Beautiful Disaster

For the sake of transparency (so you know what your spending your credit on) I lined up 5 things I think you should know before you buy this book.

1. The main character Abby Abernathy (nicknamed 'Pigeon' by her love interest Travis 'Mad Dog' Maddox) is eighteen going on nineteen. She's just started out college with her best friend America (Mer).

2. The story is set in college but the dynamics between the students (and also between the main characters) seems more like high school. In other words: it's juvenile. If you're not a (very) young adult, you might end up rolling your eyes even more than Abby Abernathy does.

3. Travis Maddox has a temper (he's quite volatile) and is physically violent. Not against his 'Pigeon' or their friends, mind you. But pretty much against everyone else. Blood splatters quite often in this book.

4. Spoiler alert!: Somewhere past midway the book takes a turn and the cast goes to Vegas.

5. I should have stopped at the Vegas turn, but really I can't not mention this:
Travis, the hero, sports tribal art tattoo's.
And later he adds a new tattoo that declares his love for 'Pigeon'. In Hebrew.
I'm not saying anything else. Zip.

I didn't hate it. This novel is quite entertaining at times. But the storyline is all over the place (see 4) and overall it's very, very young adult.

If you read all of the above and you're curious. Go ahead. Buy it. I dare you. Just don't say I didn't warn you!

typically i read books with sequels or that happen to be trilogies. i usually get lucky and find a good series where i'm able to get the first two books right away, only having to wait for the third for a couple months. with Beautiful Disaster i was thrilled to find out that it had another book coming out from Travis' POV but annoyed that i'd have to wait until next SPRING to find out more about the lives of Abby and Travis. boo.

this book took me right in, telling me about the characters lives and leaving little bits to keep me wondering what would happen as it went along. of course, there were a few parts where i was rolling my eyes in some of the scenes simply because these two young lovers were overreacting about silly nonsense. i was married young and i look back on my life then and think, "would i react that same way today?" and the answer is a profound, "no. absolutely not." i wouldn't get carried away like these two did, but you have to remember that they're barely 19 and i remember acting like an idiot at 19 so don't judge them too harshly.

i wanted more as i got to the end of the book. i wanted to know about their lives. i envisioned them having adventures and finally settling down to have a family. i wanted them to find their Ever After. as i got to that last 10 minutes of the book, i found myself excited to start it over, immediately... which i did, twice. sometimes i listen to a book a couple times before i let the characters go. this was one of those books i really fell in love with the Abby and Travis.... and i think you will too.

the narration was superb, and i found this book because i'd listened to Divergent, same narrator. fabulous.

Abby Abernathy, quintessential good girl meets and is challenged by quintessential Eastern University’s Walking One-Night Stand and bad boy Travis Maddox. And then the fun and heartache begins.

This is one of my top favorite books of all time! LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT!

I've read some of the reviews on this book and knew the characters were very young, however, I'm glad that didn't steer me away from getting it or I would have missed a great story. This up and down roller coaster of emotions and life experiences shows that relationships are not always easy but they can be worth it for the right person. It does have a lot of violence and bad language but that is not unusual for this generation. I found it credit worthy and will listen to it a second time.

In the top 3 for sure!

It is just a great story. I have read 50 Shades and Bared to You. It doesnt have all the love scences but the story is so entertaining it makes up for that.

Very good story teller.

Travis, he is the guy that every girl dreams of having.

Very good book listened to this book within 24 hours.

I have read the book previous to the audibook and it is more enjoyable being able to hear the story now that I know what is coming.

Travis....because he is Travis

Its a spoiler

The 2 star struck lovers from dysfunctional families working their way through the baggage of the past. This book had the potential to be good, but it was not to be. Definitely a YA book written at a 6th grade reading level.

What a freakin amazing story! Travis freakin Maddox! What!

Ok. Now that is over... I totally think Travis character made this book. I have never seen the bad boy done this way. The bad boy is either completely bad or secretly bad, not a popular, campus hot boy jock, but an inner demon sadistic crazy fighting streak. Travis is such a hidden emotional character but you don't actually realize this until later on in the story, and when you do, it's like WHAM! McGuire really did an awesome job in developing Travis Maddox.

Pige... or Pigeon or Abby is running away from an ex-famous gambling daddy and it that ruff life and starting over in college and meets Travis. One thing leads to another and they become friends but as you know, this is a love story... they fall in love. They are totally wrong for each other but totally right for each other. They bring their best friends along for their tor relationship. It’s just soo emotionally. I think I actually got teary there a bit...

This was my first time listening to Emma. She kinda reminded me of Madeline Maby a bit with her whimsical style of reading the female characters. That I don't give a crap, independent attitude she brings to female characters is really good and is something Maby is known for, and Emma had that in this book with Pigeon and America ( Pige’s best friend).

This book was a total buy on a whim, but so glad I did. I am totally on a romantic novel kick right now. I would buy and credit this.

Much of the subtext of this book was foreign to me. My college experience was nothing like this. I am not familiar with illegal fight clubs, know very little about professional poker and the thought of getting a tattoo makes me queasy. But at its heart, this is the story of two immature kids, both raised in very dysfunctional families who become obsessed with each other and their final act, designed to give the book a HEA ending, ultimately seals their fate.
If this was nonfiction, even if the book ended exactly the same, everyone would know that the fate of the two protagonist would not, could not, end up well.

I believe that two people can fall in love at a very young age and remain in love the rest of their lives. But not these two. The mini-explosions throughout the book tell the reader that this relationship can't end well.

If the book were really well written, it could go part way towards making it an enjoyable book. But it isn't particularly well written. And the contrast between the sophistication we are told these two possess - her ability to walk into a Vegas casino and take on a table of hardened professional poker players then stare down a crime boss without blinking an eye and his ability to somehow calmly and methodically overcome all of his fight opponents, even those that are bigger and badder - and the immaturity they continually exhibit are impossible to reconcile. How much simpler it would have been if she told him why he scared her so much rather than sneak away from him and then hide out while he made a fool of himself. And how could you believe someone who was so controlled in the fight ring, would regularly trash his apartment, and throw temper tantrums in public. It is as if there were 4 main characters instead of two and the author kept confusing them with each other.

I did enjoy the narration. I will listen to more books by this narrator.

I read a lot of positive reviews of this book. I realized it was a little YA for my usual taste. And I admit part of my dislike of the book came from my inability to relate to the characters and their point in life. But the reviews gave me hope. I hoped the characters would have been far more consistently developed and that even if young, since they were old enough to star in a romantic yet troubled love story, they would at least be somewhat mature. I hoped the conflict and tragedy would be genuine and not contrived.

I was disappointed.

Teenagers

Not this author

none

Anger and huge disappointment. When I heard the sample, I was very excited about this book. When I forced myself to finish it, I was so very anger at it. In "additional comments' I tell you why.

Here's the thing about this book. . .. the writing is not adult at all. It is unrealistic. The dialogue needs work.

I only bought this book because I wanted some semblance of Bared to You/50 shades. . .even though 50 shades writing was high school level.

This writing seems worse! I'm sorry but the characters are unrealistic, the story, and most of the scenes are unrealistic. I am a senior in college and I know that there are some people that do not lose their attitude/matturity of high school. However, most of our college lives we don't really have time for the stuff that goes on in this book. . .sure we party but we're mostly thinking about how we're going to pass these classes. It is either one of these two---sleep, social life or good grades. Abby has all of these. During the semester, every one is pulling their hair out to pass their classes. Everyone is worried. Sure there are people who party way too much, and some people that have a low maturity level---but to have a main character like this?! The heroine must be admirable to the romance reader, and the hero must be smoking hot! This hero was whiny as hell. . . . and the heroine was just dumb.

I do know that Abby is still a teenager---however all of the characters are immature!

If you take the tiny sex scene out then you would have a full young adult novel. The tone is all drama, very high school, when these characters are supposed to be transitioning into adults—or most likely adults. ---but teenagers would probably like this book.

Abby is not very admirable. She said somewhere in the book that she is indeed an idiot. Half the time she's dating both guys. Every character seems like they're an air head. The supporting character Mer---is the smartest person out of all of them.

I am so sorry to be mean, but as I listened to the book (and I did finish the book) I just became angrier and angrier that I wasted my credit on this kind of writing.

Although, the narrator did an amazing job in narrating this book---I would like my money back. . .