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.
*** IF YOU HAVE NOT READ BEAUTIFUL DISASTER, STOP! DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $200, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK (OR THIS REVIEW) UNTIL YOU HAVE READ BEAUTIFUL DISASTER!!! THANK YOU! ***
I waited forever for this story… I pre-ordered it and then
stalked it on my Kindle waiting for the magic time when it would appear. I wanted to LOVE this story
since I absolutely ADORE Travis Maddox and
have read Beautiful Disaster more times than I care to admit out loud. BD is definitely one of my favorites.
The prologue (which was released earlier as well), was
heartbreakingly beautiful. It made me
cry the first time I read it. This time
when I read the whole book, I still teared up.
My heart broke for little boy Travis and I was completely moved by his
mother’s final advice to him:
“One of these days you’re going to fall in
love, son. Don’t settle for just
anyone. Chose the girl that doesn’t come
easy, the one you have to fight for, and then never stop fighting. Never” – she took a deep breath – “stop
fighting for what you want. And never” -
her eyebrows pulled in – “forget that Mommy loves you. Even if you can’t see me.” A tear fell down her cheek. “I will always, always love you.”
Honestly, I’m starting to get choked up just thinking about
it. If the entire book had this kind of
emotion written behind it, I would so have been so in love with it
too…but for me, and believe me this is as hard for me to write as it will be
for people to read, (queue the negatives on Amazon and the boos and hisses
around the world) this book was just missing something. I
KNOW!!! I know how terrible that sounds.
I was so torn up about this after I put my kindle down last night. I wanted to scream “FUUUUCCCKKK!!!!” but that
felt like I was being overly dramatic. It’s
so hard for me to give Travis Maddox anything less than 50 stars because I love
him so much…he is the only book boyfriend I have that can give Kellan Kyle a
run for his money, but damn if there just wasn’t something about him that was
missing in this book.
First, I’d start by saying I know this is a companion book
to BD…I knew we were going to get a lot of the same story, and honestly I was
okay with that. I didn’t mind the dual
dialogue because it is the same story…but
in BD we actually got to see time spent without Travis (dates with Parker, time
with Finch, etc.) and we got inside Abby’s mind while those things were
happening– here we were missing the Travis scenes I was expecting to see… we
didn’t go along with him to pick up Toto, although we were a part of the conversation
he had with Shep about it…we went along with him to pick out the new couch but
not to the tattoo shop OR the jewelry store? WHAT? – the second tattoo isn’t even
mentioned, huh?!?! We didn’t get the scene while America & Shepley
are broken up and they are pulling guys off both girls at Red (yes, we knew
from Shepley in BD that he didn’t want other guys dancing with his girl but
wouldn’t you have liked to see that from their POV, I did!) And for a guy who
picked out the ring shortly after they finally got together, we didn’t get to
see what getting married to Abby felt like from his POV? KILLING ME!
The other thing I would say, and maybe it’s my fault for
building the excitement up in my head, is that I was just expecting more from
Travis. All that rage, anger, passion, and
emotion I felt from him in BD – I didn’t feel as much as I thought I would
reading it from his POV. Weird right? I
felt it more told from Abby than from Travis.
On the plus side, there were scenes outside of the prologue
that I did love from Travis’s POV…like the first time they went out together
when she was trying to be unimpressive with her attire. Or her surprise birthday party and the
aftermath. Or just simple things like
when they studied together:
“It was kind of cool how she watched me
while I talked. Almost like she as both
hanging on to every word, and amazed that I knew how to read.”
But I don’t want to give away too many quotes…
I’m slightly torn on the epilogue. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to see into
their future, that was the one thing I didn’t like about BD is where it ended –
I wanted more. But for me, the way it
went down in this epilogue was kind of weird.
I like the direction Travis is in, I just wish we had been a part of
more of it, if that makes sense without giving anything away. The storyline in the book and the storyline
in the epilogue definitely could lead to a story for Trent and a story for
Thomas, but I guess I felt like 11 years was a big jump and there were things
in that 11 years that I wanted to be a part of and feel left out of. Those
were the things I wanted to see a little more into I guess.
I don’t know, this whole thing makes me feel so
conflicted. I always give Travis 5 stars
because he’s Travis Maddox…he is a good part of the reason I LOVED Beautiful
Disaster. (Quoted from my review of BD “Oh Beautiful Disaster, how I love thee...let
me count the ways...Travis, Travis, and more Travis!!!”), but if I’m being
honest with myself, for me Walking Disaster is not a 5 star story. (Is it possible to feel physical pain from
typing a sentence?) My honest self would say it’s 3 ½ stars – my love for
Travis and Jamie’s writing ability want to give it at least 4 – so take that
for what it’s worth.
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