Review: Such a Rush

Author: Jennifer Echols
Date of Publication: July 10 2012
Pages: 325
Source: Mari- Epic Recs!

Heaven Beach, South Carolina, is anything but, if you live at the low-rent end of town. All her life, Leah Jones has been the grown-up in her family, while her mother moves from boyfriend to boyfriend, letting any available money slip out of her hands. At school, they may diss Leah as trash, but she’s the one who negotiates with the landlord when the rent’s not paid. At fourteen, she’s the one who gets a job at the nearby airstrip.

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 and also offers flight lessons, to take her up just once. Leaving the trailer park far beneath her and swooping out over the sea is a rush greater than anything she’s ever experienced, and when Mr. Hall offers to give her cut-rate flight lessons, she feels ready to touch the sky.

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 turns out to be just as fleeting as any dream. 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, reasons involving Alec. Now Leah finds herself drawn into a battle between brothers—and the consequences could be deadly.

Review:

I had heard wonderful things about Such a Rush for a long time. It was Mari who pushed me to read it as her Epic Recs for February. I went into the book having not read the synopsis, so I really had no idea what to expect beyond what other people kept telling me. Everyone said Such a Rush was amazing, and I guess I'm a little disappointed because it didn't really interest me all that much.

I don't often read contemporary romance but I have enjoyed a few... Dare You To comes to mind. I guess the thing that I require for the romances is for me to fall for the guy too. I don't feel like romances have super distinguishable plots (at least in my head) so to make it work, I have to adore the guy. I guess that never occurred in Such a Rush.

There's nothing wrong with Grayson. He is a good guy. He's just not a guy that I really connected with, and I don't know, I guess the story overall never really interested me.

Maybe it's my problem with romances, but really, did I for one second doubt what would happen? Such a Rush never surprised me and I hate guessing what happens. It wasn't unpredictable in the slightest, so as I was reading I knew the end result. That diminished my interest in the process because I didn't have that one character to grip my attention.

Then, the end was too easy. Everything gets resolved, everyone is happy, the girl gets the guy and they all live happily ever after. I guess when they were in conflict, I wondered how they would deal with it. But, the ending just felt weak to me because everyone almost instantly let go of their anger and I was left wondering where all this goodwill came from. The beginning before the spark dragged out, the foreplay was too short, and the ending was too fast.

I'm being overly picky right now, but that's because I was not invested in the story. Leah is a character I want to see succeed, but I didn't relate to her all that strongly. Plus, I'm a little irritated that everyone was either rich or poor. There were no middle-class characters, or even working class characters. The mean girls were mean for what seemed like no reason. There was an unnatural amount of douchebaggish guys.

I'm analyzing the story too much. Mari told me to just enjoy it, but I can't. It was a light story, and I guess normal teen contemporaries don't work with me unless they're emotional.

I will try to think of some positives to Such a Rush. The airplanes were cool. I admired Leah's passion for them. I also loved Leah's comfort with being herself. She was feisty and independent.

On another note, what in the world is the cover? It doesn't fit this book at all! The cover looks a little dystopian, maybe even paranormal while Such a Rush is totally light contemporary.

It took me a week to read Such a Rush and when I finished, I was excited because I could move on to another book. Full disclosure that this week I have an awful cold and I read the second half of Such a Rush with a headache. Maybe I psyched myself out of this book. Either way, it just isn't my type of read. 2 stars.

-P.E.