Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Beautiful Disaster
Author: Jamie McGuire
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication: May 26, 2011
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Review:
This book was captivating and entrancing the same way an accident on the freeway is. Or the way the TLC Show Here comes Honey Boo Boo is. It is utterly addicting and you can’t look away but when you are done you can’t remember why you were so mesmerized. For me, Beautiful Disaster was a complete hot mess of a book but I still couldn’t put it down. When I was finally able to stop and look back the book though the story was only okay.

Beautiful Disaster follows the story of Abby Abernathy and her best friend America who travel far away from their hometown to attend college. Abby is trying to leave her past behind and find “the right” kind of boyfriend. This plan is crushed completely when she meets Travis Maddox a total player who is also involved in an underground fight club on campus. Abby does her best to avoid Travis but he is the roommate of America’s boyfriend and after losing a bet with him she can’t really avoid him any more.

The relationship between Abby and Travis is completely wrong and unhealthy. They are abusive, terrible to one another, there is constant miscommunication, and it was a relationship neither of them should have been in. But the two of them somehow make it work and I found myself rooting for them despite all of the odds being stacked against their favor. I think if the relationship had been a healthy one this book would not have been nearly as addicting as it was.

Random Rant: I am a little bit tired of reviewers saying that the reason they don’t like a book is because of the unhealthy relationship (e.g. Fifty Shades of Grey, Beautiful Disaster, Twilight). No one wants to read about the good healthy couple, everyone wants to read the crash and burn story that someone ends in a happily ever after. So while you may have disliked a relationship I want reviewers to give more reasons for their dislike of the book and not just rant about how these types of books are setting bad examples.

Now that I got that off my chest I feel like I can continue. One of the reasons I wasn’t able to give this book more stars was because of the ending. Beautiful Disaster ends in a nice shiny Happily Ever After and while most people like these (myself included) I felt like the end, in this case, was a bit of a cop out. I wanted more after all of the craziness Abby and Travis went through but was left going, Ok so I guess they are staying together…good for them? I couldn’t muster up the energy to care about their relationship they way I had in first half and middle of the book.

Overall, Beautiful Disaster was a completely addicting read that I enjoyed but had a few problems with. For me it was just an ok read, nothing special, nothing too bad, I remember the story over a month after reading it so I guess it did something right but I’m not sure I will ever have the energy to reading Walking Disaster the companion novel that tells the same story from Travis’s POV.

Thank you Netgalley and Atria Books for allowing me to review a copy of this novel.

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Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire