Review: Crash by Lisa McMann (Visions #1)

Title: Crash by Lisa McMann

Published: January 8^th, 2013 by Simon Pulse

Format: Hardcover

Source: Library

Group age: Young adult

Genre: Paranormal

Grade rate:  C

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. 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.

My Review

I’m a big fan of McMann’s Wake series and I also enjoyed Cryer’s Cross as well, thus I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Crash.  Sadly, this book lacks the interesting qualities of the other two.

Jules… was not what I expected.  The story is told from her point of view and she has a strong voice.  My main issue was that although I did like her overall personality, she seemed to have unfounded insecurities, and an almost stalkish behavior towards Sawyer.  She is loyal, funny, a good person, but obsessed with Sawyer.  I understand that her visions (whatever they are) made her paranoid, thinking that everyone will take her for a crazy person. Darn, I probably wouldn't tell anyone either, but I’m not sure that I would have taken matters into my own hands either.  And what the heck is with replacing ‘dog’ for the word ‘God’?!! (as in “Oh my dog”!)

I don’t blame Sawyer for not believing Jules, but I blame him for the obvious distress he was causing her.  Why couldn’t he confess the family truth earlier?  After the ‘incident’ he was suddenly willing to make amends, I don’t think I would have gone for that…  Other than that Sawyer was okay.

The respective families are all plain weird.  Jules’ father is a hoarder, but no one intervenes and just lives with the junk, and her mother is a martyr.  I enjoyed more Jules’ relationship with her brother and sister; they formed a very tight circle and watched out for each other.  Sawyer family wasn’t any less crazy and the family drama came as an unexpected twist.

I have mixed feelings about the plot.  I really liked the paranormal take and I’m dying to know why the visions and how to act upon them.  However, although I didn’t completely dislike the characters, I don’t love them either.  I just don’t see the chemistry between Sawyer and Jules and although they knew each other all of their lives, the relationship at the end seemed forced.  The writing is typical for McMann, which is to say, really good.

Still, I will read Bang, book two of the series, if only to figure out the paranormal aspect of the story.  

About the cover:  It’s stunning! The flames are all shiny :)  

Have you read any books by this author?  Did you read Crash? Did you like it?