Review: Crashing Into You

Crashing Into You
Katie McGarry
YA contemporary
Pub Date: November 26, 2013

From acclaimed author Katie McGarry comes an explosive new tale of a good girl with a reckless streak, a street-smart guy with nothing to lose, and a romance forged in the fast lane 

The girl with straight As, designer clothes and the perfect life-that's who people expect Rachel Young to be. So the private-school junior keeps secrets from her wealthy parents and overbearing brothers...and she's just added two more to the list. One involves racing strangers down dark country roads in her Mustang GT. The other? Seventeen-year-old Isaiah Walker-a guy she has no business even talking to. But when the foster kid with the tattoos and intense gray eyes comes to her rescue, she can't get him out of her mind. 

Isaiah has secrets, too. About where he lives, and how he really feels about Rachel. The last thing he needs is to get tangled up with a rich girl who wants to slum it on the south side for kicks-no matter how angelic she might look. 

But when their shared love of street racing puts both their lives in jeopardy, they have six weeks to come up with a way out. Six weeks to discover just how far they'll go to save each other.

Ahh, Katie McGarry. Her writing, her pacing, her characters- there's no wonder she's the love of book bloggers' literary life. I absolutely ADORED every second of Dare You To- you can read my review here. HOWEVER, like most of the reviews I have read, I, too, didn't think Crashing Into You reached the perfect beauty of Ryan's and Beth's story. 

Isaiah was a character it was easy to sympathize with. Life has been tough for him, and you can see the lasting effects of that, yet with hard work and strength of character he retained his goodness and his will to make a future for himself. His mistakes are results of desperation. Rachel, on the other hand, seemed naive and childish to me. She often made seriously unwise and life-threatening choices, supposedly in the name of being brave. In addition to that, she had 17 years of life and no friends to show for it- for a girl often described as pretty, rich, and has talent that seems unrealistic. 

Also, Rachel's family contradicted themselves all the time. Her brothers were always overprotective, hated seeing her suffer and wanted to help her, but refuse to let her tell their mother and get help- and not only that, they encouraged her to do what they knew would bring more of her attacks to keep her mother happy. Likewise, her father obliges Rachel everything to keep her mother happy, yet recklessly endangers her life at one point. Whaaaaaa

The following nitpick was smaller than the above 2^^, but bothered me nonetheless- they got into the whole mess because these two random people stole from Eric and Eric blamed them... couldn't that have been worked out somehow? They caved to his demands entirely too easily in my opinion.

REGARDLESS OF ALL THAT, I loved the influence Rachel had on Isaiah, and how he made peace with his mother, social worker, Beth, and the effort he made to build his future. Not to mention the awesome side characters- I'd kill to hear more of Logan, Abby and Courtney. The setting of a racetrack was pretty cool, too. Also, I am now seriously salivating to read Pushing the Limits, which is Noah and Echo's story. 

On a different note, I'd like to bring to your attention the sheer awesomeness of the author- look what she sent me and other lucky participants of her giveaway!
Dare You To ribbon and Crashing Into You bookmark!













Sorry I wasn't around this week much- hopefully this weekend I'll bring you up to speed on what I've recieved. 
Love,
Esty