Curiosity Killed My Stupidity...: Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire(Book Review)

Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire
Series: Beautiful #1
Release Date: May 26th 2011
Pages: 416
Genres: Romance, New Adult.
Websites: Author Amazon(Com) Amazon(UK)

Blurb: 'The new 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 celibate 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.'

Cover: The cover of this book perfectly describes Abby and Travis's relationship. Beautiful but also trapped under emotions such as need, jealousy and anger. They have to work to make it right.

Plot: Abby Abernathy is perfectly happy building herself a new life at college. She can start afresh, be someone different. Different to the person her father knows. She is perfectly happy until she sees Travis fight. Travis 'Mad Dog' Maddox is used to having girls swoon over him. He loves the attention and treats the girls about as well as the condoms he uses with them. He is therefore intrigued when Abby wants to play no part in his 'games'. He pursues Abby and eventually they reach the stage of the aforementioned 'bet'. No matter what happens in the bet it changes both of their lives forever.

Likes and Dislikes: I've been quite wary of reviewing this book positively as I intend to because of the amount of negative reviews on Goodreads. A lot of them complain about the 'violence' in the book and yet the reviews, and indeed bookshelves, these reviewers have created are ten times more violent. I for one loved the book. And it really takes something special to get me interested in a book that doesn't have a sci-fi/supernatural element of some sort. So congrats to McGuire for that anyway. This book put me through a lot. And when I say a lot, I mean a LOT. I laughed so hard at the poker scene when Abby met Travis's family. For those of you who read the book, you'll know what I'm talking about. I cried when Abby and Travis weren't together. I cried some more when she went out with that doofus Parker. In fact I think I may have screamed at the book 'YOU'RE WITH THE WRONG GUY!!!' My heart raced in many parts of the book, and not in the way many of you dirty-minded might think. I love when authors inspire that sort of emotion in me!

Moving on to my favourite part of the book. The characters. First of all, Abby. I loved Abby. I felt I really connected with her and I didn't doubt her decisions (except for Parker, I mean what was she thinking??) I felt like she was my bestie, and I knew her very well. I was dying to know what all the underlying comments about her past were about and was glad that we got to find out. Great character development!

Travis. There were a lot of things I liked and disliked about Travis. First of all, even just his name inspires a tingle in me. One of Travis's best qualities was his protectiveness of Abby. He made her feel like she was the ONLY girl in the world. This quality was equally good and bad because it can also be said that he was over-protective and incredibly jealous at times. Like it's nice to have a guy fight some battles for you, but also it's kind of embarrassing that he'll throw a punch at so much as a wrong word to his girl-friend. This leads me onto my next point, about Travis's anger. He's very angry. He smashed a guy through the windscreen of a car at one point for touching Abby. I worried for the safety of Toto in his apartment sometimes. But the majority of that was okay as he had his underground fights to tide him over. On to the good qualities. He's kind, thoughtful and so cute with his family. He'd never ever lay a hand on Abby in anger. Their relationship was so INTENSE. I was fascinated. What I wouldn't have given to be Toto at some point. I mean, he gave her a nick-name! Pigeon. I didn't really like it at the start because all I thought of was bird poop but I've really come around to it :D I wish I had a nickname. There were so many scenes with Travis that I just sat there like AW!!! But the ones that had me the most are the ones in my favourite quotes section.

Verdict: Awesome, action packed, intense, angsty romance. LOVED IT! 10/10 Can't wait for the sequel which is basically the same but in Travis's POV. SQUEALLLL!!!

Fave Quotes: 'To douchebags!' he said, gesturing to Brad. 'And to girls that break your heart,' he bowed his head to me. his eyes lost focus. 'And to the absolute fucking horror of losing your best friend because you were stupid enough to fall in love with her.' - This broke my heart. It really did.