“GOING TOO FAR” REVIEW

Camila

“Going too far” is a book written by Jennifer Echols, an awarded American writer of romantic fiction for young adults, and it was published by MTV Books, a division of Simon & Schuster. The book  was a finalist in RITA, the National Reader's Choice Award and was also nominated by the American Library Association as the Best Book for Young Adults.

The plot talks about Meg, a seventeen-year-old girl that lives in Shelby County, a small town in Alabama, and all she wants is to go away and get into college in Birmingham, a town not so far from there. When she was thirteen, she had leukemia and almost died, furthermore, this made her turn into a problematic teenager that first, uses marijuana. Secondly, she dyes her hair blue, which is an emotional sequel of the disease, besides her claustrophobia. Thirdly, she is involved with Erik, who is a drug dealer. All of this takes us to the forth point, which is her difficult relationship with her parents.

At the beginning of the story Meg, Erik and two friends invade a public property, a railroad bridge, and as a result, they are caught and arrested by John After, a young, severe policeman who passed through a traumatizing experience involving that bridge, and doesn’t intend to leave the town. So, as a means to punish and to teach them to value their lives, John forces them to pass through an experience that changes their lives. Meg has to spend a week patrolling with the police patrol, while her friends stay with the ambulance and the fire department’s vehicle.  As John and Meg are patrolling together, they start to know each other, get involved and experience moments of love, hatred, fun, strong emotions and choking discoveries about each other, which make both think if it is enough to stop her from leaving town or to make him leave it.

 It is a novel book for young-adults, but almost anyone can read it, except children, because it talks about several strong themes such as drugs, sex, love, disease and death. However, this variety of themes is one of the reasons why it a very good book. “Going too far” makes you both laugh and cry. You’ll get involved by its easy writing, moreover, it´s a short book,  good for readers that feel intimidated by a long one. What make this book special is that although it’s a novel, “Going too far” is not all syrupy and purely fictionalized, it isn’t about perfect people that fall in love, but emotionally hurt people that find each other in a totally unusual way, and thus find themselves. It talks about real problems, recoveries and respect for life.

I’d recommend this book because it is surprising. It is written in such a way that we have no idea how it is going to end. It can have a happy end or not. We don’t know. It’s difficult to say because the characters are so emotionally broken that they become unpredictable. It’s difficult to know if their feelings for each other are going to be enough to make them stay together no matter what, and nothing is what we think at first. It’s interesting that you create a link with the characters, so that as Meg is discovering John’s secrets and her feelings about him, we’re doing it too. Therefore, it’s very exciting.