Julie's Review: Beautiful Disaster

Author: Jamie McGuire
Series: Yes, Beautiful Series
Publication Date: 
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Length: 10 hours, 30 minutes
Obtained: Audible, mine
Genre:  New Adult
Rating: 3.5/5
Bottom Line: Totally not in my scope of genres but if you want a little bad boy gone good, this is for you
Grab, Just get it at the library, or Remove from your TBR list? Just Get it at the library

Summary: The new Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate number of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance from the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University’s Walking One-Night Stand. Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby wants—and needs—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’s apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match. ~powells.com

Review: Abby/Travis or Travis/Abby it doesn't really matter because you know these two are destined to be together. Beautiful Disaster was an interesting book for me. On one hand I couldn't tear myself away from it and on the other I wanted to scream because of the co-dependency between these two. I think if I had read it I probably would have put it down but listening to it kept me from stopping. Plus I kind of wanted to see if they would implode or survive.

Let's talk about the good things: Abby's strong personality, her ability to go toe to toe with Travis' erratic behavior and her confidence. Let's face it, even if you aren't into men with tattoos Travis is still hot and the sex scenes. That Jamie McGuire does a great job of writing those scenes. You can't help getting a little flushed.

Let's talk about the questionable things: Travis' control-freak behavior towards Abby, their co-dependency on each other, the anger/violence that Travis has burning inside him, their ping-pong relationship. The fact that he felt he needed her to save him, that's a tough bill to fill for anyone let alone an 18/19 year old girl. The overuse of "Pigeon" as a term of endearmeant. It was enough to want me to puke at times.

I enjoyed the reveals of why Abby didn't have the pristine background everyone thought she had. I loved that she did have an edge to her and I loved that she could keep up with Travis' antics. I loved that Abby was finally finding her place in the world and was able to find stablity, even if Travis seemed unstable to me.

While I enjoyed it as a book and will probably read the next one Walking Disaster. Travis is the exact kind of guy we warn our daughters about. He's violent, possessive, irrational and downright scary at times. So why did I root for them? I guess because maybe Abby is his calming affect. Maybe they really are each other's yin and yang. My only hope is that he won't become more possessive now that they are together. Perhaps he was that way because he was fighting for her.

If you are looking for a novel to escape into, then Beautiful Disaster is for you.

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