Series Review: Crash – Nicole Williams

Southpointe High is the last place Lucy wanted to wind up her senior year of school. Right up until she stumbles into Jude Ryder, a guy whose name has become its own verb, and synonymous with trouble. He’s got a rap sheet that runs longer than a senior thesis, has had his name sighed, shouted, and cursed by more women than Lucy dares to ask, and lives at the local boys home where disturbed seems to be the status quo for the residents. Lucy had a stable at best, quirky at worst, upbringing. She lives for wearing the satin down on her ballet shoes, has her sights set on Juilliard, and has been careful to keep trouble out of her life. Up until now.

Jude’s everything she needs to stay away from if she wants to separate her past from her future. Staying away, she’s about to find out, is the only thing she’s incapable of.

For Lucy Larson and Jude Ryder, love’s about to become the thing that tears them apart.

Series:  Crash #1
Release Date:  November 12, 2012
Publisher:  HarperCollins
Source:  Amazon, via my own wallet
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The only easy thing about Jude and Lucy’s relationship is their love for one another. Everything else is hard.

Especially when it comes to reining in Jude’s trigger touch temper and Lucy’s increasing jealousy of Jude’s Spirit Sister on the cheer squad who’s attached herself to him in just about every way a girl could. Feeling the stress of trying to hang on to her quintessential bad boy while becoming the foremost dancer in her class, Lucy knows something’s going to break. She wants both. She needs both. But if she doesn’t make a choice, she risks losing everything.

For Lucy Larson and Jude Ryder, love might be the thing that just isn’t enough

Series:  Crash #2
Release Date:  November 20. 2012
Publisher:  HarperCollins
Source:  Amazon, via my own wallet
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Football glory. A giant diamond. A wandering eye.

Jude and Lucy are happily engaged . . . but that doesn’t mean life’s a bed of roses.

Once again, Jude and Lucy are torn apart by football training and a summer job that creates new tensions. This time Jude’s the one with trust issues. Will Lucy’s life-changing news bring them back together or end their relationship for good? Can love triumph forever?

Series:  Crash #3
Release Date:  April 23, 2013
Publisher:  HarperCollins
Source:  Amazon, via my own wallet
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Reviewer’s Thoughts

This was a gritty series that had me wondering, right up until the very end, if Jude and Lucy were going to find their HEA.

The series follows Jude Ryder and Lucy Larson from when they meet at the age of seventeen through to their mid twenties.  It’s a journey that reveals each of their tragic pasts, how those pasts forever link them together and enormous mountain these two must climb.

It’s not a series that has a lot of happy moments.  It’s filled with angst and emotion, some of it typical teenage stuff, but most born from the events that molded Jude and Lucy into who they are.  In CRASH, Lucy and Jude take a little of a calendar year to move past the events that not only tied their families forever tragically together, but altered who each of them are to their core.  In CLASH just when it seems as if Lucy and Jude have managed to move to a place in their relationship where they’re operating at “normal” Lucy’s lack of faith in herself and Jude, along with Jude’s inability to just say what he means and shear distance, bring everything falling down around them.  Finally, in CRUSH it’s distance and Lucy’s determination to do to what she needs to do rather than what might be good for both her an Jude that causes most of their problems.

I loved Jude and Lucy, both separately and together, but they had moments where I wanted to shake them both and tell them to just forget it.  They unintentional hurt they caused each other and themselves was almost too much.  But then there would be a moment of honest thought or communication that made me realize everything they were going through was worth it.  They were worth it as a couple.  Despite what happened with their families, what happened to each of them and what they said or did with each, it was a reminder that love isn’t always easy.  It doesn’t all in your lap with a pretty bow and make you smile all the time.  For some couples, it a constant struggle to not fall prey to the inner demons that pull at you, but it’s worth fighting for.  That was Jude and Lucy.  In the end, they got their HEA.  It wasn’t pretty, but they fought for it and they deserved it.

Definitely a series I would recommend, just be prepared for some emotionally draining hours and/or days.  In the end, it’s worth it.