Dare You To by Katie McGarry

• Print Length: 470 pages
• Publisher: Harlequin Teen; Reprint edition (October 1, 2017)
• Publication Date: October 16, 2017

Book description:

"I dare you…" 

If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk's home life, they'd send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs—until the day her uncle swoops in, and Beth finds herself starting over at a school where no one understands her. Except for the one guy who shouldn't get her, but does. 

Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock—with secrets he can't tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the skater girl who couldn't be less interested in him. 

But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image is risking everything for the girl he loves, and the girl who won't let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all….

My thoughts: 

I had been feeling bad that I hadn't gotten around to reading this, McGarry's debut novel, or any of her other ones. Since Dare You To was first published in March, 2013, McGarry's published about NINE more books. Busy, busy author! 

But she has a similar formula for many of them, so I suppose it doesn't matter that I'm not reviewing her latest book (which has the same formula) but her first.  

So what is her formula? Frequently, she writes about a golden boy or girl who falls for forbidden fruit--a girl or boy from the wrong side of the tracks and whose parents and sometimes friends object to the match. 

Had I not been required to read Dare you To to fulfill an obligation to NetGalley, I would not have read past the first few pages. 

She is a good writer, and popular with teens. I do not object to McGarry's formula, but I do find her gritty writing style not my cup of tea. Prostitution ... drug dealing ... alcoholism ... physical abuse ... criminal behavior ... this book has it all. 

I am happy that McGarry redeemed Beth Risk, a parentified child, from her atrocious home life in the end, and that her mother and her mother's boyfriend were safely locked away in prison for years to come. 

It did seem a stretch that someone with Beth's background would make as many strides as she did in three short months' time, once she started living with her uncle and met (and fell in love with) golden boy Ryan Stone. 

In reality, I suspect Beth Risk would remain deeply damaged for many years instead. 

But it's a novel, and if you like gritty stories, you will probably love Dare You To and the rest of the books in the series. 

When Dimple met Rishi by Sandhya Menon

• Print Length: 384 pages
• Publisher: Simon Pulse (May 30, 2017)
• Publication Date: May 30, 2017

Book description: 

The rom-com everyone’s talking about! Eleanor & Park meets Bollywood in this hilarious and heartfelt novel about two Indian-American teens whose parents conspire to arrange their marriage.

Dimple Shah has it all figured out. With graduation behind her, she’s more than ready for a break from her family, from Mamma’s inexplicable obsession with her finding the “Ideal Indian Husband.” Ugh. Dimple knows they must respect her principles on some level, though. If they truly believed she needed a husband right now, they wouldn’t have paid for her to attend a summer program for aspiring web developers…right? 

Rishi Patel is a hopeless romantic. So when his parents tell him that his future wife will be attending the same summer program as him—wherein he’ll have to woo her—he’s totally on board. Because as silly as it sounds to most people in his life, Rishi wants to be arranged, believes in the power of tradition, stability, and being a part of something much bigger than himself. 

The Shahs and Patels didn’t mean to start turning the wheels on this “suggested arrangement” so early in their children’s lives, but when they noticed them both gravitate toward the same summer program, they figured, Why not? 

Dimple and Rishi may think they have each other figured out. But when opposites clash, love works hard to prove itself in the most unexpected ways.

My thoughts:

This was a cute rom-com about an arranged marriage between two Indian-American teens. Dimple wants nothing to do with guys, and especially not the one her parents arranged for her to marry. Instead, she wants to focus on attending college and later having a big, exciting career.

Rishi, on the other hand, is a dutiful son who finds comfort in traditions, down to choosing a (safe and boring) engineering career that his family would approve of, and approving of the girl his family chose for him to marry.

After a very cute meet, they become partners in a web-development project. Not much is said about the project, which would probably be boring anyway. Instead we see plenty of fun dates where they get to know each other better and fall in love.

True to every romance, their growing love for each other causes each to risk change and become a better person. Rishi is able to let go of being quite so much the dutiful son and grab on to becoming a Manga artist, which is what he truly desires instead of being an engineer. Dimple is able to see that there could be far more to life than sitting at a computer designing websites all day every day.

Have you read this book? What did you like best about it? Anything you didn't like?