A Walking Disaster Review

Walking Disaster
(Beautiful #2)
by Jamie McGuire

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Listening to Walking Disaster from Travis' point of view made it an entirely different but oblique 'clusterfuck' of a love story. I really liked Emma Galvin's voice of Travis in Beautiful Disaster but in Walking Disaster Dan Bittner's sheds light on Travis in a new way. Travis Maddox had to fight hard and love harder if he was going to win the only girl he'd ever want. If I were Travis I would've walked away miles before he did. I guess the difference is he had a lot more courage and strength to persevere through the heartache and torment Abby put him through. Ugh! My thoughts about Abby? I gotta hand it to her for being a straight poker faced bitch (I'd love to poke her face in) and for playing miss hard-to-get for as long as she did.

However, Travis knew there was something about Abby Abernathy the moment he saw her. She was his pigeon after all and she was the infamous Lucky 13 that Abby tried very hard to hide from everyone at Eastern University. Only her best friend America knew her secrets. When the boilers had failed in their dorm rooms Abby and America decide to stay at Shepley's and Travis' apartment for a couple of days. Shepley is America's boyfriend and Travis' cousin. Anyway Abby had tried to play her role down by wearing frumpy clothes assuming she would turn Travis off because she really didn't want to impress him, a sexy man-whore.

Desperate to keep her there, Travis comes up with the perfect solution and makes a deal that if he won the next Circle fight without a touch from his opponent, she would have to stay for a month. Little did he know Abby was an expert gambler so she readily accepts the bet, thinking if she wins he would have to stay celibate for the next month. She loses the bet and is forced to stay. This scenario was also written in Beautiful Disaster from Abby's point of view.

I blame Abby for ruining everything though by keeping her background a secret. A past like hers would be near impossible to walk away from and she was only fooling herself if she thought she could be anything other than who she really was. Meeting Travis may not have been what she wanted but ultimately they were perfect for each other, and Travis wasn't all that hopeless. I mean in spite of himself he'd still loved his mother right? and he also honored his father, so at least he knew what love was, unlike Abby who didn't know her mother and hated her father.

A few lines like these show how hard he had to fight for her:

Travis to Abby :"I wanted you there with me, Pidge. You're my good luck charm."
"I'm not your anything." She glared up at me.
My eyebrows pulled in and I stopped midstep. "You're my everything." - page 368

"You can't tell me what to do anymore, Travis! I don't belong to you!" ... "Well, I belong to you!." - page 374-375

That was right before she professes how she always loved him and they were never really apart and she promises to never leave him and just like that she's forgiven. He spoiled her but this love story was such a good distraction that I couldn't put it down for long. I adored Travis but he just couldn't live without Abby *sighs*

Walking Disaster also has a better Epilogue. Loved.It. If you've read both books then you'll not want to miss A Beautiful Wedding (Beautiful #2.5)