I (Finally) Read Crash by Lisa McMann

Crash 
by Lisa McMann
Published by Simon Pulse
on January 8, 2013

Summary from Goodreads: 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.

Welcome to the second installment of my end-of-the-year feature I Finally Read This! If you missed the first installment in which I read the Program by Suzanne Young, the way it works is this: I pick a 2013 release that I have still not read, I interview myself about why I haven't read it, and then I tell you what I thought. Here goes….

How Long Did It Take Me To Read This Book? About eleven months and two weeks.

Why Didn't I Read It Sooner? I think I had Lisa McMann confused with another YA author named Lisa Schroeder, who writes books in verse. So I thought this was in verse. Also, I sort of have a love/hate relationship with covers that have giant eyeballs on them.

What (Finally) Made Me Pick It Up? Sara @ Forever 17 reviewed Crash, the second book in the series -- yes, another book in the series has come out in the time it took me to read the first -- and that convinced me that a) this book was not written in verse and b) I might like it.

My take: Crash was a snappy, fun little book. I say "little" because the book was 233 pages. (I won't lie -- that was also a factor in my picking it up -- I have a Goodreads challenge to finish in 5 days!)

Crash is a paranormal-ish suspense story about a girl who is seeing a vision of a terrible accident and wants to stop it before it happens. That's pretty much it, and I loved that. Sometimes it seems like YA books try to cram too much plot in -- twists and reveals and sleight of hand -- leaving me wishing for just a good, straightforward story. That's what Crash offered.

My absolute favorite thing about the book was the adorable yet realistic story world that the author has created. The main character, Jules, is the daughter of a pizzeria owner and in love with Sawyer, the son of a rival pizzeria owner. And by "rival," I don't mean friendly competitor. The two families hate each other.  I loved the fact that Jules and Sawyer are the Romeo and Juliet of the pizza world. I also loved Jules' family -- they definitely have their issues, but they seemed like a real family, bickering and loyal.  Jules was a hilarious character -- her narration had me laughing out loud, like when she keeps trying to crack jokes and they just fall flat. The one character who felt a little underdeveloped to me was Sawyer. Because of the whole rivalry thing, he can't be a big part of the book at first, and I had to take Jules' word for how amazing he was. By the end, I got a little better sense of him, but he didn't seem quite as charmingly flawed as Jules and her family. (And I am absolutely certain that his last name was Agnotti just so someone could call him Hottie Agnotti.)

Crash is a great book if you're looking for something that's the equivalent of a hot, cheesy slice of pizza -- a quick yet satisfying bite that might just leave you craving more. Crash could be read as a standalone, but, as I mentioned above, there is a second book, Bang, that takes the vision premise and puts a new spin on it. For more on that, check out Sara's review, linked up above!