Crash (Visions #1) by Lisa McMann Release Date: January 8, 2013 Publisher: Simon Plus Source: Personal Copy Rating: Buy It: Amazon

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

I’m probably not the right one to be writing this. Tina and I daily email each other discussing who loves Lisa McMann more. That being said, my local bookstore happened to get their shipment in early. Because of this and the fact that I pre-ordered the book, I got to pick my copy up on Friday and quickly devoured it. Actually the only thing I stopped for was having to drive home, eat dinner, and watch part of The Shining with my parents.

Really, the book was that good. I couldn’t put it down. Of course I quickly finished (I’m a fast reader, my friends complain about it) and then got upset because the next one isn’t out yet. When I was reading McMann’s Wake series, what I was thrilled about was I read the first two the weekend before the third one came out so I had no real waiting for the series. This is different; the second book doesn’t come out until October. Although that’s only 10 months and not a year. I understand it could be worse.

Crash is the story of Jules, snarky, sarcastic, bitter Jules whose voice often seems like my own. Jules does not have an easy life. First of all, she is a teenager who has to drive a truck with giant balls on the top of it. They’re meatballs, but still, they are balls. Jules does appreciate the good puns that come out of having to drive the truck. Second, her father has…his problems. He is a hoarder. He’s a neat hoarder, but he still hoards. McMann is not new to writing conditions such as hoarding, with a previous book of her featuring OCD. Jules’ mother and father own the family business, an Italian eatery (hence the balls) and the hoarding affects the family business. Jules, however, deals with it. She isn’t on her own, she has a younger quirky sister and an awesome older brother. Her older brother, by the way, is gay. McMann inserts this so subtly into the story that, to be honest, I had to re-read that page because it was perfectly handled. It wasn’t handled as a big way, which in my opinion, is how it should be handled. McMann even brought the Church into it at one point; again, handled perfectly.

But still, Jules goes on with her life. Her crush doesn’t know he exists, because they were once BFFs and then he stopped talking to her. Of course he comes from a rival pizza-making family; they are serious arch rival enemies. At the end of the book when the whole horrid story finally comes out I gasped and then wanted to go in the book and hug the characters. What? That isn’t normal?!

Again though, she continues on with her life until she has a vision. This vision of people dying, including her crush, Sawyer. This affects her in various ways. It of course freaks her out, understandably. It makes her closer to her older brother, who thinks she’s a wee bit crazy, but is happy to help her and makes her on edge all the time because this vision keeps occurring. She can’t stop it from occurring and when she finally tells Sawyer, “hey! I think you’re going to die. Someday at some location” he of course thinks she’s crazy, which is no surprise because she thinks she’s crazy.

McMann’s writing continues to be strong and on point. From the first page to the last, where I am left wanting more, McMann had me hooked in, holding the pages closer to my face, wanting more, but at the same time hoping it would never end. And then when the moment happened? Perfection.

 If you love and adore the Wake series I promise you this one will have you hooked, too.