Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire Audiobook Review

Walking Disaster audiobookBook: Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire, Simon & Schuster Audio, April 2, 2013

Book Info: New Adult / Contemporary Romance. Review copy provided by Simon & Schuster Audio. Running time: 11 hrs, 26 mins. Read by: Dan Bittner

Rating: 4 / 5 Stars

More Info: Goodreads | Audible | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Publisher’s Summary

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 best seller Beautiful Disaster, Abby had her say. Now it’s time to see the story through Travis’s eyes.

Beautiful Disaster has kind of a love it or hate it reputation, but it is strangely addictive. Though I found Abby and Travis’s relationship (more than) a little crazy and unhealthy, there was still no doubt that I would read the companion book Walking Disaster. It is just too enticing to get Travis’ POV of the events. Walking Disaster gives new insight into events through Travis’ eyes with bonus scenes and an epilogue. I liked seeing how Travis’ mind works and I think I even preferred his POV to Abby’s. Some of the scenes felt like a retread of Beautiful Disaster, but the additional scenes with Travis and his family made up for it. The story felt fresh through new eyes, and made me interested in reading more about the Maddox brothers.

I re-read (listened) to Beautiful Disaster (review here) as a refresher before diving into this book. Not sure if it was necessary, but I wanted Abby’s POV fresh in my mind. Walking Disaster starts off with a prologue that lets us into Travis’ past before picking up with the current day events. The book answers all the burning questions about what’s going on in Travis’ head when he’s apart from Abby, and as he tries to figure her out when they’re together.

“The way I feel about you . . . it’s crazy.”
“You got the crazy part right,” she snapped, pulling away from me.

In Beautiful Disaster Travis gives off quite an unstable vibe so I was wondering if my opinion of him would change in this book. Walking Disaster does make Travis more relatable and sympathetic. There are still things that drove me crazy about both of them, but it was easier to read the events through Travis’ POV.

The pacing in Walking Disaster worked better for me overall. In Beautiful Disaster my attention started to wane after the Vegas trip, but in this book the readability was more consistent. Yes, some of the scenes with Abby were repetitive but the scenes with Travis and his family and Shepley shined.

I listened to the audiobook of Walking Disaster, read by Dan Bittner. Beautiful Disaster had a female narrator (Emma Galvin) and she did an outstanding job, but of course it wouldn’t make sense to have a female narrator for a book with a male POV. Dan Bittner does a great job with the narration, and his strength is with the male character’s voices. It took me some time to warm up to his voice for Travis, but I do think he captured his essence overall. He reads with confidence and swagger and with Travis’s no apologies manner. I would listen to more books narrated by Bittner- he has a pleasant voice to listen to.

If you liked Beautiful Disaster, I think you’ll appreciate Walking Disaster. It answers some questions about Travis and provides some closure from the first book. It’s like Beautiful Disaster with bonus features. I wouldn’t mind reading more books about the Maddox family, or reading something totally new from Jamie McGuire.

Ornament

5 thoughts on “Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire Audiobook Review

  1. squee1313 says:

    Everything you said, YES! I totally agree. I do think this was actually the better of the two books, but it’s necessary to read Beautiful Disaster or else Abby becomes a totally flat character next to Travis.

  2. Lucy says:

    Yes, good point to read Beautiful Disaster first! And agreed that WD is better overall, and Travis is more likeable anyway 🙂

  3. Can’t decide if I need to pick up this series. I can’t buy or read them all. But the tortured MCs kind of call to me.

  4. […] Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire Audiobook Review (thereadingdate.com) […]

  5. […] Disaster (my audiobook review) is the companion book to Beautiful Disaster and is the same story told in Travis’s POV. […]

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