Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I really enjoyed this! It definitely had my emotions all over the place, but I’m glad with how it ended and how the characters grew and changed

As an F1 fan, it was fun to read all the team stuff (think we can all agree Crosswire is Red Bull and Harper is Mercedes???)

It was hard to get into this book from the start because we're dropped right in the middle of the story with absolutely no build up. While some people have mentioned the alternating timeline chapters made it even more difficult to follow, I think following was less an issue and more it would have helped to have these first to see how we got to where the book started. It did not help that in a flashback chapter it's revealed to be insta-love, so the issue of no buildup is compounded.

Furthermore, the love-interest/second main character (Jacob) is kind of horrible. He barely has any redeeming qualities, even when the person who claims to love him talks about him. When we reach Jacob's POV chapters, it doesn't get any better. Even the epiphany common to romance books comes out of nowhere, feeling more like a last ditch effort to make him like able than anything else. Jacob doesn't even really seem to care for the person he's with, making me wonder why they're so determined to be together.

This book might work for me if I'm bored with nothing else to read, but right now it was not really worth it. Others might enjoy it though.

I should have really loved this and I don’t think it was bad by any means. But the first half was so strong and left me floundering when we got into the second half. I loved Travis and Jacob as separate entities but never really felt like they worked as a couple. Maybe because so much of the story form halfway onward drags? Or because the grovel didn’t feel satisfactory? I think I wanted more consistency out of it than what we got and was left disappointed.

this was…nottttt what i was expecting!! i expected a more lighthearted gay romcom along of the lines of RWRB but this was quite heavy. after an accident who’s pov takes place in one characters perspective, we get a shift to the other mc after and follow a nonlinear-ish(?) timeline. this all mixed together made for a dramatic and interest worthy that’s for sure (i read it in one sitting) but as to whether i’d recommend…is a different story. maybe i just had too different of expectations!

3.5 Stars. F1 driver Travis’ life is turned to chaos when his secret boyfriend, F2 driver Jacob, is involved in a serious crash during a race. Travis is torn between his duties as a driver and his need to be at Jacob’s side. But Jacob hasn’t told his family about Travis so they do not want him involved in Jacob’s recovery. Jacob breaks things off with Travis and Travis is left reeling. After returning home to New Mexico, Jacob is lost without racing and without Travis. He must work through his own issues and try to win back Travis back if he’ll have him.

I love F1 but have had mixed experiences with F1 romances so I was a bit nervous for this book but did make it all the way through in essentially one sitting. I liked the story and by the end I liked both Travis and Jacob but there were flaws. I found the structure of the book to be bizarre. The first 50% was from Travis’s POV and the story jumped around in time during the pair’s relationship with no real place markers. The next 20% was Jacob’s perspective covering several months post breakup. The final 30% was allegedly split between the two but it was a bit difficult to read as there were no markers for whose POV we were in and there were a few times I thought we were in one POV but were really in another and I had to go back and restart the chapter. The ending itself was horribly anti-climactic and felt like a cheap cop-out from an author who just wanted to wrap things up and be done and not deal with her character’s actions. You can’t have the level of emotional tension and distress the characters were going through and then not have them discuss and work through things on page. It’s not fair to the reader or the characters. I was also very annoyed that we got 50% Travis and 20% Jacob in the beginning because Jacob had the more interesting story line and yet so much of his journey was glossed over. Again I don’t know if this is a skill issue with writing or if it was meant to be a single POV book and the second POV was added later, but it felt odd for it to be weighted so heavily one way over the other. For those who are not fans of F1 this book does enough explaining of the structure of the sport for you to understand the stakes at play, but doesn’t focus on the sport. There were many things that didn’t make sense in the world of F1 (like Travis not knowing the names of other drivers or Jacob’s family not knowing who Travis is), but where the story wasn’t focused on the technical aspects of the sport I can forgive that. I DNF’d Amy’s previous book so this one was a step in the right direction, but still did not fully work for me. I am now more open to reading other books from her and really hope there’s one that works for me in the future.

Thank you to Avon and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Amy James' Crash Test reads like a 100k hurt/comfort Formula 1 AU fanfiction, and I mean that in the best way possible.

You're immediately dropped into Travis and Jacob's relationship and the catalyzing event that leads to their breakup. Rather than a traditional romance novel structure where we follow two people falling in love and getting together, we're on a journey of self-discovery with each of the characters individually for most of the book. Travis has walled himself off from meaningful relationships, but in the aftermath of the breakup he works on developing more friendships and letting people in. Jacob suffers a traumatic injury in a car crash, and we join him through his recovery (both physical and emotional).

This book is immensely readable - I read the whole thing from start to finish in one six-hour sitting! Even though I knew they would get back together (it is a romance novel, after all), I had to keep reading to find out how!

Thanks to Avon and NetGalley for the ARC!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The relationship between the two main characters won’t be for everyone but with the high levels of angst if was definitely for me.

One aspect I loved of this book is the choice to have the characters be formula 1 and 2 drivers. Most mm romances tend to revolve around hockey or (American) football which leaves out an added layer that I hadn’t considered, the international aspect of other sports such as racing. In football and hockey there are only a select few countries that okay these sports, hell for football it’s really only played at a competitive level within the US. The stakes are much higher for internationally relevant sports, especially since competitions are held in various countries. In some countries it is illegal to be a member of the LGBT community. This additional layer of nuance helped me better understand the characters even when they were pissing me off.

What led me to a lower rating it that they didn’t actually explore many issues because most of the book is set when the characters are not in an active relationship. While it allows us to better understand the characters on a personal level, it is hard to see how they work as a couple and how they can potentially have an equal relationship. In addition great points like the international aspect of the sport and the hardships of coming out as a public figure were mentioned, but not explored. There was so much potential but it fell a bit flat to me. That being said I still liked this book and would recommend it.

dnf at 50%
2.5/5

flew through what i read, the beginning throws you immediately into the thick of the story and you can't help but keep going. at the same time, the more i went on the more things i found that i didn't quite enjoy, especially when it came to jacob, so i decided to stop reading, maybe i'll pick it up again in the future, maybe not.

SO GOOD! There’s some things I wasn’t the biggest fan of but I really enjoyed this one. I was SAD SAD for more than half the book (the longing 😭) but the ending was really nice. I truly hope this is a series!

i really liked the dual timelines in this story, i think it made the story super interesting to read. the characters in this story go through lots of changes and the character growth in this book is so well written, i really enjoyed watching the story progress. there was lots of tension and drama in the story as well which kept me turned the page constantly. Overall a really good and interesting read. There was some things that i didn’t love in the story though, the immediate getting back together after a pretty traumatic break up and one of the main characters really pissed me off for a while but i think that was just part of the character development. also im not sure if this is because its an arc and maybe it’ll change but, it was a bit confusing going through the chapters because they didn’t really say who was who and what time we were in so you just had to figure it out on your own, other than that i loved the book!!!

5 STARS!

Okay this is a romance made for me, mostly because it's not really a romance book in the standard sense. Hear me out!

Race car drivers Travis and Jacob have been dating in secret for a year when Jacob gets into a massive crash during a race and his life is put at risk. Between Jacob's bigoted parents and the threats to their careers, Jacob and Travis's relation is put to the test and both must reflect on their flaws before moving forward. They've been dating for a year before the book starts, they spend a good portion of it separated, characters actually go to therapy, and there is no traditional third-act break-up! This is not your standard romance! Thank god, because I think it's perfect just the way it is. I love angst and Jacob and Travis go through the ringer facing the slew of issues that would arise if two public figures were in a secret relationship, especially if one of them comes from a conservative family and doesn't feel comfortable with his queerness. Travis and Jacob are deeply flawed people that need to put a lot of work into themselves and they actually do! A lot of the book focuses on the development of their relationships with friends and family as opposed to their romantic relationship with one another, and how finding and understanding those relationships help them become better, healthier people. It resolves a big issue I have with a lot of romances where the third-act break-up and the resolution happen to closely for me to believe that the characters have really grown at all, so I end up not really rooting for their relationship. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the aspects that made me really love this book will make people who really love the standard romance formula not like it. If that's you, maybe proceed with caution. If you're like me and you think that formula needs a little shaking up (and you like a heavier dose of angst/conflict with your romance) I really think you'll love this!

I'm obsessed, and so happy to see someone playing with romance in a new way!

Thank you to Amy James and Avon for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!

Happy reading!

This book is immensely readable. I finished in about 2 hours I stayed up until past 1 am reading but unfortunately for it doesn’t make a great romance. The narrative structure of the way its split into 3 sections. All the spoilers ahead. This is honestly one of the few books in a long while to make me think about plot structure so lets roll with the adhd train of thought.

Travis’ pov of after the accident is also used in a partially nonlinear fashion that jumps backward to show pieces of the beginning of their relationship. This non linear aspect I feel drags the overall page count and doesn’t allow for the necessary proper grovel relationship rebuilding in the third act. Jacob breaks up with Travis in this pov section at roughly 40%. Structurally I don’t have a huge problem with his because usually if the breakup is early there’s still plenty of time for them to get back together and fix their issues and create a believable HEA. Not here. It is truly heartbreaking what Travis must go through in order to be able to see his boyfriend when he is in the intensive care unit at the French hospital. This aspect of Travis’s pov is what hooked me. He has so much anxiety and so much loneliness because Jacob is his entire world even if Jacob doesn’t realize that. And that’s part of Travis’s journey is finding and making a little family for himself with this teammates, but that is a journey he under takes without Jacob.


The second part of this book is entirely Jacobs pov roughly 30% of the book which is dedicated to him recovering from his accident at home with his terrible homophobic overbearing family. He has a therapist he’s angry he blames Travis for most things. He also blames himself. I quite like his therapist but again. Besides a few flashbacks in this section and is Travis section the forward momentum of the actual plot these two are not together. I have hard time emotionally connecting to Jacob. He spends some time interrogating his bisexuality, but he never really meets any other queer people. He is still very isolated narratively.

The third section is where things really fall apart from me. We have 30% there is some hope that this book could tie their relationship back together in a satisfying way but that doesn’t really happen instead we have Jacob in London missing Travis and then Travis going to New Mexico missing Jacob and then Jacob going to New Mexico finding out Travis was their and then going back to London and eventually finding him. This takes up 16% of the remaining 30% of this book! Truly silly this entire section is all just very absurd and not in the fun way. The clock is running out on making this into an actual romance and not whatever funky women’s gay fiction this is turning out be. And to me that clock does run out the ending for them is terribly rushed like they do “talk” but nothing about this and or them together is believable.

These men haven’t been together for 10 months and yet one blow job and one conversation somehow fixes everything?? This book fails to make the HEA believable because they both spend more of the book separated than together. 10 Months is a long time to be separated especially after a tragic event which is why ultimately this book fails as a romance. In the end though I did devour this book in 2 hours and the first section from Travis' pov is a really great hook into the story but it doesn't manage to stick the landing as an actual Capital R genre Romance.

Knowing nothing about F1 racing and wanting to read this from the cover alone I couldn’t put this one down! It jumps right into the chaos of Jacob and Travis lives

Loved how the relationship built and the different povs you could feel the love they have for each other

I just wish the ending didn’t feel so quick

I've started like three different ways of reviewing this book but I really don't know how to get across what it was like reading it.

You jump RIGHT into the chaos of Trevor and Jacob's relationship, and immediately Jacob almost dies. That being our first introduction to them sets the pace for the first half of the book and I could not put the thing down.

I was so caught up in this world of racing and hospitals and wanting to know what would happen if/when Jacob woke up and how his less than stellar family was going to react- Not well, just as I suspected!

I've said time and time again that I love a flawed character, and when I tell you these boys have flaws!
They were not great to one another in their relationship, and you find them in it as one of them is fighting for their life, but you still kind of are rooting for them? The angst here is just *chefs kiss* if you're into that, and boy am I into that. It's messy and a little but absurd but honestly I was into that aspect so much.

I've *also* said before that I know nothing about F1, so l can't comment on any of that, but I will say that I really loved watching Trevor and Jacob find their footing and really try to grow into themselves separately before they were ever able to work on "them" together. Trevor finding his little group of found family in his racing crew was so rewarding for me and honestly I would have been happy with near any ending as long as he got to keep them.

My biggest issue was how QUICKLY things were resolved, but it does work narratively and I think the ending was a satisfying one that people will enjoy.
This one is going to be one that sticks with me for a while and I will absolutely end up reading it again!

This book was everything that i want in a romance novel and more. I love these two so much. I'll be recommending it throughout the year !

The premise of Crash Test really intrigued me, I love some good established (but secret) relationship angst (sorry for the fanfic terms but they fit.)

I don’t know much about F1 or F2 but I found I didn’t need much context to understand what was actually happening, which was nice.

There is a section dedicated to each MC but the section for Travis was longer, more developed, and more thoughtfully written. There was an emotional connection to Travis’ grief, his struggles, and his loneliness.

Conversely Jacob’s was much shorter and less developed. It was there, don’t get me wrong, I just think more time with Jacob and more introspection would have greatly benefitted his character development, as it lacked in comparison to Travis. His struggles with biphobia, his family, and his accident were all overshadowed by his relationship with Travis. They were dismissed and glossed over too quickly to make sense in my opinion. It could have been so much more compelling with more substance. Jacob was honestly insufferable for half the book, even though the qualities of redemption were there his development was entirely rushed. (and if I had to read him whine another “whatever” again I was going to hurl my iPad across the room.)

Their relationship also made little sense post-crash, everything happened so quickly. They never really examined their issues which is really to the detriment of both their character developments. I like characters with flaws. Travis and Jacob felt very real because they were flawed, they weren’t cookie-cutter characters that argue over insignificant things. So it was nice to see characters, especially queer ones, be flawed. I just wish it had been handled better.

(3.5) Crash Test was an enjoyable read! I felt connected to both main characters and was rooting for them despite the times they made me want to yell “nooo why!!!” I felt like their flaws were written very well and while they had satisfying character development personally, the ending felt very rushed and they got back together far too quickly in my opinion. I would have liked to see them talk about the breakup and the mistakes made in their past relationship before immediately dating again! Also, my gripe with nearly every F1 book I read is that I just wish there was more F1! But that’s a very me problem. Overall solid and fun read!

Crash Test is a m/m F1 romance about the complicated relationship of two closeted drivers. Travis Keeping is a highly successful but lonely F1 driver who knows he’s gay but has never been with anyone until he meets Jacob Nichols, a talented F2 driver who holds his bisexuality at arm’s length. Their relationship deepens over the course of one year until a terrible crash leaves Jacob in critical condition. The story alternates between their perspectives as they each face emotional challenges in reconsidering their past relationship and how to move forward.

Both Travis and Jacob have satisfying character arcs, but the ending felt a bit rushed. I expect groveling to match the scope of missteps, but there weren’t enough pages for one character to show their emotional growth to the other rather than telling them about it. That being said, I still highly recommend this one and look forward to more Amy James titles. Perhaps an F1 series?

Thanks to HarperCollins and NetGalley for proving this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

On the whole, I enjoyed this F1 romance. And I think I understand why the author structured it the way she did... but even so, the the way the POVs were presented, combined with the then/now jumps, kept me from being completely drawn in, at least for the first half of the story. Then, once we got to the end, it seemed to me that things wrapped up too quickly/easily in terms of the obstacles the MCs had to overcome to be together.

Those quibbles aside, I was rooting for the MCs, I wanted to keep turning the pages, and I'd gladly read more by this author.

My thanks to the publisher/NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.