Crash by Nicole Williams

    

Crash By Nicole Williams 
Crash Series 

I give this book a 3.5 (I gave Clash, book 2, 4 Stars)

I liked this book, but I didnt think it was earth shattering amazing. I would say if you are a fan of books like Thoughtless or Beautiful Disaster you will be let down with this book, merely because they dont belong in the same category, in fact I think its a toned down high school version of those books. HOWEVER, I foresee book 2 being far better than book 1 based on the ending of book 1, and I will definitely be reading the rest of the series. 

I disagreed with quite of few of the readers who dissed the author in their reviews, but I didnt agree with the ones who were in love with this book. Given that, I think the book deserves to be read and has a really good message. I think Jude is the bad boy we all wanted to tame in high school, and I liked the main character A LOT. Lucy is my kind of girl, I like that the author did not make her the super popular new girl in school with all the right friends and perfect parents (ie Breana Blixen books), but instead she has a quirky personality, with a sense of humor and some sarcasm/negativity, I think it provided a more realistic appeal to me, and because Im quite the sarcastic person. I also appreciated the way the book moved along at a steady pace, it wasnt slow or fast and the "boring" parts were skipped, which was much appreciated. Another thing I enjoyed was that sex was not a pivotal topic as it usually is in high school novels. I truly dislike that many of the high school novels out there, make sex in high school out to be either a bad thing, or their first time, which lets be honest here, senior year of high school is not the typical time a person loses their virginity (that said, I understand authors dont want to promote sex or make it okay for teenagers to have sex and I realize not everyone has sex in high school) But what I am getting at, is that I feel as though many authors as of lately that I have been reading, have characters who are virgins and lose it that last semester in high school to their high school sweetheart, and it just gets a tad bit old, so Im glad the characters here werent so focused on losing it. 

Some of the things I didnt care for are based purely on personality and taste and not a reflection of the author and her abilities and I think that should be taken into account when writing/giving a review. The fact of the matter is, I didnt like that Luce had so much pull over the football coach, I also didnt like that she essentially didnt have any friends or anyone to turn to (not even from her prior high school) which I felt was highly unlikely given her appearance and personality, and lack of issues with her self-esteem/ depression, which is likely why I felt a lack of connection. 
One negative would be that the mystery of her family, was my biggest concern, not so much the WHAT, which is discussed near the end, but that the author did not provide nearly enough hints to what was going on, and her relationship with her mom confused me slightly, it too was not well explained, in my opinion. 

Jude?