Review: Crush by Eve Ainsworth

Published: May 2016

Pages: 288

Synopsis: “Love hurts ... but should it hurt this much? Reeling from her mum's sudden departure, Anna finds the comfort she needs in her blossoming relationship with Will. He's handsome and loving, everything Anna has always dreamt of. He's also moody and unpredictable, pushing her away from her friends, her music. He wants her to be his and his alone. He wants her to be perfect. Anna's world is closing in. But threatening everything is a dark secret that not even Will can control... Eve Ainsworth's gripping second novel is a pitch-perfect exploration of love at its most powerful, addictive and destructive.”

Rating: *****

I didn’t think Crush would usually have been my kind of read, but I decided to read through the Carnegie Award 2017 longlist and alphabetically, this was first.

From the very first chapter when Anna sees the school counsellor, I knew this would be a thought provoking read, especially since I now work in a school and am more aware of situations within a school. I knew instantly that I would feel very differently about this than I would have done if I had read prior to September 2016. The build-up was subtle, the way Will’s control over Anna was established and built upon from disliking her having her hair tied back to the more extreme behaviour later on. It shows how scarily easily these things can escalate and as a reader you could really see the warning signs that Anna was so oblivious to. I almost wanted to shake some sense into her.

Crush was so well written, you got a sense of the characters, even Will from the small sections written from his point of view. There were times when I felt sorry for Will and could understand why he acted the way he did when you took his past into account, but that isn’t an excuse and you would like to think people would take a different path from how they were treated and make more of themselves and their lives.

A very quick read but thought and emotion provoking.