Driving Drama Up the Middle

"I can forgive a man’s past faults, his present shortcomings, and his future failures 
if every minute of every day he loves me like it’s his religion."
--Nicole Williams, Clash

Genre: New Adult Contemporary

Publisher: HarperCollins, 273 pages

Publication Date: December 18th, 2012

Source: Borrowed from Library
Goodreads
Previous Books in Series: Crash

Goodreads Description

Their Romeo-and-Juliet-level passion is the only thing Jude and Lucy agree on. That, and fighting all the time . . .

Also not helping? Lucy's raging jealousy of the cheerleader who's wormed her way into Jude's life.

While trying to hang on to her quintessential bad boy and also training to be the top ballet dancer in her class, Lucy knows something's going to give . . . soon.

How can she live without the boy she loves? How can she live with herself if she gives up on her dreams? If Lucy doesn't make the right choice, she could lose everything.

My Thoughts

Alright yo. So I definitely enjoyed Clash much better than Crash. My emotions were involved. I felt the angst. And the writing was WAY improved. This book weaved a cohesive story and I whipped through it. It did still have flaws. The cheese was still in full effect and the situations a lot of the time were totally far-fetched, but hey, it made the story dramatic and fun. The romantic interludes especially—totally wouldn’t happen how they do. And totally unsafe by the way…anyways.

So how did I know I was invested in these characters? I’ll tell you what. Rage in proportion to Lucy’s when Adriana Vix enters the story. Ooooh what a skank bag the size of Texas. Girls like this—so pathetic and irritating. My chest hurt when she was involved. My rage ran deep. This bitch was not okay. However. Here is where most of my irritation also came in. I adore Jude I REALLY do. My problem is that the book opens with him getting mad upon finding Lucy getting help undressing her ballet costume by a male friend. Jude goes nuts. As always. It’s fine. He also verbally berates his friends for looking at Lucy. Yet no real threat in my opinion. BUT when another girl LEGITIMATELY goes out of her way to try and get with Jude and Lucy (very understandably gets mad) he acts like it’s nothing. WHAT?! He can get jealous over and over but when another girl is deliberately trying to come between them it is back to the trust issue. What pissed me off is why Lucy couldn’t ask him why it’s ok for him to be jealous but not her. She had total justification with getting raging bull mad at this girl. ALSO certain situations totally called for her to ask him, ‘picture our roles reversed and if you came upon me and another guy in the same situation…what would you do?’ I’ll tell you. He’d go ape-shit crazy. There was just a double standard for each other them and it got old to me.

But this is where I stop being on Lucy’s team for the rest of the book. They fight, they make up, okay. Why she spent the rest of the book convincing herself they shouldn’t be together irritated me to no end. To quote a cliché, let it be! Let it be. Just let yourself be in the relationship. People are CONSTANTLY telling her they are both passionate people so emotions will run high but you still love each other. Knock it off, get your shit together, and have a relationship. Damn…

But for real. I enjoyed reading it. While very dramatic and far-fetched (and slightly annoying at times) I don’t know what it is but I like reading about all the drama. It is a masterpiece? No. Is it fun? Yes. Jude is still amazing to me and his loyalty to Lucy is beautiful. While I feel she makes WAY more mistakes and runs away way more than he EVER does, he continues to state that he has no idea how he deserves her or what she sees in him. Hunny, she is the lucky one. You are not perfect, but you love that girl like she makes the sun rise so you are perfectly amazing in my book. Lucy needs some work…let’s see what Crush brings…

Should You Read This? Yeah. If you liked Crash I think you’ll enjoy this one more. High drama, sassy situations, and a boy to swoon for.