Book Review: Crash

Crash (Visions #1)

By: Lisa McMann

Published By: Simon Pulse

Publication Date: January 8, 2013

Page Count: 256

Buy it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or IndieBound

Source: Purchased by Reviewer

Audience: Young Adult - Paranormal 

There was so much that I loved about this book. Jules, the protagonist, is just the kind of girl I'd like to hang out with. She's a sweetie - she works all hours in the family Italian restaurant and complains that she smells like pizza. She drives the family meatball truck to school, complete with giant balls on the roof, and she puts up with all the comments that go with that gracefully. She has a mentally unstable father, her mom refuses to admit anything is wrong, her gay brother is also her best friend (and shares her taste in men) and her little sister is just so capable its scary. 

Her family is also feuding with the family that run the other Italian franchise in town, which sucks for Jules because she's been in love with their son, Sawyer Angotti, since she was in first grade. She can't talk to Sawyer without incurring the wrath of her father, and so she has to make do with her pillow. Life gets even harder for Jules when she starts experiencing a vision of an explosion repeatedly in screens she looks at, pages of books, reflections in windows... and its a vision that ends with Sawyer in a body bag. Jules knows she needs to do something about it, but she has no idea how to, and she isn't sure if she is just going crazy like her dad. 

I really enjoyed reading Jules' attempts to rationalize her vision, and how she tried to bridge the rift with Sawyer, while dying of embarrassment. I loved her lists of "five reasons why...", and I really liked how those lists were sunk into the narrative as a style break. I think that's my favorite thing about Lisa McMann - she writes in different styles from book to book, but I always find it fresh and exciting, just like her ideas. I loved the Wake trilogy and how spartan it was; Crash was another style again - first person perspective but somehow still quite different from other examples of that style. Jules' voice was so clear and amusing to me... she is forthright and unashamed. I feel like she is a very honest character and that was endearing. 

One of my favorite things about Crash was a small touch, which made me grin from ear to ear. On a couple of occasions the text involves a word which was more advanced. An asterisk was placed next to it, but when I looked to the footnotes it said "look it up". I just LOVED that! It added a sense of humor and fun to the passage. It rounded out Jules' voice to me, as it felt like a friend had just refused to dumb down for the reader. Plus, one of the words was just fabulous and I've been telling loads of people about it this week! 

I really can't wait for the next installment of the Vision series, Bang. Jules is a character that I have a lot of time for, and I am really interested to read more about her and Sawyer. 

Summary:

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 shesees. 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.

In this riveting start to a gripping series from New York Times bestselling author Lisa McMann, Jules has to act—and act fast—to keep her vision from becoming reality.