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.

Plot: ★★★★
Characters: ★★★★★
Readability: ★★★★

I enjoyed both Pushing The Limits and Dare You To but I was a little nervous about Crash Into You for a few reasons.  Firstly, Isaiah occasionally irritated me in Dare You To.  I also know absolutely nothing about street racing, and I did honestly worry a little that the whole ‘opposites attract’ thing may start to feel repetitive.  Despite my reservations, Crash Into You was (thankfully!) a pleasant surprise.

Isaiah is drawn into street racing as a way to make money towards rent for the flat he shares with Noah.  Rachel is, on the surface at least, your cliche good girl, but one night she ends up at the same street race as Isaiah.  Neither is prepared for how things go down, their unexpected attraction or their slowly building friendship, but the race is about to change everything for them.

Isaiah is a great character, and I felt for him throughout Crash Into You.  Things haven’t been easy for Isaiah.  Despite the fact that there are quicker, easier, more criminal ways to earn money, Isaiah wants to stick to his morals.  Isaiah and Beth were always best friends, and he was sure the two of them would be together. Unfortunately for Isaiah, Beth didn’t feel the same way.

Rachel Young comes from a family that seems pretty much perfect.  She lives in a nice house with her four older brothers, and her wealthy parents.  Rachel wants for nothing – on the surface at least.  Behind closed doors though, things are not as they seem.  The ‘replacement daughter’, born after her parents lost another daughter to cancer, Rachel feels like she must be perfect.  She can never disappoint anyone or cause any ripples, and the strain of never making a mistake is catching up with her.  Suffering from secret panic attacks, Rachel only ever feels she can relax when she’s driving.

I loved Rachel and Isaiah’s romance.  Although it was the same ‘opposites attract’ format as used in both the earlier novels, it still felt fresh because both the characters and plot managed to draw me in.  The romance was gradual and heart-warming, and the bond between Isaiah and Rachel was strong, although their relationship had a lot of external problems.  Although the two don’t seem like they could ever work together, they actually complement each other brilliantly.

The supporting characters seemed to play a larger role in this than the previous books, and I absolutely loved getting to see more of Noah, Echo and the others.  I felt like the relationships in this were really well developed.  As well as the romance we were expecting, the relationships between Rachel and her brothers were also well developed, filled with protectiveness and sibling rivalry.  Isaiah’s friendships were also amazing and heart-warming, and they made up some of my favourite scenes.

The plot in this was definitely drama filled, but enjoyable nonetheless.  I felt the adults in both Pushing the Limits and Dare You To were quite two-dimensional, almost like the exaggerated villains you’d expect from a Disney movie.  I was very pleased that I didn’t find the same issue in Crash Into You.  I felt the adults in Crash Into You were much better developed, less wooden and significantly more believable.

My only real complaint with the story was that Isaiah’s previous ‘bad boy’ nature felt boxed away very conveniently, rather than actually dealt with.  Although I’d have liked to see more of Isaiah’s ‘darker’ side, I can see that that would have made the story deeper and more complicated, and in some ways it was nice for Rachel’s anxiety issues to take centre-stage instead, as they’re a less common feature in YA.

Buy it? This is one I’d buy personally.
In a nutshell: Yet again, McGarry has managed to create characters we care about and a romance that works perfectly for them.

Other Reviews of Crash Into You: Smexy Books | Never Judge a Book by it’s cover | Xpresso Roads