Beautiful Oblivion by Jamie McGuire

Narrated by Phoebe Strole

I am a huge fan of Jamie McGuire’s Beautiful Disaster, so when I saw that this spin-off series was being released, I just knew I had to listen to it. Unfortunately, Beautiful Oblivion wasn’t quite what I was expecting. Yes, there is a lot of testosterone, drinking, fighting, and even some tattooes and a wee bit of lovers’ angst, but that’s where the similarities seem to come to an end. Instead, this story felt more like a hodgepodge of ideas – some better than others, with the primary trope being a friends to lovers script, one of my least favorite tropes, particularly when the heroine is already dating someone else. Perhaps further tainting the experience was the narration which failed for me on a number of fronts.

On the plus side, what did work included Trenton Maddox, who is by far a much easier hero to love than Travis Maddox (ah, but then again, that’s what made me really admire Ms. McGuire’s writing in Beautiful Disaster, as she made me fall in love with a seemingly unlovable bad boy). Additionally, I enjoyed the originality of the unique timeline style employed by Ms. McGuire. The events in Beautiful Oblivion take place at the same time as Beautiful Disaster, thereby allowing the listener to re-experience those events, but from a different perspective. This creative style has an almost “Back to the Future” movie-like effect, where you know what is going to happen, but get to see how heretofore unseen actors influenced the outcomes of the story as you previously knew it.

Camille “Cami” Camlin was more than happy to move out of her childhood home. Coming from a dysfunctional family, where her father’s anger and drinking issues have led to her constant emotional abuse, she is ecstatic to move on to a more stable life. Fortunately for her, the successful and motivated TJ comes along, who gives her hopes of one day establishing a different kind of married family life for herself. After a year of dating though, he gets relocated to pursue a career opportunity, and, as Beautiful Oblivion begins, Cami and TJ are in a long-distance relationship. TJ, in fact, is so busy with his new career, that he frequently doesn’t even have time to call her, and has canceled more than one scheduled visit back home.

Cami has always known of the partying, playboy Maddox brothers, though she believes she is probably the only girl in their hometown that they never tried to date. Now as the local bar’s bartender, she gets to observe their shenanigans from afar, until one day Trenton Maddox starts making it his mission to get to know her better. Cami warns Trenton that she has a boyfriend and that she doesn’t think their friendship is a good idea, but Trenton is a man who doesn’t take no for an answer. Moreover, she soon learns of his sweet, protective side which endears him to her. Soon they are hanging out, both in and out of the bar, and Trenton even helps Cami get a second job at the tattoo parlor where he works.

It’s not too long before everyone starts questioning exactly what type of relationship Cami and Trenton are in, even if she is the only one who insists that they are just friends. But when Trenton pushes the issue by kissing her, Cami can no longer deny the feelings between them. Who will Cami choose? The safe and reliable TJ, who will no doubt provide her with the future she has always dreamed of, or Trenton, the man who has been there for her and who is now her best friend? Even if she chooses Trenton, could their love last when she harbors a secret that is sure to drive Trenton away?

Phoebe Strole has a beautiful, high pitched, young voice making her perfectly suited for female, Young Adult titles. Beautiful Oblivion, however, is a New Adult title and Cami is supposed to be twenty-four years old. Therefore, even for the heroine, Ms. Strole’s depiction comes across as sounding a little young, especially for this self-independent woman who had to grow up quick given her unfortunate family life.

Perhaps where I had the greatest trouble with her performance, however, was with the male roles. In a few places, Trenton is described as having a deep voice, yet Ms. Strole makes him sound just marginally deeper than the heroine, giving Trenton the appearance of a teenage boy at best. As you can imagine, this pulled me out of the story a number of times, and in a few places I even had trouble distinguishing both Trenton and the other males from the females.

A quick search of Audible indicates that Ms. Strole only has eight titles, two of which are romances. This may partly explain why her performance contains very little differentiation, making it difficult to distinguish who is speaking without dialogue tags, especially in a number of the scenes were there are more than two actors.

On the plus side, I did enjoy Ms. Strole’s delivery of emotion and pacing of the story.  She had a good grasp of what was taking place and her delivery thereof relayed the tone of the scene being enacted. I am hopeful that as Ms. Strole gains more experience, her narrations will get better. As a consequence, I’d be willing to try one of her narrations in the future, particularly if she is cast in a role more suitable to her strong suits.

I generally enjoyed Trenton and Cami’s story. I just wish there had been fewer secondary characters. In addition to the parallel Travis and Abby story, Ms. McGuire devotes a fair amount of time to Cami’s roommate (and her two love interests), as well as all of Cami’s and Travis’ siblings. This multifaceted approach left me feeling pulled in a number of directions with too many loose ends that were not tied-up. It kind of made me feel like Ms. McGuire was too busy trying to setup demand for the remaining novels in the series and, as a result, left crucial aspects impacting the main characters in this novel out of the story. Unfortunately, the total effect was that at the end, Beautiful Oblivion left me in an unexpected and unwanted state of “oblivion”.

BJ

Narration:  C-

Book Content:  C+

Steam Factor:  Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence:  Domestic Violence (verbal/threatened physical abuse) and Fighting

Genre:  New Adult

Publisher:  Simon & Schuster

Beautiful Oblivion was provided to AudioGals for review by Simon & Schuster.