I’m not sure this is for me. I do love the cover, though.
I feel like the romance would annoy me as well, but I kind of still want to read it.
I used to try to rally around Echols’ books since she is a local girl, but I find her books to be exceedingly dull myself. I guess that you and I are in the minority. Great balanced review.