Joint Review: Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Holly and Ames’ review of Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire.

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.

The Story:  Travis is a college student who fights underground to pay his way. He’s really good. And he’s very popular with the ladies on campus. And then he meets Abby. She’s unlike the other girls and he makes an effort with her. But they’re just friends at first. Travis wants more and eventually Abby, Pigeon or Pidge as he fondly calls her, gives into the mutual attraction they feel. But the story doesn’t end there. Not at all. There’s so much back and forth between these two that whiplash could be a concern.

Ames: I don’t know what compelled me to request this book for review. Morbid curiosity? I had my issues with Beautiful Disaster so I don’t know what I expected from Walking Disaster. It was a bit of a mess. And it’s definitely not a stand-alone novel. I read Beautiful Disaster and I was still a bit lost at the beginning of this.

Holly: I know what compelled me to read it..you. You big jerk. I resisted a few months ago, but when you started emailing me snippets I had to see how bad it was myself.

This book was a hot mess. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but the disjointed ramblings of a strange boy-man wasn’t it. This book is missing the compelling emotion if Beautiful Disaster. While I can’t deny BD had its own set of issues, it was still a compelling read. That wasn’t the case here. None of Travis’ issues are dealt with or addressed…instead they’re glossed over or ignored. Beyond that, the writing itself is a mess.

“She kissed me like she was starving and there was food in my mouth.”

Gross.

Ames: If you have to call me names to feel better about your lack of self control…go for it. Haha!

I agree with you that the writing was a mess.

“Those eyes floated above her tiny nose, and smooth features.”

I read that and I started laughing. There’s an email forward going around about high school writing and this reminded me of that email.

And some writing decisions the author made about this retelling left me scratching my head wondering what happened. Like literally, what just happened that Travis was even referring to? Interactions between Travis and Abby were so glossed over I could barely make sense of what was happening. This definitely cannot be read as a stand-alone novel and that really makes me question the point of telling this story from Travis’ pov. It honestly didn’t add anything to the saga of Travis and Abby.

Holly: You just don’t want to admit you’re a jerk. But it’s ok, we know. 😉

That’s the quote that made me decide to read it. I had to see how bad it was.

I agree about this not being able to read as a standalone. There’s no way it would have made sense if I hadn’t read Beautiful Disaster. Even having read BD I was still confused a lot of the time.

I like how McGuire skipped over a lot of Travis’ angry, quasi-abusive behavior from BD. Like when he hits that one guy with a chair in the cafeteria? I think she makes a reference to “some other things happening”.

I’m not sure what the point of this was, either. Why retell the story from his POV if it isn’t going to add anything to the original story, or move the plot forward.

Speaking of..want to talk about the prologue and epilogue?

Ames: Ok, the chair incident – I knew there was something missing!! He definitely had some anger issues. And it wasn’t good-alpha behavior either, this was definitely on the red-flag side. And I didn’t like his desperation whenever he thought he was going to lose Abby either. Like he went into full on panic mode. I really didn’t want to see that side of him.

The prologue was so non-essential to the story. I think it was meant to set up why Travis is the way he is, but that was so far off the mark. And the epilogue? Wrong wrong wrong on so many levels.

Holly: Oh yeah, his major freak-outs whenever she walked away from him were really disturbing. Especially when he totally destroyed his apartment. Yikes.

The prologue was ridiculous, yes. It was written in a really disjointed way. I had no idea what was even going on or why it was included. All his talk of Vultures and Pigeons in the beginning were confusing, too.

The epilogue made me laugh out loud.

I felt like this was a giant FU from the author to all those readers who were concerned about the violent and abusive nature of their relationship in Beautiful Disaster. Even people who loved BD were concerned when they got married in the end. It read to me like McGuire was thumbing her nose at all those concerns.

Ames: And seriously, three years old and he remembered all that stuff? I don’t know…

I have to agree with you about that epilogue. And yet it just left me with more concerns for Abby in the end! He’d been lying to her for their whole marriage so far!

Holly: Exactly!

I’m still not sure why I read the whole thing. Morbid curiosity? In the end, it was just a disaster.

1 out of 5

Ames:  I grade it the same, 1 out of 5.

This book is available from Atria Books.  You can buy it here or here in e-format.

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