Dare You To by Katie McGarry

A blurb from the author's webpage

If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk's home life, they'd send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom's freedom and her own happiness. That's how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn't want her and going to a school that doesn't understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn't get her, but does....
Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can't tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn't be less interested in him.
But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won't let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all....

My Take

Beth and Ryan definitely seem at odds in the beginning.  Those situations always make for the best stories though.  Beth is cast as an outsider from the beginning.  Interestingly though, she does have a friend there but it’s also Beth’s internal feelings of being an outsider that make her distance herself from everyone.  I liked the characters in this book.  They were a group of close-knit kids.  It was interesting to see how they differed from the inner city kids where Beth had come from.  They were all close-knit, all just kids, but with very striking differences in some ways.  I’m giving this one 4 daring kisses!