Laura in Bookland: Review: Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire
Beautiful, #1
Paperback, 437 pages
Published August 14th 2012 by Atria Books
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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 needs—and wants—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.

My Initial Thoughts:

I honestly didn’t have any real thoughts on this book before I read it. I hadn’t heard to many people talk about it, but the few I did said it was great. I was a little worried because it was a contemporary read and it was over 400 pages. I thought I might have a hard time finishing it or that it would take me a long time because I wouldn’t feel the urge to pick it up.

My Review:

Well I have to say I didn’t have to worry about not feeling the urge to pick this book because I didn’t really put it down. Yup, read this book in a day. I don’t think I have ever read a book this long in a day. I have to say I really enjoyed this story. I ended up knocking a star off, which I will explain later.

I believe this book fits quite nicely into the “New Adult” category. This book involves older teenagers, the main character is 18/19. There are adult things in this book though. They have multiple fake ID’s and you get to read about drinking, gambling, and sex.

I think the synopsis is a little misleading. It says right off the bat that Abby Abernathy is a good girl and she doesn’t drink or cuss. I honestly can’t remember if she cussed or not because cussing doesn’t bother me so I tend to not even pay attention to it. However, she drank quite a bit! I never saw her turn down a drink.

Abby Abernathy is the main character. She is an 18 year old freshman at Eastern University. Her best friend American, I will get to her in a minute, comes with her to school so she can help Abby start over. Abby is strange. I was torn on whether I liked her or not. She couldn’t make up her mind when it came to Travis and Parker. She was always worried about what other people were thinking about her. She made some decisions that sort of made me want to yell at her.

Travis is the main man in this book and man if I went solely on looks then he would be my guy. HOWEVER! He reminded me of the infamous CHRISTIAN GREY! Please tell me I am not the only one that thought this! He only slept around with girls and was totally against a relationship then all of a sudden he meets this one girl on accident and completely changes his outlook and is totally in love. He is also extremely controlling! He doesn’t want another guy to talk to Abby, let alone look at her. He has a tendency to fly off the handle and completely over reacts when Abby leaves. (CHRISTIAN GREY ANYONE?!) Their relationship definitely leans towards the “disaster” part of the title.

The other characters in the book are Park, the preppy guy that Abby thinks she wants to be with; America, her best friend that tends to overreact on her boyfriend but is otherwise ok; and Shepley, America’s boyfriend, who is probably the most level headed average character in the book. I think I might have even liked him the best.

Now because the relationship in this book is pretty much just a disaster and there is no real beautiful to it, some people are giving this a horrible rating. However, I liked the story. A story is supposed to cause a reaction from you and I believe that’s what this book did. I hate boring contemporary stories that follow someone’s average everyday life. My life is like that so I don’t really feel the need to read about it. I like it when contemporary books have that extra something that makes me want to continue the story. It’s not like the author wrote about something that would never happen. Relationships like this happen all the time, all over the world. I don’t think that should cause a book to get a bad rating. There are certain parts of this book that I found a little unbelievable (as in I really don’t think it would happen) but they would all involve spoilers. Those are the couple parts that I knocked a star off for. (And a little because I was reminded so much of Christian Grey).

Do I Recommend this Book/Series?

Yes I recommend reading this book. I hate comparing this book to Fifty Shades because it is definitely not all about sex but he just reminds me so much of Christian Grey’s character! So I say everyone should read this but if you think you would have liked Fifty Shades without all the sex then I think you would really like this book.

Will I Read the Next Book?

Absolutely! The next book is supposed to be from Travis’s point of view and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

My Rating: