Review: Beautiful Disaster

Beautiful Disaster
Jamie McGuire
418 pages (Paperback)
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Blurb:

Intense. Dangerous. Addictive.

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.

Review:

I had read a lot of different reviews before I bought this book, so I knew that there were a lot of mixed opinions out there pertaining to this book. Some people absolutely love it. Others absolutely hate it. And I can understand both points equally.

Abby had had a horrible past and only wanted to get away from it, but it didn't take her long to meet Travis Maddox. Their turbulent relationship picked up almost instantly, with no delay. This is where I begin to see both points.

On one hand, their relationship is borderline obsessive and sometimes nearly violent. Travis didn't earn his Bad Boy (with capital Bs) status by jaywalking twice a week. Nope, not even close. Travis was a rather violent man with anger management and jealousy issues and the skills to make himself dangerous when problems occurred. They weren't always willing to be honest with each other (or their selves, for that matter), or to actually talk out any of their issues. They really needed help sometimes.

On the other side, they really did care about each other. Sure they got jealous and Travis could be over-protective, but Abby and Trav really did care about each other. And although they went through a lot of problems, they were fighting for each other by the end. Travis also redeemed himself for the jerk he'd been through most of the story (although that didn't excuse him completely).

What made me really love the story though, and helped me get over how infuriating Abby and Travis were at times, was the fact that I really liked them separately. Call me insane, but I always love the bad boys. And Travis tried so hard throughout the story to make himself better than he was at the beginning, if was hard for me not to adore him. I just simultaneously yanked my hair out sometimes. I also liked Abby, though not as much as I liked Travis, because she seemed to cause all of the problems. But I liked her personality and even enjoyed her double personality at times.

The only actual problem I had with this book was that scenes weren't always as long and drawn out as I wanted them to be. And the book wasn't the most descriptive, but that part worked for this story in my opinion.

The overall hangover level is a 4 out of 5.