Crush by Nicole Williams

Crush by Nicole Williams
Series: Crash #3
Published by: HarperCollins on April 23, 2013
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Pages: 389
Source: Purchased
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Rating: ★★★★½

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?

Oh my god oh my god oh my god!!!!!!

I have to talk about the ending of Crush first (no spoilers) because it’s all I can think about!! I just finished it and I was bawling, sniffling, crying, smiling, and giggling. I was am such an emotional wreck! This was a fabulous conclusion to the Crash series and everything I hoped it would be!

Okay.. Phew. Deep breaths..

“Baby, football isn’t my dream,” he said, kissing my forehead. “You are.”

There was some seriously hot and delicious sex in this book. Honestly, it was so hot and descriptive that it had me thinking, “Was it like this in the other books??” It’s honestly been a while since I read Crash and Clash but I swear the sex has been amped up big time. I am not at all complaining because it was hot and naughty and oh my god I loved it! But just keep that in mind if you don’t like super descriptive sex scenes.

Even though this book gave me all the swoony giggles in the world, it wasn’t perfect. There were two distinct things that bugged me.

First, Lucy is super anal about money to the point where it made me want to rip her head off. Jude lands a wicked football deal that has him raking in the millions. Suddenly Lucy is all uptight about how “Money doesn’t buy happiness” and refuses to let Jude buy her ANYTHING. He wants to buy her a nice gift and she freaks the fuck out. I literally wanted to tell her to sit down, shut up, and chill out.

Second, Jude has a few really awful “jealous and controlling boyfriend” moments. Some people might REALLY not like this book because of them. I really didn’t like two of the scenes in particular, but once they were over I mostly forgot about them and enjoyed the rest of the book. But I’ll lay them out for you so you can decide for yourself:

In one scene, Lucy is at the beach in a bikini. Jude meets her there, sees her bikini, and demands that she put on a sweatshirt because it’s “too skimpy” and he “doesn’t want guys jacking off to her later.” This seems to be a really common thing in NA books (like Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire) and it drives people—myself included—up the wall.

The next scene is when Lucy is out to lunch with her male boss because it’s her first day at work and it’s tradition at the company to take new employees out to lunch on their first day. Jude calls her during lunch, finds out the situation, and demands that she put her boss on the phone so he can talk to him bitch at him and lay down his territorial claim over Lucy. This is just another one of those “Seriously, Jude?” moments. Quit being a jealous bastard and trust your girlfriend fiancée.

But, as I said, these moments were kind of fleeting and although they made me rage, I quickly kind of glanced over them and continued with the book. If you take out those moments, this book was PERFECT! It turned me into a crazy, giddy girl. And oh my word, the sex was delish.

I think that fans of the Crash series will adore this book. It’s just as good as the others! If you don’t already like the series, then I’m not sure why you’d read this anyway, but in that case it’s probably not for you! I’m kind of sad to see Jude and Lucy’s story come to an end, but I’m really pleased with how things turned out! So many emotions, all of the feels—perfect.

“It doesn’t matter why I ran,” he said, staring at me without blinking, “because I came back. I’ll always come back, Luce. No matter how many rip-roaring fights we have and no matter how many miscommunications we have. I’ll always come back because you’re where I belong.”

The Verdict