Becky View: Crash by Lisa McMann

Crash by Lisa McMann
♦publisher: Simon Pulse
♦release date: January 8th, 2013
♦hardcover, 256 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦series: Visions, book 1
♦source: from publisher for honest review

Jules lives with her family above their restaurant, which means she smells like pizza most of the time and drives their double-meatball-shaped food truck to school. It’s not a recipe for popularity, but she can handle that.

What she can’t handle is the recurring vision that haunts her. Over and over, Jules sees a careening truck hit a building and explode...and nine body bags in the snow.

The vision is everywhere—on billboards, television screens, windows—and she’s the only one who sees it. And the more she sees it, the more she sees. The vision is giving her clues, and soon Jules knows what she has to do. Because now she can see the face in one of the body bags, and it’s someone she knows. Someone she has been in love with for as long as she can remember.

Review:  It never ceases to amaze me how much emotional wallop Lisa McMann can pack into her novels.  It just goes to show, a novel doesn't have to be epically long to hit you right in the heart.  Apparently, this novel was not for everyone, so says the surprisingly low reviews I've seen on Goodreads, but I'm here to tell you...I LOVED THIS BOOK. 

Jules has a smart and incredibly humorous voice.  Kind of what you'd expect from a city girl, growing up in a lively Italian family, working in the family restaurant and driving around town in a food truck topped with two giant meatballs (yes, so many great jokes made at this poor truck's expense).  She calls it like she sees it, has a bit of a mouth on her, and loves to make mental lists when things tick her off.  When she starts seeing the visions, she doesn't know what to make of them.  When they start to take over her life, she knows she has to do something to stop the crash.  I love that after a while she just sort of gives in and owns her crazy.  She decides, I may be insane and no one believes me, but just in case I'm not, I'm going for it.  I loved that so much. She decides that not trusting herself is not worth what she could lose, so she makes a no-holds-barred run toward saving lives, towards changing fate, and towards love. 

The love story has a bit of a Romeo & Juliet feel to it, without the super tragic ending and with so much more going on beneath the surface.  Jules and Sawyer were best friends when they were very little, until they found out they were from rival family businesses.  Lots of bad blood going all the way back to their grandfathers.  Then one day, Sawyer stops talking to Jules, and she never knows why---but she never stops caring for him.  There are moments when I thought, ugh, maybe she should stop; but then you get his side and it's a bit of a suckerpunch to the heart.  Oh, what these two families have done to their kids.  And speaking of families, one of my favorite things about Crash was the relationship between Jules and her two siblings, Trey and Rowan.  Yay for siblings who get along, who have each others backs through everything! Really hoping for more of those two in the second book!

The plot is incredibly fast-paced, as Jules unravels the mystery of the crash, clue by clue.  You can feel the time ticking down as her vision bombards her every moment and starts to wear her sanity thin.  Oh, and that ending---exciting and satisfying and romantic.

Lisa McMann impresses me yet again with a riveting, surprising, and fun story.

Find Lisa McMann online:  Website  •  Twitter  •  Facebook

Purchase Crash:  Amazon  •  BN.com  •  BookDepository  •  Indiebound

Cover and title for Book 2 has been revealed!! Check it out: