Beautiful Oblivion, Jamie McGuire

 

Beautiful Oblivion, Jamie McGuire
Review from jeannie zelos book reviews
One of the first books I read – and certainly the first Indie book – after getting my kindle was Beautiful Disaster. Like so many other readers I was entranced, fell in love with the NA phenomenom and have recommened it to so many others. I also read the follow up from Travis POV but wasn’t so absorbed by that – still, I’ve found the same with other second POV books, so thought maybe it was just that for me this format meant the surprise element was lacking.
So I was pleased to get the chance to read Trent’s story. The Maddox brothers are a great bunch, and I thought it would be fun to read about another of them. It was a well written story, followed part of the BD timeline, beginning with just before Travis met Abby and continuing past that fire which changed so much. We learned a bit more about Abby and Travis marriage here, and its an interpretation I hadn’t realised and spoiled my rose tinted glasses view a bit :-\

Cami – I loved her, strongly supportive of her family even though she’d had a tough and violent upbringing. I understood the problems she was having with her long distance realtionship. Much like Travis pursuit of Abby though Trent sees Cami and decides she’s the one for him. I’m a bit puzzled by why, when he says he’s wanted her since they were kids, its taken him til now to make a move…but he has recently been involved a terrible tragdey that maybe altered his outlook? * dunno – that’s my best guess* Anyway he’s single minded in his pursuit of Cami, drops all the one hoght girls, spends what seems like most of their non work time with her as a *friend* , and keeps pushing carefully for more. I do enjoy this first push-pull of a romance, but here I didn’t really feel the attraction. There were a couple of incidences where they were close to kissing, but they seemed to go too quickly from friends to lovers – there needed to be a good, long, sensual inbetween for me, the touches and glances and wondering “is she/he?”…. Overall the story seemed a bit slow, a bit flat in drama. BD has this rollercoaster feel to it – where it was drama, emotion and entertainment all the way, and I just didn’t feel much emotion here. Even the big secret Cami was hiding, that she couldn’t tell but that she kept saying would affect how Trent saw her and felt about her was a let down for me. There was so much build up to it, that I began to get irritated and frustrated, there weren’t any clues and hints, nothing to give away an idea of what it could be about. Somehow it just seemed not to fit the story, but to have been added for friction purposes, and when the big reveal came I was…underwhelmed. For me that added nothing to the story and wasn’t really expalined….Still – I’m sure this book will be loved by many, just not by me. Its perfectly well written, was OK for a one off read but i won’t re read. It’s just that it didn’t engage me fully, didn’t transport me into the story the way I like. It happens, not all readers like all books, and its a good story, but for me not a great one.
Stars: three.
ARC supplied via netgalley