Completed: August 5, 2012
Source: Won in a giveaway from Lucy @ The Reading Date
Book Synopsis: 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.(Courtesy of GoodReads.com)
Breaking It Down Further: All of her life, Leah and her mother have lived in various trailer parks which always sat near airports. In the small town of Heaven Beach, SC, Leah gets one step closer to her dream of becoming a pilot when she begins working for a small banner advertising business and gets the courage to approach the owner, Mr. Hall, for flying lessons. Years later, after hundreds of hours in the air, Mr. Hall dies suddenly and his two sons Grayson and Alec come back from North Carolina to resume the family business. When Grayson blackmails her into not only flying for him but dating his brother, Leah has no choice but to stay with the Halls or else her life could be easily shredded to pieces.
Review: Well, I actually thought the beginning was just a liiiittle bit slow. I really did like how it started in pieces though. We got to go back to when Leah was 14 and just starts her job at the tiny airport and we get to know her and pieces of the Hall family. Mr. Hall was hands down one of my favorite characters, even in the wake of his death because his presence remains constant throughout the novel. He just seemed like such a positive force for Leah as well as the two Hall brothers (although not everyone comes to this conclusion at the same time) and we still see that even though we know he’s a flawed man.
I really liked how Leah wasn’t turned into “stereotypical trailer park” in the sense that she didn’t have to get saved by someone and pulled up out of poverty. The reason they were so poor was because of her mother, so I loved seeing how strong Leah is and the way she finds ways to live almost normally either with or without her mother. She really begins to create a life for herself and hates taking charity and will do so only when it’s no obvious or if she’s really in dire need. It would have been easy to set her character back even further than she already was so I’m glad the way everything turned out.
I was really hoping for Leah and Grayson’s relationship to pick up sooner than it did… I was really excited to see their whirlwind romance and it really didn’t come until later in the book. There were a lot of conflicting emotions and motives before either of them could come to terms with how they felt about each other so it took them a long time to finally confess everything and just be together already.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book! It was a very touching story, really memorable. I absolutely loved the plane/pilot/flying aspects of the story. It was really refreshing and something you just don’t see in a lot of YA lit or contemporary literature for that matter (at least what I’ve come across). It’s clear that Jennifer Echols really did her homework on how all the mechanics of flying worked. It was so enjoyable and I think that’s something that really held the book together so tightly as well.
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Really, really great story. I actually felt kind of like I was watching a movie instead of reading. I think almost anyone will read this and really enjoy it.
If You Liked This, You Might Like…
Where She Went by Gayle Forman- (My review here) This is actually the sequel to If I Stay (so read that one first!), but I love the way Adam and Mia reunite and it’s so familiar but so painful at the same time. That’s a little how I felt with Such a Rush. Loved the romances in both of these!
…OR…
Delirium by Lauren Oliver – I would hope fans of Delirium would feel the same longing pull of the relationship between Alex and Lena as Leah and Grayson. Delirium is another book that I just fell in love with the romance!
10 thoughts on “Such a Rush – Jennifer Echols”
I finished this one on Saturday – couldn\’t put it down! It\’s been so long since I\’ve had a book that I was completely absorbed by; totally bought two Echols books yesterday just because I loved Such a Rush so much! I agree that I wanted Leah and Grayson\’s relationship to develop sooner (so we could get to the swoony times!) but overall I felt just as satisfied with how it developed as it was. Great review and glad you loved it! Can\’t wait to review it myself just so I can gush!
I finished this one on Saturday – couldn’t put it down! It’s been so long since I’ve had a book that I was completely absorbed by; totally bought two Echols books yesterday just because I loved Such a Rush so much! I agree that I wanted Leah and Grayson’s relationship to develop sooner (so we could get to the swoony times!) but overall I felt just as satisfied with how it developed as it was. Great review and glad you loved it! Can’t wait to review it myself just so I can gush!
Yay, I can’t wait to see your review!!!
I really enjoyed Such a Rush. I loved the beginning and the scenes featuring Leah learning to fly. Some of the best scenes I’ve read, so real. I was a little disappointed in the romance. The whole pretending the date the brother was a little off -putting. Leah was a great character but Grayson not so much. 🙂
I agree! I was hoping for more of a “rush” with the romance too, but it took a long time and I was not pleased with the “date my brother” thing. Hmph. But I really did like how it ended, and I cannot get over the flying aspect! It made the book so special.
I agree that the beginning was a tad bit slow. And I loved how different Lea was from any other character I’ve read in YA. She was so strong and complex and I just loved her! ^__^ I actually gave Such a Rush a 4.5 too! 😀
Great review! 🙂
Yay I’m so glad you agree!! 🙂 I just loved the overall story.
I can’t decide if I want to read this one. I read Major Crush by Echols and LOVED it, but I hated Love Story. Hmm . . .
This was actually the first Echols book I’ve read and I really enjoyed it! I’ve been looking into Major Crush for a while too 🙂
I really, really enjoyed the flying/planes aspect of Such a Rush! I think that’s something that really made the book unique for me.