Highway to the… Danger Zone! Gonna take you right into the Danger Zononnnee

Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols

The Skinny: Leah is the girl from the trailer park, super easy, trashy. Except she’s not. Not at all. Leah has grown up moving around from trailer park to trailer park with her dead-beat mom, who follows men that offer the promise of a job (or other things). The upside to living in the parks is their proximity to airports, and it is the park that is near a small airport in South Carolina that Leah gets her first rush of excitement. She takes a job at the airport and, after much saving and trickery, takes flying lessons from Mr. Hall. Over the next few years, Leah falls in love with flying and dreams of one day being a pilot, overcoming her past and rising above the life her mother carved out. When Mr. Hall dies, his two (gorgeous) twin sons Grayson and Alec take over the business. Grayson convinces Leah to fly for them – by holding one of her deepest secrets over her head, thereby blackmailing her to fly. His one condition is that Leah pretend to date his brother, claiming he has his reasons. But Leah has always had a crush on Grayson and soon finds herself in the middle of the two brothers.

BFF?: Leah was… is there another word for awesome? Because I use that one too much. She had a lot of personality traits that typically turn me off when I’m looking for a BFF, but there was something totally commendable about her drive to be better, to be successful and become a pilot. It always amazes me what people can do when they have that drive. Although I could understand her personality and attitude, I will say that sooooometimes her sarcasm and quick temper drove me a little nuts. But while she was rough around the edges and was sometimes a little clueless when it came to why men drooled over her, I still thought she was an excellent main character. So yeah… I could be BFFs with Leah. Although I may totally try to steal Grayson Hall from her.

Readability: I loved reading this one! It totally sucked me in and Leah’s voice was this great mixture of angsty teen, growing up too soon, and wit. There were parts that were slower but I never felt anything was actually slow. It’s been a long while since I read a book in one sitting, so I was extremely surprised (and super pumped) that I was so invested in this story and its writing.

Crush Level: Conditional 9
Loving that I’m coming across some total hottypants here lately! Grayson totally got my ladyparts heart a flutter, but as I said… he gets a CONDITIONAL 9. Here is the condition: drop the asshat thinking that this really awesome girl was boinking your dad to get free flying lessons. Because that kind of burned me up and it burned me up that Leah was still all into him after all of his accusations about how slutty she is. That being said, and if he drops that attitude (which he really does, hence the 9), he really was a great love interest. I think so often I want this prince charming as the love interest that is so over the top that it supports my fantasy guy theory. What I loved most about Grayson is that he was pretty real and made me remember that although 18 year old boys can be kind of douchy, but can still be really amazing. Not that I’m going after an 18 year old boy, it’s just been a while so I’ve kind of forgotten what they’re like.

Bonus Points:

Curly Blonde Hair

All throughout the book Leah mentions Grayson’s curly blonde hair and yeah… who else do we know who had curly blonde hair at 18? That’s right, ladies: JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE, HOLLA!

Airports/Airplanes

While I’ve never flown an airplane, I do love airports and think it would be such a cool job to work as a pilot or stewardess, getting to fly and such. I really loved the setting of the airport in Such a Rush and imagining what it was like. I’m pretty sure my thoughts of it are completely different from what it was supposed to look like, but it was still really fun to imagine!

Aviator Sunglasses

Everyone wore these things and now I want to rush out and get a pair! (true story: I did go out and buy a pair. Wore them all Saturday morning and sang “Danger Zone.”)

South Carolina Beach

I have this idea of what South Carolina is and imagine it’s this gorgeous, deep South setting full of polite people and charm. You know, Rhett Butler and all. Then I visited South Carolina’s beach, probably close to where Leah lived, and you know what? It was just as trashy and gross as Echols describes in her book.

Commencement Speech: Such a Rush is my first Jennifer Echols book and seriously, why haven’t I read more of her work?! I found it to be such a lovely, exciting, sexy book and felt a major sense of separation after finishing. It’s been a very long time since I’ve devoured a book like I did this one and it’s really made me excited to read again!That being said, I did find some things wrong with it; not so much the technical stuff, but more the characters. I didn’t like Leah’s friendship with Molly. I just didn’t. There were too many rules and issues with it that I couldn’t understand how they were actually friend. Molly just seemed kind of bitchy without really realizing it and Leah had a major chip on her shoulder when it came to Molly.

I also was not a huge fan of how Grayson treated Leah and how she kept having these intense feelings for him despite his insults. Any guy who calls me a whore or slutty gets dumped. Immediately. Granted, he didn’t actually come out and say these things, but he definitely implied that she was easy. Thank goodness he got over it because he’s total hottypants and I could not deal with it if he kept being mean to Leah.

Overall, loved Such a Rush. Love, love, loved it. I thought the concept was very unique and I loved getting to know this new world that was so close to home. Can’t wait to read more from Echols!

Yearbook Quote: “I squeezed the controls to brace myself so I wouldn’t shiver with the chill of wanting. Normal people got that feeling when they quit smoking cigarettes. I had gotten it then too.
Normal people did not get that feeling when faced with danger. “

Superlatives: Most likely to make you want to rush out and buy aviator sunglasses (like I did!)

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