Review: Beautiful Oblivion by Jamie McGuire

Beautiful OblivionBeautiful Oblivion by Jamie McGuire
Series: Maddox Brothers #1
Published by: Atria Books on July 1, 2014
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Pages: 336
Source: Purchased
Book Details
Rating: ★★★½

Fiercely independent Camille "Cami" Camlin gladly moved on from her childhood before it was over. She has held down a job since before she could drive, and moved into her own apartment after her freshman year of college. Now tending bar at The Red Door, Cami doesn’t have time for much else besides work and classes, until a trip to see her boyfriend is cancelled, leaving her with a first weekend off in almost a year.

Trenton Maddox was the king of Eastern State University, dating co-eds before he even graduated high school. His friends wanted to be him, and women wanted to tame him, but after a tragic accident turned his world upside down, Trenton leaves campus to come to grips with the crushing guilt.

Eighteen months later, Trenton is living at home with his widower father, and works full-time at a local tattoo parlor to help with the bills. Just when he thinks his life is returning to normal, he notices Cami sitting alone at a table at The Red.

As the baby sister of four rowdy brothers, Cami believes she’ll have no problem keeping her new friendship with Trenton Maddox strictly platonic. But when a Maddox boy falls in love, he loves forever—even if she is the only reason their already broken family could fall apart.

In the first installment of the Maddox Brothers books, readers can experience the rush of reading Beautiful Disaster for the first time, all over again.

There was a lot that I loved about Beautiful Oblivion. I think the most important thing that people will appreciate (I certainly did) was how strong of a main character Cami was. The synopsis doesn’t lie when it labels her as “fiercely independent”. That girl took shit from no one!

“Are you saying you don’t approve of my attire?” Trenton began to speak, but I put my finger against his lips. “Aw, that’s cute. You thought I was really asking.” Cami

“Is your ass jealous of the amount of shit that comes out of your mouth?” Cami

“You will apologise, and then you will be super fucking nice to me for the rest of the day, and buy me doughnuts.” Cami

If Trenton or any other character was being a dick or stepped out of line, she put them in their place! Go Cami!

I LOOOOVED how sweet Trenton was. He didn’t really seem like that much of a badass. He was kind of like a big, loveable teddy bear who happened to have tattoos. Yeah, sometimes he got moody or upset, but he wasn’t really a bad guy. I thought he was a lot more tame than Travis. He was a genuinely nice guy. He even hung out with a cute little girl who was like 5 (who was both cute and kind of annoyingly unrealistic in her speech). But I think I mostly loved how he made Cami his priority, but not in an overbearing way. He made promises and kept them, he was always there for Cami, and he didn’t let shit get in his way.

There were only three things about Beautiful Oblivion that I didn’t like.

Bad Thing #1: Smoking

Ugh, smoking is so gross. This is stupid and petty but I didn’t like that both Cami and Trenton were smokers. Bleeeeggghh.

Bad Thing #2: Cami’s Family (primarily her brothers)

Cami got dealt a bad hand in the family department. She had a drunk, angry father. But the thing I didn’t get was how Cami’s brothers were on her father’s side O_O Her father fucking BEAT their mother and had an abusive temper that nobody in the world would enjoy. That made Cami want to get the fuck away from him. She didn’t want to be in the same room as him. So whenever she got invited to “family lunch” or “family dinner”, she often skipped it. She didn’t want to sit down at a table with an abusive father. And yet, whenever she bailed, her brothers would come around like some creepy gang members and interrogate her, like, “WHY DIDN’T YOU SHOW UP FOR FAMILY DINNER??” Seriously, why are they on the abusive asshole’s side? It’s like they were prepared to beat up Cami and drag her to family dinner unconscious just to get her there.

I just thought her brothers were really stupid and felt like that part of the book never got resolved.

Bad Thing #3: The ‘Big Reveal’ at the end

Throughout the book, Cami constantly refers to some secret about her boyfriend T.J. It was implied to be something huge and she was ‘bound’ to its secrecy. We’re never told what this is until the very last page. I kept thinking, “This secret better be epic.” I was imagining T.J. being involved in the drug cartel or working for the CIA or all kinds of crazy shit. Well, it turns out, View Spoiler » For me, that ending was the biggest letdown of the whole book.

It was still good!!

Beautiful Oblivion wasn’t perfect, and maybe it didn’t completely rock my world, but it had some epic moments. There was some serious swoon in those pages. There were just a couple things that brought the book down.

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I'm a 30-something California girl living in England (I fell in love with a Brit!). My three great passions are: books, coding, and fitness. more »

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5 comments

  1. YESSSS! Agreed!!! The smoking thing didn’t really get to me, it’s rare you see a smoker in fiction, and they still exist, so meh. I gave this book the exact same rating but for slightly different reasons, hoping the next in the series answers a few questions. And, double yes! I also thought T.J was involved in the accident investigation or was some sort of FBI type person. I didn’t see the reveal at the end coming though, and thought it would be kinda awkward but I wondered if there was something in Beautiful Disaster I’d forgotten that would have made the secrecy make more sense?

    R x

    Rachel recently posted: New Feature! (S)he Said
  2. YAAAAS another Maddox brothers book! I didn’t know about this until I read this post hehe love those quotes you posted! Cami seems to be a more refreshing character than Abby.
    I remember loving the first book from Jamie McGuire but unfortunately the sequels (including the little novella) were kinda a letdown. Will surely read this one, though! 😀

    Tirta @ I Prefer Reading recently posted: Jobless July

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