Book Review - Beautiful Disaster

Beautiful Disaster
Author: Jamie McGuire
Series: Beautiful #1
Genres: Contemporary | New Adult
Release Date: 26th May 2011
Publisher: Artia
No. Pages: 319
Source: Purchased
Rating: 
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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.

I have to admit, I fell guilty to the 'beautiful cover' trap when I first saw this book on Goodreads. I'm a sucker for these styles and I just fell head first in love with it. I wanted it just for the cover. I then read the back, and to be fair, although very cliché, I like a bit of romance. I then went through a tough month of hating myself for wanting this book so much due to one very negative review, which said that the book promoted violence in relationships and over-powering boyfriends. But I was certain I wanted this book, so I got it for Christmas.
It was fair to say, I read this book in 3 days, around 7 hours in total. I'm a bit of a slow-ish reader. I personally feel like the previous comment about promoting violence in a relationship is easily misrepresented. Other than the fact the book contains your average, possibly bit aggressive fights in colleges and schools, I personally believe the violence aspect was well covered, and was used on the occasions needed to really bring out the mood and atmosphere in the scenes it was used in.

Character building wise, I feel the book was a bit of a let down. Although the names of the characters impressed me and I found them easy to follow, the actual descriptions of them, was lacking, other than Travis descriptions. In some ways, I felt like McGuire wanted us to concentrate on Travis more than the other characters, and I felt like that was wrong in some places. The actual storytelling, impressed me a lot. I like a book I can read with pleasure and scan my way through it, and to be fair, when people review this book as a 'teens version of 50 shades' and I really wonder if they've got to grips with the book. It's about two teenagers, who are at an age, where sex and money and drinking and fighting is going to happen, it's what happens, not matter what country you're in, not matter what your background or what you're studying, it's life. Granted, the relationship wasn't what I would call perfect, the on/off-ness began to bug me in places, and sometimes, I didn't like the aspect of 'belonging to someone' or being 'owned'. But even through all the critics I had with this books, the parts that were fabulous, were just that, and as I said earlier, I'm a sucker for a raw, aching romance, and even with the typical teen aspects, Jamie McGuire knows how to right a good book.