Crash Test

Reviews

• Frida
  challengingemotionalreflectivesadMedium-paced

  Started October 1, 2026 · Finished October 4, 2026

  I liked Crash Test quite a bit, but I also spent a significant portion of it wanting to lock two emotionally constipated racing drivers in a room and tell them other people aren't lightning rods for feelings they refuse to examine. The structure was one of my favourite things about this. We start in the immediate aftermath of Jacob’s horrific Formula 2 crash, with Travis desperately trying to find out whether he’ll survive while nobody around him knows Jacob is far more than another driver to him. From there, the book moves between the present and the development of their relationship before eventually shifting perspective, which worked really well. The secrecy never feels abstract because we see exactly how much thought goes into who can know what and what being seen together might mean. I really liked Travis and Jacob. Their chemistry is easy and convincing, with Jacob’s confidence and teasing playing beautifully against Travis’s awkwardness and reserve. Watching two men who are extremely good at driving cars very fast discover that they are considerably less talented at being functional human beings was always going to work for me, as long as their emotional incompetence remained believable. And mostly, it did. Both are spectacularly good at avoidance. They suppress things, make assumptions, refuse to say what they need and occasionally redirect all that fear, grief, and anger onto whoever happens to be closest. So, I frequently wanted to scream JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER, but I could usually understand why they didn’t.

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