Beautiful Oblivion

Maddox Brothers, Book 1

By: Jamie McGuire

Narrated by: Phoebe Strole

Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

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, listeners can experience the rush of hearing Beautiful Disaster for the first time, all over again.

©2014 Jamie McGuire (P)2014 Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Boring, Cliched, Annoying

I'm wondering if Jamie McGuire is a one hit wonder. Despite the pretty good narration, this was a DNF for me. The main characters had no chemistry and I was bored to death. I rolled my eyes a lot, especially at the whiny Cami.

Beautiful disapointment!!!

I was SOOO looking forward to this book. I loved Beautiful Disaster and Walking Disaster (Beautiful Disaster from the males point of view)....but this book was a waste.

While I loved hearing the humor of Jamie McGuire, and the quick witted characters, the whole plot fell flat. Add that to the fact that this takes place in the same time frame as Beautiful Disaster...with one bit of added information from the Travis/Abby storyline that I REALLY could have done without...and this book was just bad.

It tainted my memory of one of my most favorite books of all time, and it had contrived drama out the wazzu! There was a big secret eluded to shortly into the story and when the truth came out it was only a 3 second explanation and it was in the last 10 seconds of the book and it REALLY didn't have to be such a big secret. That "secret" caused way too much drama that never had to happen, so while I adore Jamie McGuire's writing style and humor I am not happy to have purchased this book and will likely return it.

Don't bother with this one...not even on sale!

5 beautiful stars

Where does Beautiful Oblivion rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

top 10 for sure

What was one of the most memorable moments of Beautiful Oblivion?

This book is the opposite of the saying “Nobody know what they have until they lose it”, this book is about “Nobody knows what they want until they find it”. Cami was so sure about her boyfriend, she was sure about loving him, until she started spending time with Trenton Maddox. Trent is the sweetest guy in the world. I love that he doesn’t take a no for an answer, he never gave up on Cami, in spite of she had a boyfriend. He respected her, of course. But he never gave up.

Have you listened to any of Phoebe Strole’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

this is my first one

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

i dont know

Any additional comments?

I LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS BOOK!!! Meeting Trenton Maddox was something I wanted since the moment i read what he did in Travis’s bachelor party. That was hilarious and now i know why he did it.

Trenton and Cami are amazing. They are great friends, and they know how to have the best time together. I love how Cami and Trent’s friendship grew stronger with the time and how they fell in love with each other, and everything in between.

Cami is a strong girl. She didn’t have the best start in life, therefore she always have fought for being better. She would do anything for her family, even if it means that she will get in trouble. She is loyal to the people she loves and most of all, to herself.

Trent is protective, possessive and very very sweet. Did i mention he is utterly hot? Oh yes, he has tattoos, he has a muscle body, he has a gorgeous face, and he knows how to please a woman. There is one thing i love so much about him: he waits until the right moment, in every aspect of his life.

The secondary characters in this book are awesome. Olive is the cutest little girl in the world! Travis is so him, of course, i love his chats with Cami. Reagan, Hazel, Coby, Blia are such a great friends. I loved every comments of Blia, and her name is based in my friend, BLIA!!! That was amazing.

I won’t give spoilers, of course, I can’t, but this book has THE PLOT, one that nobody can ever imagine. I was so in shock the first time i read the book, that i couldn’t write the review, I was speechless. Now i can tell you all that this book is amazing, it’s wonderful, it’s surprising, it’s BEAUTIFUL!

AUDIOBOOK REVIEW:

The narrator, Phoebe Strole, has a great voice. I like her pace, her pronunciation, how she makes other character voices. Her voice is so much Cami. I could felt all Cami’s emotions while listening to it.

Awesome!

This was so good...loved the fact that we get a book per Maddox brother! Instant download!

This was Trenton story ... The brother we got to know so well fom beautiful disaster... I love how McGuire had Travis and Abby's story going on at the same time...in the background... Extremely well written!

But.... the ending... now that was the OMG moment... when we finally learn about T.J. I was like Omg, OMG!!!!

Narration was good..story was awesome, so worth a credit, buy, and sale!

Not an adult novel

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Not only better character development but more concise character consistency. It seems like this book was written by a woman who would describe a "typical male" as a guy who just wants to fight anything that gets in his way. Not attractive. A better story line would have helped as well. These characters are stuck in the college, drinking, bar tending phase where a fight almost everyday is common and normal. It's boring and not at all interesting.

What do you think your next listen will be?

Something that is not by Jamie McGuire.

Have you listened to any of Phoebe Strole’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have not and can not make a comparison.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Mostly disappointment. It's very difficult to relate to a character when they're written in such a way where they don't show their character by their subtle actions and decisions they make but by horrid exaggerated displays. These displays are sad, predictable and carries no depth whatsoever.

Any additional comments?

Briefly describing one sex scene and saying "dick" does NOT make this an adult book. This was a very bad, mature YA novel. Where's the human emotion, character development and everything in between to make me care about these characters? Ugh.

Ordinary

I couldn't figure out why this book is listed as Book 1. There are too many gaps to fully appreciate the book in its entirety. The story itself was average. It was a bit childish; then again maybe that was the aim. After all it was set around the life of a college student. I like the narration but I have to listen to other books narrated by Phoebe before I can definitely say she is great. I am hesitant to cross out JM books all together; maybe when I can't find a good read I might revisit her. Her style does not match my tastes, so for now I shall put her in my maybe list of authors.

OH HOW THESE MADDOX BROTHERS WILL GET TO YOU

Beautiful Oblivion is a great title for this book because that's how I was feeling - oblivious -about the outside world whilst listening and you know it's a good listen when you just can't wait to get back to it to hear what's going to happen next.

Cami has a long distance boyfriend TJ and she's quite happy.... until one of the oh so good looking Maddox brothers, Trenton (who's a drool-worthy, sexy, tattooed fighter) starts making his move and he just won't take no for an answer but TJ wasn't giving in easily. Which was all really touching, funny, sad and romantic but there's a BIG secret she's holding back from Trenton which had me guessing but it was a "WHAT... GASP" surprise at the end when it was finally revealed.

There was also a sub love story about Trenton's brother Travis and the girl he'd fallen for but, because this is a new Author to me, I hadn't realised their story has already been released in the Disaster books (which I'm about to download now). And another sub love plot about her best friend and room-mate Raegan's love life.

Worth a credit? It was well-written, very addictive, there was drama and angst, had lots of "oh no's" and "yaye's" in it, with loveable characters and it was sweet, romantic and YES very creditworthy.

Soooo very bad

Loved the other books. This one had no point. So sad I wasted a credit on it. Have been with audible for 5 years and this is the first time I've written a review. That should say a lot!

Tedius, artificial, childish and boring

OK, that was stupid. Childish story about childish people making childish decisions in the name of ... er ... love? No - not love. Self-absorption maybe. Or obsession. Or immaturity.

Maybe I'm just too old, but I did not get this "romance." I don't know if it's because I didn't read anything of Ms. McGuire's before I read this but this novel was a lot of immature people making strange, self-destructive decisions.

And what was up with the big SECRET about TJ? Apparently we're supposed to buy another book or what?

That will NOT be happening.

Final comment about the narrator: Phoebe Strole has about 3 female voices and 2 male voices. When there is dialogue involving two females, she mostly doesn't even try to differentiate the voices so good luck following. Sometimes a scene will start out fine, but then she loses the voice differences and you'll struggle. And there was, as far as I could tell, more than one place here she confused Travis and Trent.

Audible is getting this one back and I won't be following the incredibly annoying Maddox brothers because I despise books that end with cliffhangers and leave storylines unfinished. They are a ripoff.

Beautiful start

Great first book in this series. I loved and hated ( the ones you needed to) every character and really enjoyed the story. Narration was awesome. I hope that the next book in the series will come out in audio format soon. I would recommend this book to anyone.