Crash

By Nicole Williams

In this first book in the New York Times bestselling Crash trilogy, the world is introduced to this generation's Romeo and Juliet: Jude Ryder and Lucy Larson—Explosive. Sizzling. Tragic.

A steamy summer encounter with bad boy Jude means trouble for Lucy. Her sights are set on becoming a ballerina, and she won't let anything get in her way . . . except Jude.

He's got a rap sheet, dangerous mood swings, and a fate to ruin the lives of girls like Lucy—and he tells her so.

But as rumors run rampant and reputations are destroyed, Lucy's not listening to Jude's warning. Is tragedy waiting in the wings? Or could this be the true love that every romantic dreams of? 

With red-hot chemistry and shocking twists, this is a love story that is not to be missed. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9780062267139

Nicole Williams

Nicole Williams, author of Crash, Clash, Crush, The Eden Trilogy, and The Patrick Chronicles, is a wife, a mom, and a writer who believes in true love, kindred spirits, and happy endings. Nicole currently lives with her family in Spokane, Washington.

Book preview

One

Summers turn me into a sucker. That’s why I was glad this one was almost over.

Every year since puberty, from mid-June to early September, I’d been sure I was going to meet the real-world equivalent to Prince Charming. Call me old-fashioned, call me hopelessly romantic, you could even call me a fool, but whatever I was, I knew the end result—I was a sucker. To date, I’d never found a guy who was worthy to stand in Prince C’s shadow; no real surprise there, as I’d discovered more and more that guys were something of a pain in the ass. But here, working on my tan at Sapphire Lake’s public beach just a couple of weeks before I was all set to start my senior year at a new school, I’d just found me a Prince Hot Damn.

He arrived with a whole mess of guys, tossing a football back and forth, and specimens like this confirmed there had been some kind of divine rule in the universe, because no natural selection process was up to the task of creating something like him. This was some god’s handiwork somewhere.

He was tall, his shoulders were wide, and he had those dark ringed eyes with black lashes that had the power to undo a girl’s best intentions. So, in nonsucker terms, he was just my type. Along with every other woman in the northern hemisphere.

My blue raspberry Slurpee couldn’t even compete for my attention. I didn’t know his name, didn’t know if he had a girlfriend, didn’t know if he wanted one, but I knew I was in trouble.

However, it was when his dodging and tackling and sprinting ceased when he glanced my way that I knew I was in big trouble.

The glance was immeasurably longer than every other glance shared with a stranger, but what was conveyed in that shortest of connections cut through me, letting some piece of this stranger work his way inside. I’d experienced this before a few times in my life, nothing but an eye connection with a passing stranger begging me to take notice and follow.

To date, I never had, but the last time I’d let one of these moments pass was at a restaurant my family went to. This boy dropped a pizza on the table, told us to enjoy, and then, right as he was leaving, he winked at me. My heart went boom-boom, my head got all foggy, and I felt this ache inside when he turned and walked away, like we were tied together by a fixed rope. I’d let exactly four of these soul typhoons pass unexplored, but I’d made a pact of the utmost sacredness with myself that I wouldn’t let a fifth go by in the same kind of way.

I was never sure if the person on the other end of that look felt the same kind of intensity I did, so when Prince Hot Damn spun away, tackling someone into the sand, I knew I ran the risk of him thinking I was one of those girls who made an art form of preying on beautiful boys minding their own business. I didn’t care—I wouldn’t let another one of these moments go. Life was short, and I’d been a firm believer in seizing the moment for the majority of my life.

Then he came to another standstill, like my stare was freezing him in place. This time it wasn’t a glance. It was a good five-second stare, where his eyes did that dumbfounded thing mine were doing to me. His smile had just begun its upward journey into position when a football whizzed right into the side of his face. It was one of those moments you saw played out in movies: wide-eyed boy staring at girl, oblivious to the world around him until the laces of a football indented his forehead.

Stop staring, Jude! the young boy who had thrown the ball called out. She’s too hot, even for you. And since she’s got a book, she probably knows how to read, so she’s smart enough to know to avoid guys like you.

I slid my glasses into place as serendipity boy chased after the pint-size teaser, and turned my attention to the book sprawled out beneath me.

I saw the attraction in his eyes, that and more. It was only a matter of how much time he wanted to play it cool until he came over. I had all day.

That’s how I reassured myself as he threw the boy over his shoulder and sprinted into the lake, dunking up and down until the boy was squealing with laughter. I reassured myself again when he and the boy trudged from the water and returned to the cluster of boys playing football and picked up right where he left off, oblivious.

I tried to distract myself with my book, but when I found myself reading the same paragraph for the sixth time, I gave up. Still not another look my way, like I was invisible.

When a second hour passed in the same way, I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands. If he wasn’t going to come to me and I wasn’t quite ready to go to him, I’d just have to make him. I’d found boys were fairly simple creatures to figure out, at least on a primal level—on a mind, heart, and soul matter they were about as confounding to me as thermal dynamics—and since primal was just a nice term for raging hormones, I decided to use their overabundance of teenage boy ones to my advantage.

Grabbing a liter of water from my beach bag, I rose to a stand, making every movement slow and deliberate. At least without looking ridiculous. His eyes weren’t on me as I adjusted my bikini just so, but a few male sets were. Good sign I was doing the right thing, but bad sign he wasn’t noticing, since this whole stunt was set into motion for him.

I pulled the clip from my mass of hair so it fell down my back, and I shook it into position for good measure. I practically cursed under my breath when I chanced another peek. Nada. What’s a girl got to do to get a boy’s attention these days?

I walked back toward the picnic table, where the newest addition to our family, the furry kind, was still smiling through his panting. So new, in fact, I had yet to name him. There’s a good boy, I said, kneeling beside him, where he was using the shade of the table to his advantage. Since you’re of the same gender, although I find your species to be more appealing on so many fronts, do you have any suggestions for how to make that boy mine? I asked, pouring some more water into his bowl as I watched Jude pry a football from the air. The boy played the best game of beach football I’d ever had the pleasure of watching.

My furry friend offered a few licks over my arm before his wet nose nudged at my leg. I could have been reading into the nudge of encouragement a bit, but when his doggy eyes tracked over to Jude and his doggy smile stretched further, I laughed. Yeah, yeah. I know it’s a woman’s world and all, but there are still some things where I’m old-fashioned, I said, scratching behind his matted ears. Like the guy approaching the girl. Don’t call the feminist movement and rat me out, or else no steak for you tonight.

I patted his head as he yapped his vow of silence. Then I headed back to my blanket, watching Jude surreptitiously as he sailed the football to another little boy. If standing, stretching, and swimsuit adjustment weren’t working, with dinner not even an hour away, I’d have to resort to drastic, more desperate, measures. I was stubborn and I was a sucker, and since I’d waited this long for him to come over, I wasn’t going to give up now. Giving up was not in my blood.

I stretched on my blanket, stomach down, twisting my arms behind me to pull the string free of its tension. In my experience as a seventeen-year-old girl, seven of those years having boobs that required a bra, undoing that one little knot at the center of your back had about a 95 percent accuracy rate of attracting any male within a five-beach-towel radius. Jude might have been right on the five/six cusp, but it was all I had left. The last trick in my bag.

I made a pillow of my sundress and pretended to be concerned with nothing more than minimizing my tan lines, but as I took a quick survey of the area, every male eye within five beach towels was staring. Except for him.

A few whistles even sounded from his fellow football players’ lips, of which I played ignorant, but still, nothing from him. One of my friends at my old school had once told me that if ever a day came where our intended male targets didn’t flock our way after this last-ditch effort, it would be time to send word to the Vatican—that it was time for a miracle.

Get Rome on the phone, because a miracle was playing out in front of me as the only boy I wanted to notice was the only one who didn’t. Darn you, providence and soul typhoons.

I’d give him five more minutes before I’d force myself to swallow my pride and make a move. I knew if I had to approach him, I’d likely get denied, but I wasn’t going to let another one of these pass me by. Carpe diem, baby.

I noticed something whizzing above me from the corner of my eye, but it didn’t seem of much importance until a certain body I’d been lusting over snagged it right before falling back to the earth from his impressive suspension in the air. Or at least falling right over the top of me.

He didn’t crash into me all that hard, leading me to believe it was intentional, but I still managed to shriek like a little girl. I knotted my top back into place while he struggled to reposition himself.

The name’s Jude Ryder, since I know you’re all but salivating like a rabid dog to know, and I don’t do girlfriends, relationships, flowers, or regular phone calls. If you’re down with that, I think we could work out something special.

So that serendipitous moment I’d been angsting over the better part of a glorious summer afternoon? What a waste. There had been nothing on the other side of that loaded look than an opportunistic summer . . . ahem, fling. Lord help me, I was going to become a nun if my male radar didn’t realign toward guys who were not walking penises.

And I’d give you my name if I actually wanted to pursue anything more with you than telling you to get the hell off me, I said, twisting onto my back once I was confident everything up front was covered. However, whether it was my twisting motion or his twisted sense of self, his leg caught my hip as it rotated and followed it all the way around. Super, the boy was all but straddling me now, and despite being angry beyond appeasing, I felt my heart pounding through my chest like it never had.

He smiled down at me. Actually, it was more of a grin. A grin full of attitude and ego. It was a tad sexy too, and it could have been hella sexy if I hadn’t already decided to not fall into this boy’s traps. I was wondering how long it would take to get you horizontal, he said, eyes sweeping down to my belly button. Although I’m not really your missionary-style kind of guy.

Whatever was left of my romantic notions of male chivalry and love at first sight had just been obliterated. I’d never verbally admit I was a romantic; that was one of the many secrets I kept to myself, but it was a special ideal, and one guy took the last bit I’d clung to.

Pushing his chest was like trying to move a tank. I removed my sunglasses so he could see my glare. Is that because it would require a real, living, breathing female—not one of the imaginary or blow-up kind—to have sex with you?

He laughed at that, like I’d just said something as cute as a kitten. No, a supply of girls is never a problem. But if they’re the ones who come a-knockin’ at my door, why should I be the one to do all the work?

That nasty taste in my mouth might have just been a bit of vomit. You’re a pig, I said, shoving him again. Harder, so my hands slapped his chest, but it was like nothing more than a gust of wind had come at him.

Never claimed to be anything but, he answered, raising his hands in surrender when I came at him again with my palms. I also knew you wouldn’t stop your staring until you learned the cold, hard truth. So, consider yourself warned. I might not be the kind of guy who reads textbooks at the beach, he said, glancing back at my open book, but I’m smart enough to know girls like you should stay away from guys like me. So stay away.

My glare was now officially a glower. That won’t be a problem once you stop all but holding me down, I said, waiting for him to move. He did, but it was still with that cocky grin. I hated that kind of grin. And you can consider yourself warned that you are trespassing on my personal property—I grabbed my pink beach blanket in explanation as an eruption of barking sounded behind me; I knew that dog was a kindred spirit—and beware of dog. I sneered up at him as he sat himself beside me, still in a straddling position. You can go now.

That wiped the smile from his face. What? he asked, the lines of his forehead pulling his gunmetal-gray beanie lower. And what kind of a person wore a cotton hat to the beach on a scorching-hot day? The mentally deranged ones I needed to stay away from, that was who.

Scrambo, I said, waving him off. I’m done wasting my last few precious minutes of a perfect summer afternoon on you. Thank you for the eye-candy distraction, but I can see it’s nothing more than that. Oh, and by the way, your butt is not nearly as impressive up close as it is at a distance.

I didn’t have time to curse myself for my latest bout of verbal vomit, because his mouth fell open for a second. It was exactly the reaction I’d been hoping for. You girls speak a language I’ll never understand, but are you saying what I think you are?

If it involves you getting up and walking out of my sunshine and my life from here until the end of time, then we’re on the same wavelength, I answered, sliding farther down on my towel to realign my face with the sun, trying to pretend his face wasn’t the thing dirty thoughts are made of. Save for a long scar that ran the diagonal of his left cheekbone, it could have been classified as mind-dumbingly perfect.

Perfectly not my type. I had to remind myself of that. And convince myself, too.

His eyebrows were still squished together, like he was trying to figure out the most riddling of riddles.

What’s that dumbfounded look for? I asked.

Because I have yet to come across a girl who sends me packing, he said, watching me with something new in his eyes.

So sorry to upend your world of nonrespect for women, but it seems my work here is done. I sat up, shuffling my textbook into my bag.

What kind of dog is that? he asked abruptly. The low notes were gone from his voice.

I peered over at him as I continued tossing my beach day must-haves into the bag, gauging to see if he was serious. He’d just gone from all but riding me on the beach to casual conversation. He’s got a bunch of breeds in him, I began slowly, watching him from the corner of my eye to see if this was some new trap.

So he’s a mutt, he said.

No, I said, admiring the shaggy bundle still baring his teeth in Jude’s direction. He’s well-rounded, I added.

Well that’s the best attempt I’ve heard yet at making a piece of shit seem less shitty, he said, spinning the football on his finger.

No, that’s my way of seeing something for what it actually is, I said, sure I sounded more defensive than I’d intended. That ‘piece of shit,’ I’ll have you know, was hit, kicked, underfed, and lit on fire by his previous owners, who dropped him off at the shelter when he had the nerve to devour an unattended tuna fish sandwich. That ‘piece of shit’ was scheduled to be put down today for no other reason than drawing the short straw in life.

Jude’s eyes returned to the dog. You just got this guy today? he asked, making a face. Out of all the dogs you had to choose from, you picked the one that was the sorriest excuse for a dog I’ve yet to see.

I couldn’t let him be killed because some slime of the earth ruined him, could I? I asked, wincing as I wondered what my parents would say. I mean, look at him. He’s been brutalized by humans, and the only thing he’s concerned about right now is protecting me. How could I not save him?

Because he’s the ugliest dog I’ve ever seen, Jude said. He’s all but hairless—and I don’t want to get any closer because I fear he might rip my balls off—but I’m pretty sure that putrid smell is coming from him. Unless . . . He leaned into me, moving my hair behind my shoulder as his nose all but connected with my neck. My instant reaction was to shudder. This boy knew what he was doing and how the lightest graze of fingers over just the right patches of skin or a warm breath fogged over the right spot of the neck could all but crush a girl’s most virtuous of intentions, but I fought the shudder down. I wasn’t going to be one of the girls who shuddered in his presence. He didn’t need another boost to that bloated ego. Nope, I only smell sweet and innocent coming from over here, he whispered against my neck. He smirked at me, knowing exactly what he was doing and knowing exactly what I was trying not to do. I’d suggest taking that fleabag through a doggie car wash a few times. He laughed as the dog began barking again at Jude’s proximity to me, but he leaned away from me again. What did your parents think when you brought Cujo home?

This time I grimaced.

Ahh, let me fill in the blanks. They don’t know their precious daughter snuck behind their backs and brought this animal with a questionable past into her life.

My grimace deepened as he verbalized what I was planning to sugarcoat.

And since I’m on a roll here, let me fill in the blanks as to what their reaction will be. He tapped his chin, staring at the sky. They’re going to tell you to drop that thing like a bad habit and send him back where you found him.

I blew out a rush of air. Probably, I said, attempting to form a rebuttal that would be convincing to my parents. I already knew Dad would be on board by default, but Mom was another story, and my dad had learned years ago that life wasn’t pleasant if he wasn’t on the same parenting ship as Mom.

So why did you do it? he asked, still staring at the dog like he was a puzzle. Because you don’t strike me as the kind of girl who rebels against whatever her parents say.

I don’t, I answered. But we made kind of a big life change recently, and I wasn’t able to give this up. I’d been adopting and rehabbing dogs for the past three years. Every employee and volunteer at the nearby shelters knew me by first and last name. This might have been the do-gooder deed that was closest to my heart, but it certainly wasn’t the only one I’d been involved in.

At my last school, I’d been the president of the Green Group, overseen the Toys for Tots drive three years running, volunteered weekly for after-school tutoring at the nearby elementary school, and spearheaded a quarterly bake sale where the proceeds went to the local military families who had loved ones overseas. I was about to start a new school my senior year, and I didn’t know what to expect, if I could expect anything. Would my new school have the clubs I was used to, and if so, would they welcome a newcomer from a private school?

Life change? Give this up? he repeated. Okay, my interest was piqued when you shot me down. Now I’m absolutely smitten since you made dog adoption out to be a vice. He smiled at me, and I swore I could feel my stomach bottoming out. So what’s this big life change you’re up to those gorgeous blue eyes in?

I slid my sunglasses back into position out of principle. If he was going to find a way to be condescending about my eyes, he didn’t get to look into them. We sold the house I grew up in and moved to our lake house, I began, trying to sound as carefree as I could about it, and this place we live in has the most ridiculous, restrictive rules, so it would only make sense those idiots won’t allow a dog off leash, right? I was getting worked up just thinking about it, and my hands were flying all over the place. We don’t have a kennel, I can’t keep him inside the house because my dad’s allergic, and you try putting a leash on this guy and he all but transforms into the Tasmanian Devil. The dog was still eyeing Jude warily. It’s like the idea of being tied to something sends him over the edge.

I know the feeling, he said, admiring the dog with something new in his eyes. Camaraderie, was it?

Yeah, yeah, I said, reaching for my melted Slurpee. Already got the spiel about you not one to be tied down to things like girlfriends. No need for the instant replay.

As I took a long and final sip of blue raspberry syrup, Jude leveled me with a gaze that was too deep for a guy of shallow character. There are others ways to be tied to something than through a girl. In fact, I’d say I’m tied to just about everything else but a woman.

Okay, I so wasn’t expecting this moment of vulnerability to slip from a guy who probably thought a nice first date included a visit to the backseat of his car. Care to elaborate? I asked, setting the empty cup into the sand.

Nope, he replied, staring out into the water. But thanks for asking.

Jude! someone yelled down the beach.

Glancing over at the shouter, a middle-aged man who was rotund at best and grossly obese truthfully, Jude waved his hand. Coming, Uncle Joe.

That’s your uncle? My eyes flicked back and forth between Jude and Uncle Joe, finding no resemblance other than gender.

Jude nodded. Uncle Joe.

And those are your cousins? Again, I surveyed the handful of boys ranging in age from probably kindergarten to high school, finding no definitive feature that would tie them to each other.

Another nod from Jude as he popped up.

Do they all have different moms? I asked, teasing only partly.

I felt his laugh all the way down to my toes. I think you might be onto something.

Accepting the end was near, I decided to cut the tie early. Well, it was—I searched for the right word, coming up empty—"something meeting you, Jude, I said, as that smile of his angled at my word choice. Have a nice life."

You too . . . , he said, his brows coming together as he searched me for something.

Lucy, I offered, not sure why. I’d said my name a million different times and ways, but telling it to him seemed oddly intimate.

Lucy, he repeated, tasting the word in his

Reviews for Crash

[lapsus16 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very odd story, worth reading. See also the movie made a few decades past (same title)

[amanda4242_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Together we showed our wounds to each other, exposing the scars on our chests and hands to the beckoning injury sites on the interior of the car, to the pointed sills of the chromium ashtrays, to the lights of a distant intersection. In our wounds we celebrated the re-birth of the traffic-slain dead, the deaths and injuries of those we had seen dying by the roadside and the imaginary wounds and postures of the millions yet to die.This book isn't for everyone. It's a story of the violent melding of technology and human sexuality, written with all of the eroticism of a technical manual. It's brutal and vulgar and hopeless, but for those willing to engage with it --and I fully understand why many would not want to--there is a fascinating examination of the relationship between humans and their creations.

[over.the.edge · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Crashby J.G. Ballard1973/2019PGW/Rare Bird Book3.0 / 5.0Auto-Erotica. Literally. A literary classic, but disappointing, for me.This is about a group of car-crash victims who get sexual pleasure from staging and then being in car-crashes. A story of the interaction of man with machine, a man so obsessed with pleasure he doesnt see it is destroying him....This is a brilliant story. It is overtly dark and perverse, which usually intrigues me, but I just didn't like any of the characters.

[brakketh-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Bleak and challenging to read. The mixture of violence of the collision of technology and sex was very confronting for me.

[reganrule · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

J.G. Ballard’s 1973 novel Crash puts me in mind of the great poet of our time, R. Kelly, and his perspective-shifting masterpiece, Ignition, if Ignition dared to reach its erotic-subversive logical conclusion. For Ballard, the techno-eroticism of the automobile necessarily finds its end in an epic and annihilating collision, the most Kelly is willing to risk is a ticket and his shocks.For reference, the truncated lyrics:“Girl, please let me stick my key in your ignition, babeSo I can get this thing started and get rollin', babeSee, I'll be doin' about 80 on your freewayGirl, I won't stop until I drive you crazySo buckle up 'cause this can get bumpy, babeNow hit the lights and check out all my functions, babeGirl, back that thing up so I can wax it, babyHoney, we gon' mess around and get a ticket, babeNow hold on tight 'cause I'm about to go faster, babeGirl, you're dealin' with a pro behind this wheel, babeSo tell me have you ever driven a stick, babeYou'll be screamin' every time we shiftin' gears, babeSo brace yourself while I'm hittin' them corners, babeAnd when it's over put that tails on your license plate...”Like R. Kelly’s song, the characters in Crash are at one moment operators of the car, in the next moment one with the car itself: e.g.. “let me stick my key in your ignition babe” suggests (obviously) that R. Kelly is decidedly not the vehicle, but the mechanism by which the vehicle’s (woman’s) engines are set running. In the next stanza his car-amour acts as the driver, exploring the dashboard body of R. Kelly. Later, Kelly is again the “pro behind the wheel”-- once more at the driver’s helm--confusingly asking the car-amour if she has ever driven a stick shift, which begs lots of metaphysical questions. Kelly’s muddied metaphors aside, the familiar technology of the car coupled with the erotic encounter--the inherent danger of both--especially when combined--is just the kind of risky fantasy the modern world has made possible. But J.G. Ballard is no R. Kelly. Where R. Kelly plays exclusively with innuendo, Ballard minces no words: [ahem] “As I pressed the head of my penis against the neck of her uterus, in which I could feel a dead machine, her cap, I looked at the cabin around me. This small space was crowded with angular control surfaces and rounded sections of human bodies interacting in unfamiliar junctions...The volumes of Helen’s thighs pressing against my hips, her left fist buried in my shoulder, her mouth grasping at my own, the shape and moisture of her anus as I stroked it with my ring finger, were each overlaid by the inventories of a benevolent technology--the moulded binnacle of the instrument dials, the jutting carapace of the steering column shroud, the extravagant pistol grip of the hand-brake...The passenger compartment enclosed us like a machine generating from our sexual act an homunculus of blood, semen and engine coolant…”Ballard’s Crash explores the tipping point where the fantasy ceases to be satisfied by mere risk, and requires the crash of metal bodies to satisfy the sexual proclivities of human ones. Psychoanalysis has a name for this, of which the author was surely aware: the Death Drive.

[kristelh_15 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

terrible (0), it truly was terrible but I will give it 1 star as I think the author is a good writer, I wish this hadn’t been the first book I read by him. REVIEW: To say I don't get it, really sums up my experience reading this...... Here is an example I don't get. "By terrifying paradox, a sexual act between us would be a way of taking her revenge", this is said about the wife of the man that he killed in an auto accident. And what is the sci fi part of this book. It is the excessive references to cars, roads, airplanes...to technology. It's excessive and oppressive. It makes it feel like an alien force. Here's another quote, "the day I left Ashford I had the extraordinary feeling that all these cars were gathering for some special reason I didn't understand." This is a story of a dystopian world where man no longer has feelings or connections to people and is oppressed by technology. The characters in this book are not likable. They are consumed by sex. The scape of roads and freeways, airports and car parks and the various parts of the inside and outside of cars is what turns them on. The author called this a work of pornography and he was not kidding. The pages are filled with sexual references to parts of cars, sex parts such as penises and breasts, vaginas, urethras and body secretions such as sperm, mucus, blood, vomit. You really feel quite awful after reading this book. This is not gratuitous sex, this is icky sex. I could recommend this book to no one. QUOTES:“The crash was the only real experience I’d been through” "For a half an hour I sat by the window in her office, looking down at the hundreds of cars in the parking lot. Their roofs formed a lake of metal.""Overhead, across the metallized air, a jet-liner screamed."“The marriage of sex and technology reached its climax as the traffic divided at the airport overpass and we began to move forwards in the northbound lane.” WORDS:Flyovers, British word for American overpass.

[evalangui_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I HATE THIS SO MUCH. It's profoundly repugnant. Annoys me particularly because the bits that don't turn my stomach are well-written, even ocassionally insightful.

[earthforms · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this after hearing The Normal's Warm Leatherette and learning about its inspiration. Surprisingly not as disturbing as I had imagined it would be. The first chapter is by far the "worst." I'm wondering if I'm just becoming desensitized to the world. I appreciate and relate to the feelings of isolation and technology and how it still translates to today, maybe even more so.

[pilgrimjess · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

“After being bombarded endlessly by road-safety propaganda it was almost a relief to find myself in an actual accident.” Firstly I should admit that I don't actually drive a car instead preferring two wheels. Now I can imagine getting a sexual kick from having a throbbing Harley Davidson underneath me especially if I had some young leather clad vixen had her arms wrapped about my waist or perhaps heading off to secret assignation with said vixen but getting sexually aroused by cars and in particular car crashes just doesn't work for me. Cars are merely boxes on wheels and a means of getting from A to B dry. Now I do understand the facination we all probably have with accidents of whatever form and like probably everyone else have made an effort at sometime to see one or at least the aftermath of one but to have felt some sexual arousal by it, Nah! Just nosey.Now whilst I appreciate that there are all sort of fetishes out there, the idea that there is a seemingly large group of people trawling aroung the outskirts actively seeking out and getting sexually aroused by car crashes seems a bit far fetched. I can also imagine that the motorcar in the book can be seen as a metaphor for all sorts of technology, the fact that numerous people,rather than random deviants, get sexually excited by inanimate objects also leaves me somewhat non-plussed. On the whole I found the book just an excuse for the author to indulge in an excuse to write an openly pornographic novel which seems to thumb its nose to readers,critics and in particular academics alike. Why in particular acacdemics? Well, I can just imagine in years to come some long-winded, cordoroy wearing professor spouting out so much nonsense about this book ,that the car is really a phallic symbol,that the semen and vaginal deposits spread liberally about represents humanity in a battle against the rise of machines or some other such tosh.I cannot say that I enjoyed this book but nor can I say that I hated it. I intrigued me enough to want to keep turning the pages until the very end and it gets marks for originality but it is not a book that I will revisit thats for sure.

[martensgirl · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I really could not wait for this book to end. I'm not squeamish at all, I just found all the descriptions of car crashes and their 'eroticism' rather dull and repetitive, rather like a child who's learnt to say a rude word. I did not find the conjunction of sex and car crashes believable, interesting or challenging; just a tiresome for-the-sake-of-it incoherent ramble.

[melaniemaksin · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Reading this book wore me out. I like Ballard, I think he's a writer who really gets technology, modernity, isolation, etc., and I'm pretty non-judgmental about even sort of far-out fetishes, but what kept flashing through my brain was GRATUITOUS GRATUITOUS WHEN WILL THIS BOOK END ARRGH. And I don't even mean that it was gratuitous with the sex-and-accidents stuff (although it was)--the blunt, increasingly inelegant repetition of Ballard's arguments made a compelling idea, after a certain point, just tedious. In much the same way that there are only so many words for various parts of the human anatomy (and, dear lord, if I see the words "groin" or "pubis" again in my lifetime it will be too soon), maybe there are only a fixed number of ways of looking at a car crash.

[jwarren42 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lots of other people who are a lot better than me have written all kinds of things about this novel. I will say this: The first hundred pages of the novel are relatively un-engaging. It's almost entirely narrative voice with almost zero dialogue interaction between characters. This was especially difficult for me because that's my favorite part of any book--watching how the characters interact with each other. So the concept is fascinating, the narrative is layered upon inspection and flat on the surface (as many have said), and the narrator's voice is brutally unadorned, mimicking pornographic photography (as many others have said, as well).
The writing is disappointing in all of those ways, though, because all the things that are fascinating about the book are given short shrift--this includes the scene where Ballard first meets Vaughan, which was the one I most wanted to read. The novel is also not helped by the long winded and repetitious first chapter.
So is the book fascinating, conceptually, and highly influential on two whole generations of authors who have come along since its publication? Yes. Is it a good read? Marginally.

[nandakishore_varma-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I know this avant-garde novel is supposed have opened up brave new vistas in dystopian fiction, by "boldly going where no man has gone before". The courage of J. G. Ballard has to be admired the way he links violent death with sex: his narrative structuring is exemplary. However, I simply could not get into the book even after three or four tries. The characters were extremely unlikeable: the main premise was bizarre: and the story failed to hold my interest. I did not finish it.

So I will have to give this a miserable one-star rating. I cannot honestly recommend it to anyone. The only thing is, the reactions these type of novels create are highly subjective: so should it prove to be your cup of tea, it may even come up with five stars.

[randystafford · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

My reaction to reading this novel in 1997. Spoilers follow.This is a perverse novel about a group of automobile accident victims who develop a sexual fetish for car wrecks and the resulting injuries. There is a lot of sex in this book, but it isn’t very arousing. If this is an attempt at pornography (I don’t think it is), it’s not very successful. Ballard’s prose is too clinical (I believe he contemplated a medical career once), to be arousing. This prose tone and quality mutes his attempt at poetic explanations for his narrator and Vaughn's (that "nightmare angel of the highways”) thuggy, obsessed psychological state. While l I realize that people can and do develop all sorts of bizarre sexual fetishes, Ballard never really convinced me of the reality, plausibility, or emotion behind this one. While this is not an sf novel per se, it has a science fiction sensibility about it in its exploration of the erotic attraction and mediation involved in a technology – here autos and automobile transportation (even for the failures of the latter in wrecks). Ballard uses the novel to plot an extended series of sexual metaphors involving autos. In that sense, I can see his influence on the cyberpunks and their use of technological metaphors (though William Gibson is more skilled in this area). His fascination with celebrities and media – here symbolized by Vaughn’s obsession with “the film actress Elizabeth Taylor” – also prefigures cyberpunk themes. Sf critics antagonistic to the New Wave and its major figure Ballard accused him of creating disaster stories in which not only does the hero not try to prevent the disaster, is passive in the face of it, but actually seem to desire it. This is certainly true here. The narrator – named James Ballard – not only senses a coming “autogeddon” but looks forward to his death in it and plots the erotic configurations of his future death.

[leslie398 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I read the first 4 chapters before I gave up. The writing is good but I can't stomach the content, which made me feel physically ill. Perhaps this novel deserves to be on the Guardian's 1000 novels everyone should read list, but I will never know as I will never pick this up again.

[peppuzzo_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Disgusting at the beginning, boring going forward. Forget about this book as quick as you can.

[hadriantheblind · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Hey, everybody, look! Sex! And violence! And more sex! And more violence! And loving detail to all of this! And cars! Sex and violence and cars! Look, semen and blood! Hey, everybody, look at me! Machines are bad, guys, they really are!

How boring. I really should stop.

[palaverofbirds · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ballard is one of the most relevant writers I've come across for this day and age. I've been a moderate fan of the movie version of this book for a while, but the film does no justice to the book at all.

The basic premise of this, and much of Ballard's work, deals with the complete de-humanization and reductionism of the modern era. His characters are sexual, psychological mechanisms operating in technological corridors. The car-sex theme of the book is blatantly metaphorical but scary in its pure crticism of our reductionist world.

[ursula_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This one left me with lots of notes and not much of an idea how to begin putting those thoughts together into something coherent, so I won't promise any sort of organized comments.I'm going to guess that most readers pick this one up with some knowledge of the content, which involves the intersection (pun oh so painfully intended) of automobiles, traffic accidents, and eroticism. Our narrator (coincidentally named James Ballard) gets into a car accident with another vehicle containing a couple; the man dies, the woman lives. From there, Ballard becomes entangled with Vaughan, a morbid aficionado of collisions. The book is the direct opposite of the saying "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." Nothing is ever just a cigar here. Everything is muddled together: reality and fantasy, sex and violence, metal and bodily fluids, organic descriptors for inorganic objects and vice versa. The automobile accident is seen as a way to literally jolt people out of their everyday complacency and awaken them to the real possibilities of the world. Injury and pain are the means to a form of enlightenment (but not in any form Buddha would recognize). Cars are described as arbors or bowers, or "benevolent technology." The modern relationship with the vehicle is taken to its most extreme position, its nature as both a public and a private place explored from every angle.The writing is the melding of style and substance. Words, phrases, ideas are repeated, echoed and mimicked even as the characters find patterns in accident scenes and try to recreate them with their own movements and postures. Reading the book is itself like witnessing a car accident - you want to look away, but somehow you just can't.Recommended for: people who like to dissect meanings, non-germophobes (there are a lot of bodily fluids), Sigmund Freud, David Cronenberg fans.Quote: "I had thought of his last moments alive, frantic milliseconds of pain and violence in which he had been catapulted from a pleasant domestic interlude into a concertina of metallized death."

[peirastic_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful, tragic, terrifying, gruesome, and intensely sexual. I'm not so certain how I feel about the novel so soon after finishing it, but there is some unidentifiable feeling it has elicited. The strange duality between technology and sex is exquisitely highlighted. Everything is technical, and by the end you feel no more attached to any one character than you did at the beginning - you feel helpless against wave after visceral wave of sexual pleasure and discharge. It overtakes you. It consumes you.Ballard, you fool.

[c_j_bolt · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is a difficult book. It's both unrelenting and monotonous in its deliberately provocative, yet banal style. I don't normally review the books I read but felt compelled to add my comments to the discussion that has gone before re: Crash, particularly regarding it being the 'dullest "shocking" novel ever'. I think there is a lot of truth in that quote. Ballard has clearly worked out a grand schema for both the style and content of Crash, but I can't help but feel the achievement is undermined by the ultimate fungibility of each of the characters and the lack of any attempt to explain their nihilism. Also, bizarrely - for a short work - the novel seems too long to sustain the conveyor belt repetition of 'sex acts', metaphor and fetishes. I think Ballard's idea might have been better served by a novella, dropping some of the more mind-numbing passages. You'll need some resolve to finish this and to be frank I'm not sure its worth the bother, despite the plaudits from some.

[andyjb_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Harsh and disturbing. This was one uncomfortable read. Beautiful prose about a dark subject, I found reading this an unnerving experience.

[mausergem_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The story is told in first person by James Ballard himself. Ballard has an accident where he is injured. The other driver is killed and his fellow passenger is hurt. After returning from the hospital Ballard makes automobile erotic connotations. He meets Vaughan who introduces him to other automobile accident victims who are experiencing similar fantasies. What follows are a lot of crashes and a lot of sex. Vaughan’s fantasies in time mature and he wants to crash his car into Elizabeth Taylor’s car and die in the process which will mark his mating with the actress. He dies in the process but palts the seed of his psychopathic tendencies in his followers.Full marks for the style but no marks for the story. When it came out in 1973, it must have shocked a lot of people for its graphic descriptions of the accidents and the sex acts. “Technology will mark our lives” is the message.

[alexrichman_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

The trouble with pornographic writing is that too much creativity has you nominated for the Bad Sex award for tortured metaphors - but playing it straight means using words like "pubis" forty times in twenty pages, as Ballard seems to here. Surely the dullest 'shocking' novel ever; all the characters do is drive around, crash and have sex (often mixing the latter option with the two previous ones). Had I seen the author's explanation of his motives for writing Crash - "I wanted to rub humanity's face in its own vomit and force it to look in the mirror" - I would have avoided this nonsense. Others should learn from my mistake.

[neiljohnford · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I wasn't that keen on this one. Maybe I completely missed the point but I don't think this really deserves the acclaim it has. Most of the characters were poorly drawn. I didn't really relate to the main characters and also variations on the word "stylised" were overused. Don't get it (in that I don't get it and also advise others not to).

[conniejo_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This was a terrible, terrible read. I've got a pretty strong stomach, and I went into this expecting to like it after hearing it was a cult classic.The problem for me was not so much the gore, though there is a lot of graphic descriptions of injuries. The problem is the bland, repetitive writing. The entire first chapter is just paragraph after paragraph of descriptions of accidents. The first three chapters are all sort of like this, with minimal plot slipped in. Well, actually, the entire book is like this, I think I probably just got used to it after awhile. The characters simply move from place to place while the main character ponders what happens to both cars and people in car crashes.That was my biggest problem with Crash. It's also depraved, which I could deal with if it wasn't so boring to read. Lots and lots and lots of sex happens, the main character and his wife often have affairs that they describe to one another in order to stimulate their sexual appetites for one another. Vaughn, the one who starts the car crash obsessions, frequently masturbates to car accidents. The characters use each other's wounds and scars from their accidents as sexual stimulants. The characters also frequently drive around highways causing near-accidents, but mostly just drive infinitely around looking for recent accident sites.So, yes. No redeeming qualities whatsoever.

[satsumahouse · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A gorgeously written renewal of futurism for the automobile age. Though didactic and repetitious (like many dystopias), this novel sparkles with the all the frisson of a newly liberated fetish.

[kwohlrob-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was traveling to London on business. Whenever I get a chance to go abroad, I try to read something “of the region.” Or at least something that contains a metaphor for the trip. Reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Stevenson on my first trip to London and Edinburgh worked quite nicely. Digging into Gulliver’s Travels by Swift while traveling through Sweden, a fantastic land that was completely alien to me at the time, was a perfect call. I won’t discuss the mistake of trying to read The Spider’s House by Paul Bowles while visiting Morocco. Two-for-three as they say.For this trip to London, I wanted something indubitably British. The options were endless. But I handicapped myself with one stipulation: it had to be available for Amazon’s Kindle e-reader. I’ve had one for a few months now and have adapted quite nicely to reading newspapers and magazines on the device. But I had yet to finish a full novel. I was dead set on doing it for this trip, if for no other reason than keeping the bags light and not wanting to pack several books. After choosing a few novels that were not available (damn you digital rights!!!), I stumbled upon Crash by J.G. Ballard. It made perfect sense – here was an author delving into the complications of humanity’s increasing reliance on technology. What better book to read on a Kindle? And the book is indubitably British in its sense of humor and sort of dry delivery.Which brings us to the book itself…Crash could’ve been one of those novels. You know the one I’m discussing. It’s a really clever idea. Very clever. So clever that agents will engage in rugby scrums to get their hands on it. More often than not, it comes from a graduate of an MFA program. Publishers will jump into a frenzy, bidding with foaming mouths during an auction. Here is the future! Here is the savior of literature! Here is… Well nothing more than a clever idea poorly executed. It is the equivalent of seeing a Richard Prince exhibit. In the end you are left to say, “Well he’s clever, but that is all I can say about him.”In many ways, Crash could’ve been that novel. The metaphor of car crashes as sexual affairs is driven (pun intended) down the reader’s throat. It’s carried to ridiculous lengths within the prose. “The aggressive stylization of this mass-produced cockpit, the exaggerated mouldings of the instrument binnacles emphasized my growing sense of a new junction between my body and automobile, closer than my feelings for Renata’s broad hips and strong legs stowed out of sight beneath her red plastic raincoat. I leaned forward, feeling the rim of the steering wheel against the scars of my chest, pressing my knees against the ignition switch and handbrake.” That is one of the tamer passages, as Ballard takes the metaphor to its fullest extent.In the hands of most writers, the novel would’ve fallen apart quickly, a clever idea collapsing into itself. But Ballard expertly weaves it into a portrayal of humanity going quite mad, car crazy if you will. The character of Vaughan can even be seen as a non-entity, a mirror of the narrator’s increasingly decaying sanity. The world was already obsessed with cars when the novel was written in 1973. Our problems with climate change and an addictive need for oil to keep the gas-guzzlers running has proven that we’ve grown more deranged in our attachment to cars and driving since then. One need look no further than the SUV craze of the 1990s and early 2000s to see how prescient Ballard truly was. Americans bought large bulked up, big block, SUVs in droves – despite the gas guzzling nature of the vehicles and our already well-attuned environmental consciousness. The sexual overtones are obvious. I’m an impotent sheep at work; give me something monstrous to drive so I feel hard. A bit over the top I know, but dig deep, and it really boils down to that. Or did you really say, “Screw the environment, my kid needs a tank to be protected from other drivers!” Either way, it makes us look like fools. And that’s the beauty of Crash. Ballard takes us into ourselves. The prose is cutting, biting. It wounds us, much like a flight through a windshield, leaving a map of scars. He picks apart our obsessions with automobiles (and the sexuality inherit with that obsession) and in a brilliant, over-the-top satire, lays out our ugliness on a morgue table.Needless to say, I had a smashing time in London.

[absurdeist · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

J.G. Ballard's Crash gives new meaning to the word 'autoerotic'. It's one hell of a ride.

[ablueidol · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In reading most works by J.G. Ballard you need to be prepared for dystopian modernity, with bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments. Crash 1973 is central to that view of his writing. It is a phonographic depiction of sexually fetished car crashes and the resulting body deformities. You know you are in for a bumpy ride(yes I know) when one of the scenes is about sex with a willing invalid car driver (remember the little green boxes on wheels) who because of wounds and missing or damaged limbs has more holes capable of penetrative sex.The story starts with a couple that have an open sexual relationship so sleeping with different partners carrying out any type of penetrative sex imaginable and more you haven’t. And get their kicks in telling each other etc. On the way to work “Ballard” kills someone in a head on car crash gets drawn into a sub world of men and women who get their sexual kicks from sex in crashed or crashing cars and attending car crashes. He had noticed Vaughan photographing him at the accident and the hospital. Through him “Ballard” gets drawn into ever more violent sexual activity, including becoming aroused and having sex with him using his scars as a scaffold to…A central story line is the plot by Vaughan to die having sex while crashing into a car containing the hottest top female film star of the day. “Ballard’s” wife in between a lesbian affair gets the hots for him and gets xxxxed in the backseat as “Ballard” drives at dangerous speeds watching them in the rear mirror.How much of this is about Ballard’s own sexual kicks is unclear as in 1970 Ballard organized an exhibition of crashed cars at the New Arts Laboratory, appropriately called "Crashed Cars". The crashed vehicles and their sexual potential were displayed without commentary, inspiring vitriolic responses and vandalism. The main character of Crash is called James Ballard living in Shepperton as did the author. And he suffered a serious automobile accident shortly after completing the novel. The book must not be confused with the 2004 film Crash which is an Academy Award-winning drama film directed by Paul Haggis. This film seeks to depict and examine not only racial tension, but also the distance between strangers in general. The film of the book is 1996 film directed by David Cronenberg. It was praised and attacked in equal measure and won a special prize for daring, audacity, and originality at the Cannes film festival.So why ,if you are still with me, would you bother to read what appears to be such a distasteful book? The clue is in the structure and descriptions of the book repetitive phraseology of medical sexual teams and the descriptions of the car and body parts. It means that you the reader experience the alienation and emptiness that is the heart of the story. The story is not erotic in any sense as it point to the emptiness of lives that depend on more and more extreme highs and drugs to keep the sexual tension going. Death then becomes the ultimate sexual act. Nowhere does love and community figure in a world of motorways, airports, roundabouts and technological emptiness. What ever the feelings and motives of the writer, the story serves as a warning of a society that obsesses objects and appearances over personal relationships and social community-who cares for the children in this vision of our lives?I didn’t find it an easy read and was reluctant to spend time reading it but would recommend it for the importance of us seeking to avoid a reality that could become our world if we cease to love."The success of love is in the loving; it is not in the result of loving. Of course it is natural in love to want the best for the other person, but whether it turns out that way or not does not determine the value of what we have done".Mother Teresa