Review: Crash Into You by Katie McGarry

Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Where did you get the book: e-ARC from publisher
Release date: November 26th

The girl with straight A’s, 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.

17233800Isaiah 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.

*blurb taken from author’s website*

This series by Katie McGarry just keeps on getting better, and so does the author’s writing. I enjoyed the first and second book in the series but I love and adore, CRASH INTO YOU, and it’s probably my favourite book out of the series so far. Isaiah’s character turned out to be a wonderful surprise. In the previous books he comes across as having a major attitude and being surly, especially after the events with Beth in DARE YOU TO. He’s probably one of my favourite YA/NA heroes because he treats Rachel with the utmost respect and care. He’s also determined to make a life for himself, and he knows he has to work harder than others because he wants and needs to escape from poverty.

Isaiah does have this rough and bad boy facade but underneath it he’s still a seventeen year old boy who has the same vulnerabilities as those his age. I loved that Rachel and Isaiah were both the same age because I felt the two of them had equal grounding. Both had to deal with different hardships despite the difference of their social class. Rachel suffers from panic attacks, and the panic attacks she suffers from make her sick–literally. Even though Rachel has a big family–four brothers (one is her twin) and her parents–she was the character that has more issues than Isaiah. Her family situation is messed up because of her family’s inability to deal with the death of her older sister, and in response to that, Rachel is the one that has to make their mom happy. Her brothers love her to pieces but they put the onus on Rachel to keep their mother from spiralling down. Rachel does this to make everyone happy, and because she wants to make her mother happy, but it’s a detriment to her health.

Rachel’s escape is to drive. She loves cars and she loves to drive fast. It’s because of her love for cars that she meets Isaiah in an illegal drag race where she quickly realises she’s way out of her league. Isaiah quickly realises that Rachel is no rich girl out for kicks. He tries to protect her but it’s Rachel who ends up looking out for him when trouble comes racing down upon them, literally.

I’ve probably waffled on for long enough so I’ll get straight to it; CRASH INTO YOU managed to deliver on story, character goals and motivations. And by golly it delivers on the romance. It’s a wonderful romance story with a hero who treats Rachel with so much care and respect. I loved Rachel and her band of brothers. At times they were sexist and over-protective but the love for their sister was in no doubt. I loved her friendship with Ethan, who was her best friend. Rachel didn’t have friends that she hung out with out of school but Rachel soon becomes friends with Abby, Isaiah’s friend. It’s a testament to the author’s ability to make me fall in love with a girl who is a drug dealer.

Rachel and Isaiah both have to deal with family issues, and they share with one another their feelings. Isaiah was being forced to deal with and see his mother by his social worker, and I had to admit I wasn’t keen on the social worker’s attempts. But I was so pleasantly surprised that Rachel and Isaiah were so mature with one another, and how sweet they both were at times, and how they shared their family problems. They both want to protect each other from the asshole who was threatening their lives. They aren’t alone, though, and there’s a lot of characters that play a role in this book. We see Noah and Ecoh, and we have glimpses of Beth.

The author managed to weave so many aspects of the characters lives into the story that it balanced out incredibly well, and the ending was very similar to the previous books and that was high in energy. Rachel and Isaiah are loveable and I was very sad to come to the last page because I didn’t want the story to end.

I can’t wait for the next book in the series, and I know I’m going to be waiting so impatiently for West’s story.

I give Crash into You an A.

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