Review: Such a Rush

Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols

Release: July 10, 2012

Source: Purchased 

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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.

I went into Such a Rush, not knowing what to expect. I knew it was about planes and I knew that it was a contemporary romance. That was it.

The book opens up with a young Leah Jones, who recently moved to Heaven Beach. Her mother (who I hated, btw) follows her guys around. They promise her one thing or another, and blindly, she believes them. Leah's not impressed and has gotten used to spending nights alone in the trailer or working in the office at Hall Aviation.

And it's the job at Hall Aviation that sparks, in Leah, a love for flying.

But Leah is doubtful that her mother would approve (and besides, she's not around to sign the papers for lessons). So, Leah decides to forge her mother's signature, and thus begins her flying lessons.

Fast forward a couple of years, and things have changed. Mr. Hall looses his eldest son, and then loses his life. This leaves the two younger brothers, Alec and Grayson, to run Hall Aviation. Soon enough, Leah finds herself entangled in a family mess that includes romance, back-stabbing, and drama. Echols did a great job making the drama very real. It's not over-the-top, but it was enough to keep me glued to the pages. It was enough to keep me reading.

And yes, there is a love triangle, but it's rather atypical. Instead of "which boy should I choose", it's "do I go to the boy I truly love or the boy that will keep me from loosing my wings". I really appreciated this approach, and it definitely seemed more realistic...

One thing I didn't understand, though, was how Leah managed to live in Heaven Beach for 3/4 years. With her mom moving all the time, one would think that they would have moved already. At least, that's the impression I got. It's a minor issue, but one that kept popping up in the back of my mind.

The other issue I had was in regard to Leah's crush on Grayson. He's kind of a jerk in the beginning. I don't see how she could crush on him from afar, but I suppose that's the beauty of individuality. People have different opinions and tastes. Regardless of how their infatuation started, I definitely grew to love Leah and Grayson together. There was one character, though, who almost ruined the book for me: Molly, Leah's "best friend". Molly has no sense of tact. Sure, she's honest, but she's brutal and seems to get away with all her rather insensitive comments. I really didn't like her, and I'll leave it at that.

Overall, though, I really enjoyed this book. It's my first read by Echol's and I'll definitely be checking out her other books.

RATING: 4 SLICES