Crash Into Someone Else Please, You Creep Me Out!

Expected Publication:  January 8th, 2013
Crash (Visions # 1)
By: Lisa McMann
Simon Pulse
ISBN-13:  9781442403918


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.

Review

 

     Jules doesn't mind driving the food truck to school most of the time - even with the meatballs on top.  Sure, it doesn't increase her popularity but that's not what she cares about.  The only thing that really bothers her is being ignored by Sawyer Andretti, her ex-friend and son of her family's greatest rivals.  Sawyer's family stole her Grandpa's family recipe and caused him to kill himself.  Their success has only damaged her family even more, with her Dad stuck in a crippling depression (although there is more to that story than what Jules knows) and addiction to hoarding. When Jules begins to see visions of a fiery explosion at the Andretti family restaurant in all the reflective surfaces around her.  The truly scary part happens to be the nine body bags in the snow, one of which holds Sawyer.  Pretty sure she's going crazy, Jules enlists the help of her siblings anyway and begins to try and prevent the accident from happening.  But with the Andrettis unwilling to listen to her, even Sawyer, what can Jules do that will keep people from dying and maybe even cause the feud to simmer down a little bit?  Will she succeed, or will one of the body bags hold Jules herself?  So, my major problem with this book was the problem I've had with most of Lisa McMann's YA stuff so far - not much character development beyond the superficial.  The only book where I really connected and looked past this was Cryer's Cross.  Even before her visions, Jules is sort of annoying and selfish, only thinking of her own feelings when it comes to her obsession with Sawyer.  I can see why he was creeped out when he began to figure out she was following him.  And I never really bought their sudden romance near the end of the book.  I did like the revelations to do with why her Dad was so depressed and stuck inside of himself.  Her brother and sister were amusing, but with how alone Jules normally is, they were kind of superfluous to me without any real chance to shine.  By the time it ended (rather predictable and disappointingly, for me anyways) I still hadn't connected.  When the cliffhanged came, I just didn't care one way or the other.  So I probably won't be reading the next one.  Overall, a very mediocre read that I'd recommend skipping.  But then again, not everyone is as picky about character development as I am.

 

VERDICT:  2.75/5  Stars

 

**I received this book as part of Around the World ARC Tours, run by the lovely Princess Bookie. No favors or money were exchanged for this review. It will be available for purchase on January 8th, 2013.**