Walking Disaster
How much is too much to love?
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. Just when he thought he was invincible, Abby Abernathy brings him to his knees.
Every story has two sides. In Jamie McGuire’s New York Times bestseller Beautiful Disaster Abby had her say. Now it’s time to see the story through Travis’s eyes
Despite a mountainous TBR pile of review books, I could not contain myself, or my grabby hands. As soon as I discovered that the eARC of Walking Disaster was available to request on Netgalley, I was online like a shot, clicking request and crossing every digit and limb. Needless to say I was delighted to have my request accepted.
When I first read Jamie McGuire’s Walking Disaster, I found myself torn. On the one had I loved the hot romance, the bad boy alpha male, whose “relationship history” read like the phonebook, falling for the “good girl” who won’t take any crap. On the other, I found elements of Travis’ behaviour self destructive and at times disturbing; the drinking, the women, the jealousy, the violence (although I would like to clarify now that at no point does he direct that violence at Abby).
The attitudes and the behaviour are not ones that I would tolerate in my own life, nor would I support this kind of relationship among my friends, but when it comes to fiction – pass me my pom-poms. But then that’s kind of the point, it’s fiction, a romantic fantasy -the bad boy redeemed by the one woman he loves – and in my case a guilty reading pleasure.
Walking Disaster is very much a companion novel, in that I don’t think that it can be enjoyed as a novel in it’s own right. The author assumes that you have read Beautiful Disaster, dropping you straight in to the story without setting the scene, or introducing the characters. In some cases events are eluded to but not described or explained.
Despite knowing exactly what was going to happen, I found Walking Disaster to be just as compelling a page-turner as its partner. I enjoyed experiencing the relationship from Travis’s point of view, and many of the behaviours and events I felt uncomfortable with from the first book were less problematic for me approached from Travis’s perspective.
Jamie wraps up the series with a sweet, if perhaps a little far-fetched, epilogue. It was nice to get a glimpse of the couple in the future. To see that they had grown together as a couple and had managed to maintain a relationship after the trauma induced, life changing decision they made at the end of the original book.
Verdict: An absolute treat for Travis Maddox fans, but do not attempt to read this if you haven’t already enjoyed Beautiful Disaster.
Reviewed by Caroline
