Going Too Far »

Jennifer Echols is the author of several Romantic Comedies, as well as many other young adult novels. She currently lives in Birmingham. Visit her on the web at www.jennifer-echols.com.

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....

The Barnes & Noble Review

Like everyone in the world, I remember adolescence clearly -- and mostly with horror. It’s not the moments of humiliation that haunt me in the middle of the night, but piercing memories of mistakes I made: errors in judgment, ethical missteps, selfish unkindness. I could have been a case study for research proving that adolescent brain development (or the lack thereof) leads to reckless, foolish decisions. So when I decided to read all the 2009 finalist entries in the Young Adult (YA) category for the RITA, romance’s most prestigious prize, I was curious about how realistic they would be. Would these six heroines engage in anything that I -- or at least my memories of myself -- would recognize?

They do. In fact, all of these novels do a brilliant job depicting a young adult’s scrambled thinking and -- even better -- the first sign of the maturity that scientists promise will eventually occur. Here, the road to love is littered with risk-taking behavior.

Jennifer Echols’s Going Too Far is similarly built around a Romeo and Juliet theme -- but in a neat reversal of Perfect Chemistry's setup, it’s good boy meets bad girl. Meg is a senior in high school with blue hair and one wish: to get far, far away from the small town she’s grown up in. But one night she ends up in the hands of a cop named John. If Meg is eager to throw away her past, John is holding on to his all too tightly. Skipping college, he’s devoted himself to making sure their little town stays safe. They both make the kind of mistakes that make you wonder how the human race survived so long, but at the same time this novel is so sweet and fresh that you’ll almost -- almost -- wish you could do it all over again.

If you happen to be a young adult yourself, or you know a young lady who might be interested, you can’t do better than buy these books. As the mother of a tween, I know how hard it can be to find YA books that appeal to a young girl and don’t horrify the woman with a credit card in hand. Far too many books aimed at this age group are little more than candy floss tales of conspicuous consumption. These novels will satisfy both of you.

--Eloisa James