I usually start off my reviews with my first reaction after finishing a book, but with Kick, Push that would be very inappropriate. I cursed her. Very badly. Very very badly. And I’m mad at her. But that’s besides the point.
Jay McLean ripped my heart out, put it back in, put a band aid over it, made it grow a scab, ripped it off, stomped on it, and left it hanging waiting to beat again. She had me laughing with the characters, laughing at the characters, crying for them, wishing with them and hurting for them all within the pages of one book. She played with my emotions and made me wish for things that right now, didn’t come true. But in the end, she wrote one hell of a book, that like Where the Road Takes Me, are in my top 5 of 2015. And very much in my top 10 of my all time favorite books. She is the puppet master to my emotions. And she plays with them very well.
While it isn’t necessary to read Where the Road Takes Me before Kick Push, it is where we first meet Josh. You learn his background story. Maybe not in depth but you know that he is a single teen father to Tommy. And Tommy is his life. I admired Josh a lot when I first met him. But after reading Kick Push, Josh is the strongest male character I have ever read. What he has gone through and what he continues to go through, throughout the entire book is very real life. Is it fictionalized? Of course. But it is something you could very much see happening.
Jay McLean ripped my heart out, put it back in, put a band aid over it, made it grow a scab, ripped it off, stomped on it, and left it hanging waiting to beat again. She had me laughing with the characters, laughing at the characters, crying for them, wishing with them and hurting for them all within the pages of one book. She played with my emotions and made me wish for things that right now, didn’t come true. But in the end, she wrote one hell of a book, that like Where the Road Takes Me, are in my top 5 of 2015. And very much in my top 10 of my all time favorite books. She is the puppet master to my emotions. And she plays with them very well.
While it isn’t necessary to read Where the Road Takes Me before Kick Push, it is where we first meet Josh. You learn his background story. Maybe not in depth but you know that he is a single teen father to Tommy. And Tommy is his life. I admired Josh a lot when I first met him. But after reading Kick Push, Josh is the strongest male character I have ever read. What he has gone through and what he continues to go through, throughout the entire book is very real life. Is it fictionalized? Of course. But it is something you could very much see happening.
And Becca. Becca is very much a mystery throughout the entire book. You know she’s been through something. You know she has difficulties. But you don’t learn about her, really learn about her, until close to the end of the book. And by then you’re invested. Nothing could be that bad. No way would an author tell you about a character towards the end and rip your heart out and have you think it will all be ok by the end. But guess what? Jay McLean does that. You know that Becca had it rough. You know her home life wasn’t a happy one. But I couldn’t imagine anything like what I read. And once you read it, everything starts coming together. It makes sense. And you start hoping and wishing that it works out.
Jay McLean takes simple words, put them together into a complex story and makes magic happen. She uses her powers to play with your mind and your emotions. You expect one thing and she turns it around, puts it upside down and backwards, and gives you something you never expected. And she excels at that. I never read one of Jay’s books before Where the Road Takes Me and she hooked me. With Kick Push, she reeled me in even farther. And I will always read her pure, simple, complex magical words.
~Katie
Jay McLean takes simple words, put them together into a complex story and makes magic happen. She uses her powers to play with your mind and your emotions. You expect one thing and she turns it around, puts it upside down and backwards, and gives you something you never expected. And she excels at that. I never read one of Jay’s books before Where the Road Takes Me and she hooked me. With Kick Push, she reeled me in even farther. And I will always read her pure, simple, complex magical words.
~Katie