Pushing The Limits

Pushing the Limits (2012), a young adult romance novel by Katie McGarry, has received several accolades from critics and readers. It was a 2013 ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Readers and was also short-listed for a Reviewer’s Choice Award by RT Magazine and a Goodreads Choice Award.

The main characters are Echo Emerson and Noah Hutchins, two troubled high school students. Echo has recently lost her beloved older brother, while Noah is a foster child with plans to adopt his two younger siblings as soon as he turns eighteen. Echo expresses a desire to make some money so she can restore the classic car her brother was working on before his death. This leads to her being asked to tutor Noah, who wants to make sure that he does well on his SAT and ACT exams to increase his chances of being allowed to adopt his brothers.

Noah has a reputation around the school for sleeping with girls and then dumping them. Though Echo is confident of her ability to resist his charms, she is also nervous about her reputation. Once a popular student, Echo withdrew from all her friends two years previously following a traumatic event. Her arms have been scarred ever since, but she cannot remember the details of what happened to her.



At their first tutoring session, Noah attempts to storm out of the room. Echo moves to stop him, and Noah sees her scars. Since the scars are not common knowledge at school, Echo is worried that Noah will gossip about her. Her best friend, Lila, encourages her to take control of the rumor, but Echo refuses because she is concerned about her lost memories. However, the girls are surprised when Noah keeps what he knows to himself.

Despite their differences, Echo and Noah decide to work together to achieve their goals. During the course of one of their tutoring sessions, they hatch a plan to help both of them. Echo knows that the file containing the details of how she got her scars is in the school social worker’s office. There is also a file containing information on the foster home where Noah’s brothers live. The two plan to break in to steal the information they need.

While they hatch their plan, the two young people grow closer. The book hinges on unreliable narration from both Echo and Noah, and as the narrative progresses, it becomes clear that the way they perceive their worlds and each other does not always line up with objective reality.



Both have mistaken ideas of the other’s life and personality. Echo, like most people at the school, thinks of Noah as a troublemaking loser who uses drugs and mistreats his many girlfriends. For his part, Noah sees Echo as a privileged, popular girl without legitimate problems. The more they learn about each other, the more they realize that their previous impressions are incorrect. Echo is actually a troubled girl trying hard to overcome former trauma. Noah is, in fact, a former honor student who was once popular and well-adjusted before losing his parents.

As each realizes what the other is really like, they gradually begin to fall for each other, though social pressure prevents them from being together. Echo’s popularity is once again on the upswing, and she is afraid that being involved with someone like Noah will damage it, making her an outcast again. Noah, very taken by Echo, is worried that he will not be able to treat her right because of his unstable past and living situation.

However, as the two begin to learn more about their situations, they are there to support each other. Echo discovers that her scars are from when her mentally-ill mother tried to murder her in a depressive episode. What she once took for controlling and over-protective behavior on the part of her father and his new girlfriend is the adults’ attempt to keep her safe from her mother. Noah gives her much needed comfort during the process of recovering her memories.



Echo uses her leverage with the school social worker to help arrange home visits for Noah and his brothers. Noah finds out that, unlike his own foster parents, his brothers’ parents are loving and kind. They had restricted visits by Noah in order to protect the younger boys. Noah is forced to concede that his brothers are better off in their new home and not under his care. Fortunately, Echo provides him with the sense of family he has been missing.

At the end of the novel, Noah and Echo are very much in love. They both enroll in college but decide to spend their summer touring the country, leaving all their problems behind for a while.