REVIEW: Beautiful Oblivion (Maddox Brothers #1) by Jamie McGuire

The Beautiful Disaster and Walking Disaster phenomenon continues in the first heart-pounding new adult romance in The Maddox Brothers series.

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.

My Thoughts:

Everyone knew Trenton Maddox was bad news, but that never seemed to stop women from trying to tame him.

A series about the Maddox brothers. Yeah, I'm all over that!! I fell crazy, mad in love with Travis Maddox back in beautiful disaster and loved the little peeks that we got of his brothers. When this book arrived for review, I dropped everything else so that I could spend some serious quality time with Trent.

Trenton Maddox is really hard not to like. He has that same passion and fire as Travis, but on a much more toned down scale. But just because it's toned down, doesn't mean he's not as passionate or as fiery as Travis, because he is. It's just not worn around and carried in the same way as Travis, but it does come out on occasion. He was also incredibly sweet. But there was also an occasion where he made an admission about his conquests, and I have to say that I was turned off there for a little while. It really played on my mind a fair bit after that, but thankfully I was able to put it aside and enjoy the rest of the story. 

Cami was a character that took me a little while to warm to. I felt like I had read her character many times over. She did have incredible strength. She stood up for what she believed in. She is loyal, even when that loyalty is not warranted. But beyond that, there didn't seem to be a lot to make her stand out to me.

"I am the one, Cami. I'm it for you. I know because you're it for me."

As for the romance... I liked it. At times, I loved it. There were some cute moments and there were some hot moments. But sometimes I felt that all the drama overshadowed the relationship between Trent and Cami. There was no doubt that when they were on, they were really on and those times were just perfect. 

There are a lot of characters in this book that you need to get your head around. Cami's family especially. And they are kind of crazy intense. And for the life of me, I couldn't understand why for a lot of the time. Her Dad is completely psycho and her brothers could give him a run for his money at different stages throughout the book. I couldn't understand Cami's need to defend them and protect them. I understand that family is where it's at, but seriously, you have to draw the line somewhere.

Because Beautiful Oblivion runs along the same time period as the Beautiful series we get little cameo's of Travis and Abbey throughout the story. Any time spent with Travis can only be a good thing, and I really looked forward to those little snippets. 

There is this big secret eluded to throughout the story and as I was getting closer and closer to the end, I kept thinking that there was no way that there was enough time to reveal it and deal with it. But then bam!!! There it is. The. Big. Secret. And then, story over. I actually had to sit and process for a few minutes and then I went back and reread the last chapter just to allow myself to take it in. As an ending though, it was pretty fantastically mind blowing!! But upon reflection, I can't understand how this was kept a big secret for so long.

Jamie McGuire has a style of writing that I find addictive. It makes it almost impossible to put her books down and that was exactly how it was with Beautiful Oblivion. While I did have my issues with some things throughout the book, overall it was a great read. Bring on the next Maddox brother!!

I was in trouble. Big, disastrous, Maddox trouble.

3.75/5  Sweet Trenton Stars

A huge thank you to Simon & Schuster Australia for supplying me with this copy for review.