REVIEW: Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols

Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols

Published: July 10th, 2012 | MTV Books
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Format: Hardcover | 336 pages
Goodreads | Amazon | Author

A sexy and poignant romantic tale of a young daredevil pilot caught between two brothers.

When I was fourteen, I made a decision. If I was doomed to live in a trailer park next to an airport, I could complain about the smell of the jet fuel like my mom, I could drink myself to death over the noise like everybody else, or I could learn to fly.
Heaven Beach, South Carolina, is anything but, if you live at the low-rent end of town. All her life, Leah Jones has been the grown-up in her family, while her mother moves from boyfriend to boyfriend, letting any available money slip out of her hands. At school, they may diss Leah as trash, but she’s the one who negotiates with the landlord when the rent’s not paid. At fourteen, she’s the one who gets a job at the nearby airstrip.
But there’s one way Leah can escape reality. Saving every penny she can, she begs quiet Mr. Hall, who runs an aerial banner-advertising business at the airstrip and also offers flight lessons, to take her up just once. Leaving the trailer park far beneath her and swooping out over the sea is a rush greater than anything she’s ever experienced, and when Mr. Hall offers to give her cut-rate flight lessons, she feels ready to touch the sky.
By the time she’s a high school senior, Leah has become a good enough pilot that Mr. Hall offers her a job flying a banner plane. It seems like a dream come true . . . but turns out to be just as fleeting as any dream. Mr. Hall dies suddenly, leaving everything he owned in the hands of his teenage sons: golden boy Alec and adrenaline junkie Grayson. And they’re 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.

My thoughts:
Though I was reading Vessel, this was due back at the library on Tuesday, so I read it over the weekend in almost one sitting. It was definitely good enough for that, but like most books lately, I wasn't blown away, but I did really like the book.

Leah has lived in trailer parks next to airports her whole life and they became her way of escape, and finally she gets the opportunity to get flying lessons as well as work in a small airport. Her mother seems she couldn't care less about Leah or what she does and is always running in and out of her life, leaving the rent, electricity, food, and everything else for Leah to deal with. So...Leah does. All while trying to stay under the radar at school and avoid the name calling and ridicule.

When we're introduced to Leah, she's a 14 year old girl begging for a job and flight lessons at the airport just a short walk away. And by luck, the boss--Mr. Hall--pities her and gives her training she's been dying for. Jump three years later and she's 18 (yeah, the math doesn't make sense to me either, but that's what the book said, so let's go with it) and Mr. Hall and his oldest son die within a month of each other and the Hall twins, Grayson and Alec are left the airport hangar to take after their father.

Grayson is presumably the bad boy, while Alec is the good one. Like in every "great" book, right.
Leah has had a serious crush on Grayson since she met him when they were 14, but did nothing about it. And now that they're forced to work closely together she begins to see that he not only looks like a bad boy, but he is a bad boy. And, in my opinion not attractive one.
He blackmails her into continuing her flying for Hall Aviation and to also date Alec.

The things he says to her, and the way he words them honestly pissed me off. I'm not a huge fan of the bad boy in general, but I borderlined hated Grayson. Douchebag isn't the right word. But because Leah hadn't had much love or care in her life she didn't let it get to her as much as she should have. She went along with him, telling him, nonchalantly that she didn't want to do it, but he'd make some snide remark and that'd be the end of that. I was tired of him the more he was in the book.

I loved everything else about Leah, except for her views on Grayson. The way she thought, acted, her strength, everything. Except Grayson.

And then there's Leah's best (and only) friend Molly whom I adored from her first sentence, but then I began having mixed feelings about her too.

Alec, there wasn't much to say about him, because he wasn't in it very much and he wasn't really memorable.

Towards the end of the book we learn of Grayson's reason behind the blackmail and his feelings and blah blah.... I was over it. I was over him and the ending left me annoyed and frustrated.

The synopsis is kind of over exaggerated, and it's not really "sexy". There were times that involved being sexy, but it wasn't necessarily sexy.
I also had a problem with her writing, I felt like what she had in her head, she had a hard time trying to convey in the book and some sentences seemed very out of place.

Rating: 

Plot: 
Characters:
Ending: ½
Writing: ½
Cover: (She has curly hair in the book, and I do not like the way it is on the cover.)