BOOK REVIEW: Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Beautiful Disaster

Author: Jamie McGuire
Series: Beautiful, #1
Published: 27 November 2012 by Atria Books
(first published 2011)
Genres: New Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Format: Hardback, Signed Edition
Source: Birthday Gift
Links: Goodreads

Synopsis:

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.

Rating:

My Review:

This book was a disaster. There was nothing beautiful about it.

Here are a few of the key themes that run through this book:

• Sexism. Sexism everywhere. Man big and strong. Woman weak and subservient. Man incapable of cooking food for himself, must guilt-trip a woman to do the job for him.

• Misogyny. From characters of both genders. Goes hand-in-hand with the sexism, really.

• Abusive relationships. You cannot deny the fact that all of the relationships in this book are abusive. Travis is abusive towards Abby. America is abusive towards Abby. Travis's father and brothers are abusive of Abby. Abby is abusive of Parker. America and Abby are abusive towards Kara. There is no love in this book, only abuse thrown back and forth, normalised to the point of acceptance.

• Co-dependency. Travis Maddox, the campus hottie, is a dick towards any and every woman he comes across, until sweet little Marie Sue comes along and captivates him to the point where he can't even breathe unless she's in his line of vision. So that he can control her every move, of course.

• Slut shaming. Right from the beginning, we see endless pages of slut shaming. Pages of dialogue, pages of Abby's petty internal monologue. There was an intolerable amount of stereotyping going on in this book, and I struggle to understand how so many readers can accept this as part of any book. It serves no purpose other than to extend discrimination in the real world.

• Normalisation of drug use, alcoholic self-medication, physical violence and gambling. I cannot stand any of this in real life, and it's even more disgusting when characters' lives depend on these things for their survival, or for their appeal to readers. I don't know what's sadder.

I honestly went into this book with high expectations. I had heard only positive reviews, and I received a beautiful edition as a birthday gift from my best friend. So of course, I wanted to enjoy it, and that's why I read it so soon after receiving it, because I was overly confident that it would be amazing and addicting and just everything I love about contemporary romance novels. But as I read the book, it kept getting worse and worse with each chapter. Really, the stars just deduct themselves.

I would recommend you read literally any other book. Don't waste your time or money on this pile of shit.

BOOK REVIEW: A Pound of Flesh by Sophie Jackson

A Pound of Flesh

Author: Sophie Jackson
Series: A Pound of Flesh, #1
Published: 9 June 2015 by Headline Eternal
Genres: New Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Format: Kindle ebook
Source: Purchased
Links: Goodreads

Synopsis:

Wes Carter: Dangerous, brooding and behind bars, Carter's emotional scars are as permanent as the ink on his skin.

Kat Lane: Vibrant and gutsy, Kat chooses to become a prison tutor in tribute to her father whose murder haunts her.

Although worlds apart, when their eyes meet, Carter and Kat's searing attraction is instant.

As teacher and student, any relationship is against every rule.

But although their love is forbidden, it won't be denied...

Rating:

Review and Discussion:

Reading this book was a beautiful, nostalgic experience.

Beautiful in its story; the plot and the characters were wonderfully explored and developed to tell a heartwarming story of love, individual strength and acceptance of one another's differences.

And nostalgic in that it reminded me of my days reading and writing on Wattpad; the structure, the style and the development of this story was a strong reminder of my own writing style on Wattpad, as well as the style of other books I would read on the site. In this way, it made the story feel all the more real – I felt like I knew Sophie Jackson, her hours behind the keyboard to write her story, her thought processes throughout each chapter, and the agony of putting such a story together. It felt like a real story written by a real person, and I loved that I got this sense of connection with the author when reading her book.

U. S. Edition, published
by Gallery Books

Another great thing about A Pound of Flesh was that it was, undeniably, an entertaining read. It was dramatic, exaggerated at many times, a little ridiculous at some points too, but it all added together to form a story that was so incredibly entertaining that I didn't want to put it down. The fact that it starts off in a prison – very much so appealing to my Orange is the New Black obsession (which, admittedly, I have neglected this week because I was obsessed with reading this book) – then moves onto the sticky situation of a student/teacher relationship, and then the family dramas behind closed doors, and then the big finale and happy ending, all together gave this story substance, diversity, and a huge A+ for its entertainment factor.

As you might imagine, however, all of this crammed into one book did make it excessively long, and at some points it felt like it should have been split into two separate books, perhaps more. Some scenes felt like they were unnecessarily drawn out, or unnecessary to the plot in general, and this sometimes became tiring to read. And also, sometimes drama was made for the sake of constructing a new plot device; this was most prominent towards the end in some of Carter's actions that were not justified at all. I struggled to find them believable, and it was clear they were weakly justified to simply add to the plot/drama. Perhaps if they had been developed a little differently, it would have been more believable.

But don't let that sway your opinion of this book – oh no! In fact, you'll find the cheese in this book is so goshdarn delicious that you don't care how much the author throws in. I found myself craving all the little additions of drama and cheesy character interactions. It was probably the biggest contributor to the entertainment factor.

In my view, this book it not to be taken seriously. If you do, you'll DNF it at the earliest opportunity. You will disagree with so much of this book (I, for example, couldn't stand the romanticisation of Carter's smoking, hated some casual sexist remarks made by characters, and how every character held a lexicon of character traits that they would display depending on the mood of the chapter), but if you take it with a grain of salt, you will be thoroughly entertained.

And on a personal note, I loved that our main character was a teacher with a teaching philosophy that I could connect with myself (minus the whole teacher/student relationship thing, of course!). As a preservice teacher, I am currently in the situation of developing my own teacher identity and teaching philosophy, and I found that Kat's own practice reflected much of what I want to be able to achieve in my own career. It was great to see insight into where I could take my teaching career in the future, and having this an aspect of Kat's character made me feel instantly connected to her.

So all in all, I absolutely loved this book, and I would recommend it to anyone keen on new adult novels, or those intrigued by the idea of a well-to-do teacher falling for her prisoner student. There's a lot that this book offers for readers, and I hope you can find something to love just as I did.

BOOK REVIEW: The Dark Space by Mary Ann Rivers and Ruthie Knox

The cover is gorgeous.
Sophisticated, yet edgy.

The Dark Space

Authors: Mary Ann Rivers and Ruthie Knox
Published: 1 June 2015 by Brain Mill Press
Genres: New Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Format: Kindle ebook
Source: Purchased
Links: Goodreads, Publisher

Synopsis:

College senior Winnie Frederickson has accomplished nothing in four years but summa cum laude and the power of invisibility.

A professor’s kid, carelessly popular Cal Darling feels like he’s been going to college forever. If there’s anything left to learn, he’s not going to find it in the classroom.

The theater department’s “make-out class” is famously hard to get into, and what goes on between the twelve people who take it every spring is an annual topic of speculation. Winnie needs one more arts class to appear well-rounded for fellowships. Cal is just… bored.

The dark space – a class, a place, a state of mind – is ready for them both.

Rating:

Review and Discussion:

It is with sadness and disappointment that I write this review. It fell so incredibly short of even my lowest expectations, which I hadn't even considered could possibly be met.

I have been a fan of co-author Ruthie Knox for a while; I love her adult romance novels (About Last Night is my favourite), as well as her new adult novels under her pseudonym Robin York (Deeper and Harder). But this latest work of hers with Mary Ann Rivers – The Dark Space – was so far from her previous works and did not meet any of my expectations.

When I read Knox's newsletter where she shared the story behind The Dark Space, I was expecting to only love the story. I was expecting a beautiful coming-of-age story, one with mature themes and powerful plots to give readers an uplifting and heartwarming experience. Something like Deeper.

Instead, I experienced confusion, frustration, and annoyance while reading this book.

I sincerely tried to love this book, but as I kept reading, searching for something to grasp onto, I found that there was really nothing for me to love. It had good intentions to be a beautiful book about growing up and finding yourself, but it just wasn't executed well at all.

Nothing felt properly developed; characters were sketchy, the plot was shaky, and the general feel of this book was uncomfortable and disjointed. It felt like the beginnings of a story – planning things out in a crazy fashion – instead of a final, ready-to-publish book. Each chapter felt more like a short story, as though the authors had written another, longer book for these characters, and had just selected a few bits from that book, cut and pasted them into this book. I felt that the chapter didn't really connect, that the POVs changed too often, and that each section was surface-level story telling with no way to make deeper connections about the intended messages of this book. Each section felt more like a short scene than a full chapter arc.

I struggled to connect with the characters, because I felt that I wasn't given an opportunity to get to know them. We missed so much of their story, which was summarised in later chapters to try and fill the gaps. At one point, there were a bunch of characters involved in the one scene, but I had no idea who any of them were. Had I met them before? Aren't Beth and Sarah the same character? Why are they suddenly having weird, twisted orgies?

That was another aspect of the book I didn't enjoy – the bizarre, totally not believable sex. Orgies, suddenly sleeping with a guy you've known for five seconds, fucking each other during class, having your sexual debut filmed for your final project. It was all just too weird for me. The sex, the characters, the story, everything about this book.

I really wanted to love it, but I just didn't enjoy any of it whatsoever.

About the Authors:

Ruthie Knox

New York Times bestselling author Ruthie Knox has published over a dozen titles in adult contemporary romance and New Adult romance (writing as Robin York). Nominated for four RITA awards in her first two years as a published author, Ruthie has been translated into German, French, Italian, and Portuguese. Her New Adult novels Deeper and Harder made Library Journal’s best-of list for 2014, and Deeper was recognized by RT Book Reviews as the best New Adult title of last year.

Mary Ann Rivers

Building on extensive experience as a published poet, Mary Ann Rivers launched her career in fiction with the must-read novella The Story Guy, which Library Journal recognized as among the best ebooks of 2012. Rivers has since made waves with the emotional Snowfall (translated into German) and her Burnside Series, which receives attention for its unusual characters and unparalleled contemporary worldbuilding.

Ruthie Knox and Mary Ann Rivers exchanged tens of thousands of emails, texts, words over the phone, and manuscript pages before a single provocative email exchange dared them to direct the energy and love in their conversations into a story. Soon, a shared intelligence they dubbed “Third Brain Mill” had written a book and started another. They haven’t looked back, and they dare each other and their Third Brain Mill regularly—usually while taking a walk together.