Publishers: Atria Books
Published Date: Apr 16 2013
From: Net Galley
My rating: 4 out of 5
Synopsis:
Can you love someone too much? Travis Maddox learned two things from his mother before she died: Love hard. Fight harder. In Walking Disaster, the life of Travis is full of fast women, underground gambling, and violence. But just when he thinks he is invincible, Abby Abernathy brings him to his knees. Every story has two sides. In Beautiful Disaster, Abby had her say. Now it’s time to see the story through Travis’s eyes
Review:
Here's my review of Beautiful Disaster This is going to be a shortish review as most people have picked up on the same points I have. This is an almost identical book but just told from Travis' point of view. A good selling tool, me thinks. Travis had a lot of love from BD so I'm not surprised that this book is already proving to be a hit. However, while this book is entertaining and raw in places I did find it lacking in others. I won't rehash the story, either you know it or you don't. If you don't I recommend you read BD first before attempting this one. My impressions were as follows. While reading I almost felt like the author was turning pages of BD and entering what Travis was thinking. Well that's the whole point, right? However I didn't get the impression this was written like a book, just another version of the story. What I mean is, there are events that happen and they roll along one after the other...and all of a sudden its Thanksgiving and Travis is trying to coax Abby into going to his family's home. There's no mention of it beforehand, or any thoughts from Travis before that point. No, "oh my god, how am I going to talk her into it. I've made a big mistake (emotions, smack the head, pacing up and down." So, he goes and talks to Abby, they argue and banter and then she goes along with the plan. Everything went too smoothly. Also there were highlights that got completely left out that made me confused. The run in with Ethan at the fight when he hassled her? Just a line or too. Oh, Ethan was out of line with Abby - moving on... Yes, this is a story that's told from another angle but it didn't read like a story in its own right. Also through Travis' eyes Abby appeared to be emotionless, unresponsive, annoying which made me wonder why the hell he was getting all uptight about. His dialogue about why Abby affected him so much didn't sit well, nor the few times he referred to his mother being the only other woman he'd ever loved. Please don't get the impression that I didn't like the book. I really did but it wasn't as good as I expected. The storyline is still good, with its little quirks and a few extras that appear in the story and the epilogue. I now have a different impression of Travis, completely different actually and I'm glad. -CB x
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