The Cop and the Blue-Haired Chick

Going Too Far by Jennifer EcholsGoing Too Far by Jennifer Echols
Publisher: MTV Books
Number of pages:  245
My copy: paperback, bought from National Bookstore

How far would you go?

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…

* * *

I’ve read glowing reviews about this book from different book blogs I frequent. Again, I’m sort of kind of hesitant with getting impulse buy books because I’ve had a bit of bad experiences with them. But when I saw this book, I decided to get it. I thought, “Why not?”

I’m just really glad the impulse buy was worth it. :)

Going Too Far is about Meg the rebel and John the cop, who get to spend time together as a punishment to Meg for going to the forbidden railroad tracks. Meg just wants to have fun, and to make the last of her weeks in the small town go by fast, while John is serious about his responsibilities as a cop and has a huge fixation on the railroad tracks. As the two of them spend time together, they get to know more about each other, and yeah, eventually fall in love.

But it’s not a typical boy-meets-girl, Stockholm Syndrome type of story. I’d have to agree with the other reviews I read about this book: it’s a novel full of issues. It’s not really dark/deep issues — they’re real life issues that could happen to anyone, and that explains why Meg and John are doing what they were doing. These issues were slowly fleshed out, in a way that I didn’t see them coming. I had to back up a few lines to make sure I read them right, and then went back to the story, wanting to know more.

While I didn’t stay up late to finish this book in one sitting, I was hooked in the story. I wanted to know what happened, I want to know how they’d end up together, and how they would settle the leaving thing. The ending was satisfying, and hopeful, and you know things will somehow work out for the both of them.

Oh, and even if this is an “issue book”, it was refreshing to read that it didn’t have too dark/issue-dwelling tones. I’m not sure how to describe it, but the storytelling did not depress me even as I found out the characters’ issues.  There were certain dialogues in the novel that reminded me that it’s a young adult novel, and it somehow lightened the overall mood.

Going Too Far is a good book — it’s not exactly a favorite, but I do recommend this book for those who want good, realistic teen fiction.

Rating: [rating=3]

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