Book Review: Beautiful Disaster by Jamie MacGuire

Title: Beautiful Disaster (Beautiful #1)
Author: Jamie McGuire
Release Date: August 14, 2012 (originally released May 26th 2011)
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, Inc. (originally self published)
Imprint: Atria
Source: Received from the publisher via NetGalley

The new Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate percentage of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance between her and 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 Thoughts

I thought it got off to a rough start, the writing was a bit disjointed and rather jumpy to begin with and I almost gave up on it, but it did settle down enough that I wasn't completely frustrated by it.
 
The story was okay, however I was very distracted by the constant to and fro-ing between Abby and Travis and wondered if I should take a Prozac to settle my nerves; it seriously was a train wreck relationship.
But I have to confess, some of it was rather appealing, Travis did try to woo Abby after all.
At one time or another, I think we've all had, or wanted to have, someone to be so in love with us that they literally cant survive without us; a true co-dependent existence. But that kind of relationship is often destructive and unhealthy, and there were moments in this book that it went too far.
I lived with a boyfriend for a year in my late teens and suffered both mental and physical abuse before I finally left, and Abby and Travis's relationship was very reminiscent of that time for me. Travis never actually hits Abby, but at the end of the day, it's sometimes the emotional bruises that are far harder to heal.

I didn't particularly like Abby all that much to be honest, I just found her to be a bit stuck up and standoffish. Travis wasn't much better either. In fact, I had problems with all the characters. They were all a very mismatched, shallow bunch of people that annoyed me.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone under the age of 18 and even though I thought their relationship was abusive (depending on your definition) it is something that happens, and therefore I'm not going to condemn the author for it. But I am a little disappointed that this kind of behavior was romanticized, which may lead a younger reader to think that this kind of relationship is healthy and okay; and its not (IMO)

An okay read, but definitely not for everyone.
Just a 2 Star read :|

*note*

Walking Disaster (Beautiful #2) is the same story but written from Travis's POV and is set for a release date in April 2013.
If you visit the author's website you can read an excerpt, and I must say I actually liked what I read more than I did Abby's POV.