Crash by Nicole Williams

After her family is uprooted by a tragedy, Lucy is off to a new school, in a new town, and all she wants to do is dance. Until she meets Jude. Resident bad boy, everyone has already written Jude off as a waste of space, but Lucy sees something more in him, and she's not about to give up on him like everyone else.

This book is an emotional rollercoaster. The writing is witty and funny, and I did laugh out loud like an idiot multiple times. But then it's also heartbreaking and sad and I broke down in tears at least twice. I'll admit that I stayed up until four in the morning reading this, and it tore me apart. So for those of you looking for a light read, don't pick up this book.

My first impressions of Lucy were pretty good. She saw a hot guy, and wanted his attention, so she got it. But when he opened his mouth and was a jerk, she decided it wasn't worth it. Unlike a lot of YA novels these days she didn't put up with his abuse, and seriously brushed him off. I liked that a lot. Further on in the book she also didn't cave. That's the thing, she's ridiculously stubborn. Sometimes I liked that, sometimes I didn't. By the end of the book I was pretty fed up with Lucy. She let Jude walk away too many times, and she didn't listen to him when he spoke. She has some major trust issues, and it bothered me that she never got over them.

"You can't be friends with the person you were meant to spend you life with."

Jude was funny but really sexy. However, I never got the really bad side to his character. Sure he gets angry at the drop of a hat, but he's never malicious. On the other hand, he actually was a bad boy, which was refreshing from all those bad boy wannabes that are in literature these days!

Something about Lucy's and Jude's relationship is extremely emotional and intense. Every word and action is carefully choreographed to draw you in and make you fall so deeply in love with them you feel like your heart is being ripped out. There are some really swoon-worthy scenes in this book, and it made me madder than hell that Lucy couldn't get over herself and just trust Jude.

"You didn't make me a better person, because no one can do that. You made me want to be a better person."

The only thing I really didn't like about this book, other than sometimes Lucy, was how much time it skipped. At the beginning it wasn't that bad, but then at the end the book just skips the entire school year and goes to graduation, and then it goes from graduation to the beginning of college. I hate it when main characters are away from each other like that, and the time skips just seemed like a cop out to me. I didn't like that Jude ignored her, and I didn't like that she let Jude walk away, and never tried to talk to him. This is what kept this book from five stars and my favorites shelf.

Although I may be bitter from the first two chapters of the second book (which by the way I'm not liking very much so far), this book really digressed from beginning to end for me. I wish it hadn't, because initially I really liked Lucy, and I loved her and Jude's relationship.

I hope that this series doesn't rip my heart out, because something I'm realizing about contemporary books these days, is that the authors love a tragedy.

Four Stars

Rosalie Williams

Crash on Goodreads