Book Review: Walk The Edge

Author: Katie McGarry
ISBN: 9781760371814
RRP: $19.99

Katie McGarry has written another fabulous book that gripped me from the start, made me fall in love with her characters and broke my heart at their pain.

Walk The Edge is the second in the Thunder Road series and tells Razor’s story, a story that was definitely required because Razor was a fascinating secondary character in the first book, Nowhere But Here. Razor, aka Thomas Turner, is the young Reign of Terror member who is not only walking the edge but living on the edge, he is the member even club members are wary of.

Razor is a patched member of the Reign of Terror, seventeen and in his final year of high school. The club is his family and his life and he can’t imagine ever walking away, but he needs answers to questions that have been haunting him for years and he’s afraid of what they might be. He’s a quiet one, trapped in his head with his demons for too long and now doesn’t talk much even to his closest friends.

Reign of Terror are a legit club, this is a common refrain from Razor but it seems perhaps even he is beginning to have his doubts. They aren’t into illegal dealings or drugs but they do things their own way, they have their own code and their own rules, and the town of Snowflake aren’t fans.

Razor is a smart kid, smart enough for some accelerated learning programs but that isn’t widely known information. He’s been hearing rumours about himself, his family and his club for as long as he can remember. There’s nothing he hasn’t heard before and he is beyond being surprised by any of the stories.

Breanna Miller is the super smart girl who has spent much of her time at high school invisible, because it’s better than being freaky smart and laughed at. She’s decided that senior year is going to be her year, she’s sick of hiding. She arrives at orientation dressed differently and it certainly gets her noticed, though not in a way that she’s comfortable with.

To top it off she is then left stranded at the school, forgotten in the family rush of pick ups and drop offs. Breanna is the middle child and she really does have that middle child thing going on, it doesn’t help that she’s in the middle of 9. She’s not old enough to fit in with her 4 older siblings and she’s stuck with a lot of the day to day taking care of her younger 4 siblings. She’s the ultimate good girl who is always trying to make sure everyone is happy and well, often sacrificing what she might like to take care of the kids.

The SOS text message she sends out to all of her family to say she’s been left at school and is now alone with members of Reign of Terror gets hijacked into a session of teasing Breanna while she sits on the steps of the school alone, scared witless of the MC members working on Razor’s bike. Demonstrating his chivalrous side Razor approaches to check that she’s ok and make sure she isn’t left alone once his bike is running, and Breanna reacts from the rumours she’s heard rather than what’s in front of her. Her brother reacts even worse when he finally arrives.

There is so much more to both of these characters than anyone around them understands, much more than we can begin to imagine until all the pieces slowly come together throughout the story. The two start spending more and more time together, because of the extra credit classes at school as well as other things they are working on, and they find an understanding and a similarity they have never before shared.

Razor often talks about the club as one big family, always looking out for each other and being very close. Breanna is less than convinced, she comes from a big family and in her experience that’s not what family is like. I think Breanna needed to come from such a big family to show the two very different big families, an only child or one of only a couple of siblings wouldn’t have had that experience of a big family to be able to relate to.

McGarry addresses some pretty huge issues in Walk The Edge from bullying, blackmail, defamation, self harm, mental health, family pressures and the effect that your cyber presence can have on the prospects for your future to one of my personal favourites which is the depths of people that are never noticed when judging by appearances, the pain people could be dealing with that you don’t know about because you’re so busy judging on the rumours being spread.

One of the things I think I love the most about the Thunder Road series is that it takes us beyond the patch of a Motorcycle Club, behind the rumble of the Harleys and shows that these members are still just people with families and jobs. Yes, some of their codes and bylaws are way beyond the realms of accepted behaviours outside the club and yes in a lot of ways they are sexist, chauvinistic pigs but they also hurt, they bleed, they love and they will die to protect their family.

Walk The Edge takes us a little deeper into the role women play in the club, or don’t. Razor made sure he was very clear about what happens and what goes on, what anyone involved with him would be getting themself into to ensure that they know what they’re getting into because if it’s going to come down to a choice the club will always win.

Thunder Road drags me further in the more I read and I can not wait to see what is to come in the next book in the series, hopefully it won’t be too far away.

To learn more about Katie McGarry and her work you can find her on Twitter, Facebook and her Website.

Walk The Edge is available now through Harlequin Teen, Angus & Robertson Bookworld, Booktopia and all good booksellers.

Michelle

I devour books, vampires and supernatural creatures are my genre of choice but over the past couple of years, I have broadened my horizons considerably. In a nutshell – I love to write! I love interacting with a diverse range of artists to bring you interviews. Perhaps we were perfect before – I LOVE WORDS!