Review: Crashing Down by Kate McCaffrey

Title: Crashing Down
Author: Kate McCaffrey
Publisher: Freemantle Press
Genre: YA, Contemporary, Issue-based
Links: Book Depository

Blurb:

Lucy is in Year 12 and under pressure to succeed. The last thing she needs now is an intense boyfriend. Breaking up with Carl feels like the only way to keep her dreams on track.

But good decisions can have bad consequences.

And leaving Carl is going to be a whole lot harder than Lucy could have imagined.

Why I picked it up:

This book was sent to me from Fremantle Press in exchange for an honest review.

What I didn’t like about it:

It took me a long time to get used to the writing. The style is very abrupt. It’s all dialogue with not a lot of narrative or description. There was a lot of telling versus showing going on and a lot of short sentences. For example:

She frowns and shrugs. “Sure. Fine” And she walks off. A sudden wave of anger washes over her. What is the matter with him?

Third person, present tense is a little weird for me. I found it really jarring, and as a result, I felt very detached from the characters. I felt like I was standing on the other side of glass, watching everything they were doing but not understanding why.

What I liked about it:

Once I managed to get past the writing, the story was actually quite interesting. Crashing Down tells the story of Lucy. She breaks up with her boyfriend one night and on the way home he’s in a car accident. The story basically follows the guilt she feels while he’s in a coma and then the decisions she has to make while he isn’t himself.

I liked that this book challenged my personal bias. I am very pro-choice and Lucy frustrated the hell out of me at times, but I liked that, because even though I mentioned above that I felt detached from the characters, eventually they managed to grab me.

I was really unsure about this novel in the beginning, but it came together and finished strong. Overall, this was a quick read with interesting subject matter. It’s different to a lot of other YA books. I read it in two sittings.

My Verdict – 3 stars