Author: Lisa McMann
Series: Visions (1)
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Release Date: 08 January 2013
Date Read: March 2013
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
If what you see is what you get, Jules is in serious trouble. The suspenseful first of four books from the New York Times bestselling author of the Wake trilogy.
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.
Actual Rating: 2.5 stars
Jules sees visions of a truck crashing onto a building, causing a fire and killing ten people. She can try to ignore it but the visions will only get worse, increasing in its intensity and frequency until Jules has no option but to try and stop the event from happening. There is no explanation why and how Jules sees her visions. Nada. Is it because she's the chosen one? Is she like the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter of an ancient magician? Did she get bitten by a spider? Does she have a crystal ball in her head instead of a brain? No one knows. It doesn't seem like McMann knows it herself, to be honest. The mystery and the thrill of Crash focused on the sense of urgency Jules had to solve the clues of her visions. I admit, I was curious as to how the visions would play out.
This surprised me with a funny narrative. I found myself chuckling at the unexpected humour, at Jules' all-too familiar, and quite realistic teenage girl voice. And what teenage experience doesn't come with the unrequited love? Jules Demarco has been in love Sawyer Angotti since they were kids. But her secret love for Sawyer is forbidden because their families are mortal enemies. Someone stole the other family's tomato sauce recipe two generations ago and now they still hate each other. It's some weird Romeo and Juliet thing that was borderline creepy because she just obsessed over Sawyer. Should we excuse her stalking because she was working hard to try to save Sawyer and his restaurant. Yes? No?
I loved reading about Jules' siblings and familial relationships. She's doesn't really have that many friends- actually she has no friends- so she's closest to her older brother Trey, and her younger sister, Rowan, was just as cool. You can really see the bond between the three of them, helping each other with their family business and their parents.
There are a lot of quite serious issues that Crash tries to tackle but I don't think it was addressed that well. Depression, physical abuse, mental instability, adultery and I think it was just handled too lightly.
I'll give the second book a go, since I've liked McMann's previous works. I'm giving you another chance, McMann. You should feel special and don't disappoint.
Title: Crash
