Crashing in Love by Jennifer Richard Jacobson

Crashing in Love by Jennifer Richard Jacobson  
Format:  ARC Paperback
Publisher:  Candlewick Press
Number of Pages:  255
Publishing:  October 12th, 2021 
Source:  Raquel Stecher from Candlewick Press in exchange for an honest review

Opening Line:  "I skitter around the bedroom I share with my sister Calla, tucking my nightshirt beneath my pillow, picking up the stuffed animals that fell off my bed in the night."

Twelve-year-old Peyton was all set for the perfect summer in Mussel cove, Maine.  She was hoping she and her best friend, Mari would finally find their first boyfriend and get a job together working at the Anchorage Hotel.  Then last minute, Mari decided to help her Aunt with her new baby instead.  Disappointed, Peyton tries to make the best of things.  While out riding her bike one morning, Peyton stumbles across a boy lying in the road unconscious, the victim of a hit and run accident.  After calling for an ambulance, she waits with the boy along the side of the road and vows to make it her mission to find the person responsible.    

What initially drew me to Crashing in Love was the cover and title.  I don't see many books with a main character riding a bike and I was intrigued by the story premise.  It reminded me a lot of a younger version of the movie While You Were Sleeping.  Like Lucy in the movie, Peyton knows nothing about the unconscious person of her affection, yet instantly has a crush on this handsome boy.  He even seems to fit her ideal boyfriend type, having all of the qualities on her wish list for a boyfriend.   While visiting Gray at the hospital, Peyton meets Gray's mom and gets caught up with how she treats her as a young adult and how warm she is to her for caring about her son.  Peyton spends time at the hospital talking to Gray while he's in a coma and eventually is hired by his mom to sit with him a few hours a week.  While at the hospital Peyton sees a boy named Jax and starts to suspect he might've been involved, she even tries to get her mother to investigate, as she's a local journalist, but is disappointed when her mom tries to stop her from visiting Gray all together.  As with While You Were Sleeping, when Gray wakes up from his coma, Peyton's view of him begins to change.  Which seems natural because he was only an idea to her.  Overall, Crashing in Love was an entertaining book and captured that teenage, angsty, obsessive desire to find a boyfriend, while also cautioning that sometimes it's better to really see what's around you instead.