Hello everyone and welcome to a brand new edition of Lil Red’s Book Club! My sister, mom, and I tend to read a lot of the same books and I love our little makeshift family book club. The most recent book my sister read was The Crash by Freida McFadden and she quite enjoyed it so I thought I would give it a try too. It was pretty good and I finished it in just two days. In a spoiler free setting, as always, we will be discussing my sister’s book club pick. The Crash also is a big fat trigger warning as it deals with infertility, sexual assault, violence, and highly disturbing content. Now, let’s get to it:

Tegan may be young, flat broke, and heavily pregnant but her luck is about to turn around big time. She might not remember the one night stand that resulted in her daughter’s conception but that’s okay too. The man who got her pregnant, Simon, is married, rich, and willing to pay a jaw dropping sum to keep Tegan quiet. Simon’s lawyer, Jackson, assists in all of the details of the contract and Tegan simply has to sign at the dotted line for more money than she can imagine when Simon and Jackson visit her tiny studio apartment. She’s ecstatic, until she smells Simon’s cologne and it helps her remember the night she had forgotten. It wasn’t consensual sex at all that got her pregnant.

After this memory resurfaces, Tegan refuses to take the hush money and decides to stay with her older brother for a few days. She picks up one last shift at the grocery store she works at before her trip, packs her meager belongings, and hits the road. There might be a heavy snowstorm coming but Tegan is confident she can beat it and arrive to her destination safely. After all, it’s barely snowing once she’s on the highway. As Tegan continues her journey, the light snowfall turns into a full fledged blizzard and her beat up car is struggling. At this point, she has no idea where she is, the snow and ice are devastating, and she ends up running into a tree.

The baby is okay from the crash but Tegan isn’t. Her ankle is completely shattered and she can’t get out of her car. She is convinced this is the end until a stranger in a pickup truck helps her. This man should be her savior but his huge build and looming presence scare her. She is in no position to wait for someone else, though, and agrees to his help. His name is Hank and he carries her into his truck and takes her back to his home in the woods that he shares with his wife Polly. The snow is piling high and there is no way she can get to the hospital until the next day.

Once Hank and Tegan arrive at his home, him and Polly decide the best place for their guest to stay is in the basement. Polly, a former nurse, took care of her sick mother and converted the space into a hospital room. Tegan doesn’t like this idea one bit but the living room couch she is laying on is uncomfortable and she reluctantly agrees to the hospital bed. The roads will be plowed tomorrow and she can go to the hospital so what’s one night? Or two? Or three? Tegan has something that Polly wants desperately and her stay will be extended until she gets it. What happens next? Read The Crash to find out!

As I ravenously read The Crash, I couldn’t help but to laugh because this book honestly felt like reading a reboot of Misery by Stephen King. Misery also just so happens to be one of my favorite Stephen King books. The similarities between both books was striking – the plots might have been slightly different but the circumstances were basically the exact same. I wouldn’t say it was a bad thing but it almost felt… lazy on Freida McFadden’s part. Countless scenarios in The Crash felt so “been there done that” or should I say “been there read that” because I most certainly have. I think Freida McFadden got the cliche of “steal from the best and make it your own” wrong because it was more like “steal from the best, change things ever so slightly, and make it your own” lol.

Despite The Crash being a LifeTime movie remake of Misery and the fact that I spot on predicted everything but one twist, there was still a lot I liked about it and this was primarily because of Tegan. I absolutely loved her as the leading lady and she was so easy to root for. Yes, The Crash was very predictable. However, that didn’t take the worry I felt for Tegan away but almost intensified it. I knew what was coming next and the only question was how she was going to get out of it. And, of course, Freida McFadden is an extremely gifted writer regardless of the deja vu plot. She kept The Crash at a one hundred mile per hour pace and it completely solidified the urgency of the situation and kept me turning the pages.

Overall, I am going to rate The Crash with a four out of ten stars. Was it worth the read if you have read Misery before? That’s up for you to decide, but I’m still glad that I gave it a shot!

What is your favorite Freida McFadden book? What are you currently reading? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah