REVIEW: Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols

Author: Jennifer Echols

Genre: Young Adult

Pages: 325

Publisher: MTV Books

Amazon: Such a Rush

Synopsis. (Goodreads)

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.

Review: 2 ½ out of 5 stars

I have been dying to get my hands on Such a Rush since I first saw it was being released and although I found it to be an engrossing read; there were a few aspects which didn’t sit well with me.

The first thing being our main protagonist Leah Jones, I admired her greatly for her determination, strength and optimism but the way she let people treat her was terrible. She grew up the daughter of a single mother who moved from one trailer park to the next until they ended up in a small beach town, her home alongside an airport.

Leah yearns to be a pilot, she is fascinated by planes and flying so gets a job working for Mr. Hall, he is not only her employer but also her mentor and father like figure; she respects and admires him and he eventually teaches her to fly. Mr. Hall has three sons, Jake and twins Alec and Grayson who couldn’t be more different and when tragedy strikes the Hall family, first with Jake's death whilst serving in Afghanistan followed soon after by Mr. Hall’s death Leah is wary of where her future lies.

Grayson and Alec agree to take over the business; Alec played the good guy role while Grayson seemed to be the wild child of the family but things change when he takes over; they are grieving but both in different ways. Leah isn’t so keen on staying in a job which doesn’t offer security but Grayson holds something over her which forces her to continue to fly the planes for them, this was the second thing I didn’t like – his bribery. The third being his attitude towards Leah, he would do something sweet for her one moment but he still treated her crappy and blackmailed her into trying to date his brother – I was stumped as to why and even more so because she went along with it, his convoluted reasoning had me shocked.

I felt Alec’s character was a tad underdeveloped and Grayson just didn’t sit right with me, if he cared for Leah as much as it was claimed he would have treated her with more trust and respect.

Now the last person I didn’t have a high opinion of was Leah’s supposed best friend Molly, she was Leah’s complete opposite – rich, popular, funny but became friends with her despite her thinking she had stolen her boyfriend, they don’t show their true feelings towards one another and when Leah was treated badly at a party, Molly told her to go sit outside; I was literally gaping when I read this. I am not sure what their friendship was based on but it didn’t appear to be honesty or compassion.

Now despite not liking all of the characters, I did enjoy the storyline. I loved that Leah was trying to make something of her life despite the many roadblocks she had encountered – I just wish at times she could have portrayed herself in a different way; I was perplexed by her behavior at times.

I haven’t read many books by Ms. Echols but I do enjoy her writing style which is crisp and exciting; the plot was interesting but unfortunately the characters weakened it for me and I at times found myself skimming parts to get to the dialogue.

Overall, Such a Rush wasn’t what I expected; it had a positive beginning and a few light twists and turns that I didn’t predict and a satisfying ending but I wanted so much more from the romance, the friendship and the way the social status aspect was dealt with.

This book has received some wonderful praise so please don’t let my opinion sway you from reading this book. Goodread Reviews