Tag Archives: romance

Review: Walking Disaster

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If you think having your heart broken over a fictitious novel is outrageous, then having your heart broken over the same fictitious novel written from two different perspectives is downright bizarre. With Walking Disaster, the sequel to Beautiful Disaster also written by Jamie McGuire, it’s true. It’s damn true.

RELATED LINKS: Beautiful Disaster review on SolSat

Walking Disaster - every story has two sides.

Walking Disaster – every story has two sides.

In Walking Disaster, the reader takes the perspective of Travis Maddox, the badboy hearthrob from Beautiful Disaster. The novel travels through the events written in Beautiful, except from Travis’ perspective, making the story more interesting and intriguing as a whole.

The world of Travis and Abby was much more clear in Walking, not just because you saw the second half of the story but just because Travis as a character had a much more clear head than Abby and knew what he wanted from the beginning. It is because of this clarity that I was glued to this book. It tied up all the loose ends created in Beautiful and did it in such a succinct manner that Jamie McGuire needs to be given some sort of medal for it. Seeing all the “skipped scenes” in Beautiful being written in Walking was very fulfilling to those like myself who were thirsty for some more of Travis and Abby shenanigans.

In regards to Travis knowing what he wanted from the beginning – that being Abby – the relationship between the two protagonists was much more beautiful from Travis’ opinion. While Abby was in denial about her feelings for Travis in Beautiful, Travis knew he was head over heels for the fiesty girl from the get go and it was so beautiful seeing this troubled heartbreaker go through such a dramatic change. I empathised with this book so well that I had my heart broken again – in the same parts as last time – even though I was reading as Travis.

Walking Disaster was written in the same manner as Beautiful Disaster but the way the words fell onto the page clearly illustrated the difference in minds between Abby and Travis which, ta da, made this book so great! The language used was grabbing and sophisticated and made the book all the more enjoyable to read. McGuire captured the mind of a young male very well and I have to say that I thought the inner workings of Travis’ mind was much more entertaining than Abby’s.

The storyline was the same as Beautiful Disaster, obviously, but even saying that I still found it interesting just because I was going through the other half of the story, especially with the little tidbits not touched upon in Beautiful. Travis and Abby’s love story is addictive and as dangerously obsessive as they the characters find it. Seeing what was going through Travis’ mind when he made some of his (foolish) decisions made me empathise with him and not mentally throw a shoe at him for bringing home two girls from the Red.

Solst-o-meter
Storyline: 8.6/10
Style of writing: 8.2/10
Overall: 8.4/10

I’m hooked on Travis and Abby and I can’t get over it. I even have a couple of songs on my playlist that remind me of their relationship and I get emotional when I listen to them just because I think of their love story. Walking Disaster is just as great as Beautiful Disaster, if not, greater. I’m hanging out for some kind of third book in the series to fill this void in my life but if that doesn’t happen, I’ll happily go back and read through Beautiful and Walking again – and let Travis break my heart another two times.

Absolutely excellent read and I recommend this to everyone, no matter what your preference in read is!

– by The Black Widow

Review: Beautiful Disaster

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Seeing as I’m on trimester break and would rather delve into an imaginary world as opposed to face my reality, it’s time to review another romance novel. I love being a Dymocks member.

Beautiful Disaster, a New York Times best seller by Jamie McGuire.

Beautiful Disaster, a New York Times best seller by Jamie McGuire.

Beautiful Disaster is a romance novel written by Jamie McGuire – which is in no relation to the Beautiful Bastard series previously covered on SolSat. Disaster puts you into the perspective of good girl Abby Abernathy as it explores her life and its relationships, in particularly with loveable bad boy, Travis Maddox.

This novel was so well written it’s #craycray. The language used was easy to comprehend for the casual reader and the imagery was so spot on, it was so easy to imagine what was going on – even if my picture of Travis changed every 5 pages because I couldn’t quite picture what he looked like. The one minor issue that I had with the writing was how it just threw you into the action straight away in the beginning. I’m used to being slowly eased into the fictitious world created in the novel and Beautiful Disaster literally just threw you into it. It was a change, but not necessarily an unwelcome one.

When it came to the characters, my levels of empathy were through the roof. When Abby experienced love, I felt that love. When Abby experienced heartbreak, I literally felt as if my heart was just broken. By a fictitious book character. This all boils back to the writing of the author which was, may I point out once again, amazing. I built such a strong rapport with the troubled Travis; he was just so damn likeable. Abby wasn’t the usual annoying self-conscious book heroine you find in most romance novels so that was definitely a nice change.

The storyline started out somewhat predictable, which gave me as a reader a false sense of security. I kept guessing what was going to happen next and I was wrong time and time again. The storyline kept changing and it had me on my toes. The ups and downs of Abby and Travis’ relationship were so intriguing that I just could not for the life of me put the book down. Not to mention the changing dynamics between the two protagonists.

Solst-o-meter
Storyline: 8.2/10
Style of writing: 8.0/10
Overall: 8.2/10

Overall, I was thoroughly impressed with this book and I definitely understand why it earned its title as New York Times bestseller. I was so encapsulated in the story that I genuinely miss it. Tis the troubles of finishing such a fantastic novel. Fortunately for me, I have Walking Disaster to look forward to, which tells the story from Travis’ perspective.

– by The Black Widow

Review: Fifty Shades Darker

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After making yet another visit to Dymocks today, I stopped and calculcated how much money I’ve spent at that one book store in the past fortnight. I couldn’t get an exact amount, but over $100 sounds pretty accurate. I love that I’m getting back to reading because I love having my brain stimulated… it also gives me something to review!

RELATED LINKS: Fifty Shades of Grey Review

The second installment of the Fifty Shades series.

The second installment of the Fifty Shades series.

I’m back again, this time reviewing the second lot of shenanigans that Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey face in Fifty Shades Darker. If you haven’t read the first book of the trilogy and really, really want to read it, I suggest you don’t read this as it may spoil some parts for you.

In Darker, we are in Anastasia’s perspective again, starting off as an emotional wreck after the heartbreaking events between her and Christian at the end of Grey. This novel takes place straight after the first and follows the events of Ana’s and Christian’s lives as they ultimately find their way back to each other.

The quality of writing, or lack of quality, was more apparent in this one. There are some parts within the novel that are so irrelevant to the story that it feels like it’s just there to fill space; I get that Ana has a life outside of Christian and I’m eager to read more about her life outside of Christian, but I get absolutely nothing from reading five paragraphs about her day at work. These paragraphs are written so shortly and bluntly, it’s obvious that the author was just dying to get back to the action when Ana and Christian were together or were e-mailing each other.

Anastasia, as a protagonist, is annoying as heck. Her inner goddess and subconscious unfortunately reared their ugly heads in this novel and it bugged me no further. It served no real purpose other than filling space on a page. I find Anastasia to be extremely one-dimensional with no depth or character. Christian, on the other hand, I adore; as a self-admitted hybristophiliac (not really, I’ve just always had a soft spot for those that are troubled), I find him to be the most interesting character of the book, which, in all seriousness, is not hard to achieve. I enjoyed that we got to know more about Christian’s past and why he is the way that he is. I really felt for the fictitious gazillionaire.

It had the same style of sophisticated and annoying writing as the first which was neither good nor bad. There was a part in the book where it was describing a view and I found it hard to picture what the author was trying to describe because instead of using simple words like “blues”, “yellows” and “oranges”, it had something like “vermillion” and “cerulean”. To me, those are the names of cities in the first series of Pokemon, not colours used to effectively describe to a casual reader.

As I was reading and I progressed through the novel, there were parts where it felt as if the author was writing and thought “Oh, let’s throw in something here”. In other words, some of the major dramas in the book didn’t seem like they were pre-planned and were just thrown in there as she was writing it for extra oomph.

The storyline was easier for me to connect to this time around because it was less centered on BDSM and more on love, which I love. The feelings that Ana and Christian have for each other in this novel were strong and I could feel that – but it didn’t have to be every fourth thing they said to each other. Actions, not words.

Solst-o-meter
Storyline: 7.2/10
Style of writing: 4.8/10
Overall: 5.6/10

Overall, I was a bit disappointed as I was in the first one. It’s the style of writing and the lack of character of Anastasia that is letting me down – the character of Christian and the storyline are the saving points for me. These saving points were made evident as I could not put it down as I was stuck in bed for the weekend.

I’m giving myself a break before reading the final book of the trilogy. I have a couple of other books waiting for my attention before I delve into the final events of Ana’s and Christian’s relationship. Until then.

– by The Black Widow

Review: Beautiful Bastard

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Time for another hard-hitting review, and by hard-hitting, I don’t mean hard-hitting at all. A bit of a backstory behind this one: my best friend Rebecca had a Dymocks gift card sitting in her wallet for about 9 months and she insisted that she was “definitely going to use it” one day. Last week, as I peroused her wallet to laugh at her license picture like I always do, I saw the Dymocks gift card still sitting there so I said (yelled) “Are you going to use this bloody gift card or can I finally have it?” Without putting up a fight, she just gave it to me. The next day, I entered Dymocks and purchased myself an intriguing sounding book curiously titled “Beautiful Bastard”… along with an Aquarius bookmark.

So, without further ado, here is…

This curiously titled book has gained an enormous amount of fame, even having its own website dedicated to making a movie adaptation.

This curiously titled book has gained an enormous amount of fame, even having its own website dedicated to making a movie adaptation.

The Beautiful Bastard is an adult romance novel written in first-person from the perspectives of both of its main characters: Chloe Mills, the young, sassy spitfire intern at Ryan Media who works for the arrogant, overbearing and, for lack of a better term, prickish Bennett Ryan. The novel explores the work and personal relationships between the aforementioned characters, the latter of which becomes intense and almost dangerous to a point. This novel is written by two women, Christina and Lauren, who join together to form – gasp – Christina Lauren.

The storyline of the novel was interesting to say the least; the ongoing struggle of power between Chloe and Bennett is captivating and sometimes humorous and as a casual reader, it must be good if it sucked me in and urged me to continue reading. Chloe’s wild sass vs. Bennett’s stubborn chauvinism was an interesting war to witness and the interactions between the two characters were always attention-grabbers. As this is an adult novel, there was bound to be some sex… except I wasn’t expecting as much sex as this novel provided. The main issue I had with the book was the countless amounts of repetitive sex they had; it seemed as if the novel just had the main cycle of “Argue, sex and repeat” as that is what generally happened with Chloe and Bennett.

The developing relationship between the two was entertaining but to me, it didn’t quite make sense. If I genuinely hated someone with a flaming passion, I’m pretty sure the last thing I would want to do is constantly have sex with them. However, it began to get a bit cute when Chloe was girlfriend-possessive of Bennett when he was speaking to other women and he’d do the same to her when she was speaking to other men. In regards to that, the “Joel” factor of the story wasn’t exactly solved and it didn’t quite bring me closure; what happened to Joel? Does he know what’s going on between Chloe and Bennett?

The style of writing was casual yet sophisticated, making it easy for the casual reader to take in. The choice of language made it easy to relate to being a young adult myself. There was a definite contrast of language being used between Chloe’s perspective and Bennett’s perspective, with one notable mention to Bennett’s overusage of the word “Christ”.

Overall, this story was encapturing and entertaining, sexy and spicy and all-around outrageously fun. There were a few tidbits of the story that I wasn’t completely happy with but nothing’s perfect really. I think this story is a great read for young adults alike who either want a good story to get lost in or just want some light, easy reading full of sultry language and sexy scenes.

Solst-o-meter
Storyline: 7.8/10
Style of writing: 8.2/10
Overall: 8.0/10

Till next time… Noah out!

– by Noah La’ulu