Sick and Fucking Tired

I'm done! I've had it! I'm sick and fucking tired of theses misogynistic, female writers glorifying these disgusting, abusive male characters and their goddamn Mary Sue girlfriends! Where is this coming from you ask?

I read Beautiful Disaster by Jamie Mcguire.

I didn't even get this angry reading 50 Shades; the benchmark for shitty male characters.

Abby Abernathy (bear with the names here, they suck) starts her freshman year at Eastern University. She's a transplant from Wichita, Kansas with her best friend America (aka "Mare" for short). The book opens with Abby and America at a "Fight Club" style underground fight. This is where we meet Travis Maddox - The lust factory. After getting blood on her sweater, things snowball from there.

Travis is a character that stepped out of a stereotype catalog with all of the cliche bad boy traits. Tattoos? Check (and tribal no less. This guy is a walking flashart disaster). Motorcycle? Check. Reputation with the ladies? Check and mate. He is a bare knuckle fighter, which is actually kind of cool in an alpha male sort of way... if he kept it in the ring. That is the only bit of cool about this guy. He starts off arrogant and a man-slut. The only growth we see out of this guy is he learns to keep it in his pants.

Abby is a Mary Sue. We get no real description of what she looks like... at all! I read the entire book and have no idea what she's supposed to look like (one review I saw mentioned she had blond hair. I'm gonna have to take their word for it). She's from Kansas and that's about it. It's like Jamie McGuire made her as nondescript and generic as she possibly could so readers could insert themselves right in. Did I mention all the fellas want her? And that she's *gasp* a virgin? She does occasionally show evidence of a backbone so I guess point for that.

Here's where it gets shit-tastic.

The two develop some weird relationship. Abby loses a bet and winds up having to spend a month at Travis's apartment... in his bed. In the meantime she starts dating this poor schmuck named Parker (who is actually kind of likable). This is when Travis shows his true nature. The jealous, dickhead side of his nature. He would sabotage their dates. When Parker would drop her off and go for the good night kiss, Travis would be at the door waiting. They start making out in Parker's car and Travis practically rips the door off of the frame to drag Abby out. She is an adult, they are not in a relationship and what they were doing she completely and willingly consented to. THIS IS PSYCHOTIC BEHAVIOR! Abby told Travis that all of these issues (plus more) were red flags to her. Yet she stills sleeps in his room, in his bed.

They get into a relationship despite him being crazy pants and her being fully aware of his crazy pants-ness.

Lots of drama ensues oh and violence! Let's list the psychotic red flags!

1. Travis intimidates, threatens, and flat-out wails on any guy that looks appreciatively at, speaks lewdly of, or even accidentally touches Abby. He has no self control AT ALL when there is another man anywhere in her vicinity.

2. About a month into the relationship, Travis gets not one, but two tattoos linked to Abby. The first is her nickname "Pigeon" on his wrist. Yes kids, he calls her Pigeon. That was only cute in Lady and the Tramp. The second is some sticky, romantic line in Hebrew on his side... a language I seriously doubts he knows, you know not being evidenced to be Jewish or even multi-lingual. This is a sign of obsession (that's bad). Abby justifiably freaks out and tells him they need to slow down a little. Which doesn't happen.

3. During a breakup, he and his cousin follow Abby and her friends to a nightclub. Whenever a guy would dance with either of them, both jokers would physically remove the guys from the situation. When Abby spots Travis and Shepley (the cousin) and figures out what they're doing she calls them out on the bad behavior. Instead of being even a little chastised about it, Travis asks to buy her a drink instead. He disregards everything Abby has just said and hits on her instead. What a considerate guy.

 4. Abby goes on a date with Parker to grab pizza and a movie. Just when the food part of the date gets underway Travis swoops in tells Abby he has a fight and that she needs to be there. She is on a date! Instead of telling Travis to fuck off, she goes! She bails on Parker during their date and takes off with her ex-boyfriend. This is the part that makes HER awful. The part that is psychotic about what he did is we find out later he went to get her because he couldn't stand to think of her out with another guy. That's right, Abby isn't a person she's the hydrant Travis keeps pissing on to show other dogs she's his.

 5. (Here is the scene where I finally flipped the fuck out!) There is a Valentine's day dance at a fraternity. Abby goes with America (begrudgingly. Abby doesn't want to be there). Travis says he's not going to show up, but does anyway because he's a stalker like that. Abby rejects his request for a dance, which he does not accept. Instead he proposes a toast to the whole fraternity "To douchebags, and to girls that break your heart." Abby goes off to dance with a guy she met and pretend that did NOT just happen. They start dancing, Travis demands to cut in. Abby tells him, no. Travis proceeds to threaten the guy, calls Abby his girl (she's not they split  up). She rejects his advances AGAIN and goes back to trying to enjoy herself. Instead of taking the hint, he manhandles Abby and kidnaps her from a dance (Mind you they are NOT together at this point). He does everything against her will and ignores the yelling and screaming for help. So does everybody else. No one will help her when Abby is clearly in distress (remind me not to go to that college!). Travis chucks her into the backseat of a waiting car a friend of his is driving. She tries to escape and Travis traps her, telling her he's tired of her shit. Her shit? Really?! He tells her she needs to sober up so they can figure out their relationship. She left him. She has made it clear she doesn't want to be with him. There's nothing to figure out, he just won't take the hint of the humongous neon sign she's been beating him over the head with this entire time. She tells him she doesn't belong to him. He screams that he belongs to her. So I guess Abby's thoughts and feelings and obvious fear of him mean nothing. All that matters is that Travis gets what he wants because he's a codependent mess. Instead of trying to call the cops, Abby caves and they start making out (because he's just like soooo sexy, right?) Who needs a backbone and desires of their own when a man "needs" them?

I can't even go on at this point, folks. This fucking book ruffled my feathers so bad by the end I couldn't take it. The glorification of abuse in this culture is making me crazy. These men being depicted in fiction are being held up as sex symbols. In Young Adult fiction no less (I hate YA. I had no idea Amazon classified this in the YA category. If I'd have known, I'd have skipped it). Why? Their creepy, stalker, and violent behavior is okay simply because the men are hot? If the man was painted to look like a troll, women would have a shit fit about this kind of behavior.

I feel like I'm kicking a dead horse by saying this, but we deserve better. As readers and as women we deserve so much better than to be fed this "love changes" tripe. Any woman that has ever been in an abusive relationship of ANY kind knows this. These men can't be fixed, they don't want to be fixed, and contrary to what pop culture tells us, they are to be left alone. To paraphrase Chuck Palahniuk: You are not special. You are not a unique snowflake. You will not change that jealous bag of dicks into Prince Charming.

Don't tell me "But it's just fiction" that line is bunk; pure bullshit. How many tee shirts, bumper stickers, and coffee mugs do women own saying they want their own Christian Grey, the patron saint of douchebags? There are a million internet memes floating around that are about wanting a guy like Travis Maddox. There are stories of women leaving their husbands because they don't act like these paper doll sex gods. This line of thinking just condones what's these women are writing. The irony of all this is that WOMEN are writing these stories and MEN are somehow the first ones that are pointing out that this behavior is crazy and no woman should be treated like that! So spare me the rhetoric, this shit is seeping into real life and there are men like this walking around out in the world. Get with it.

I have read reviews of Beautiful Disaster that are eerily similar to 50 Shades and other like stories. Women saying they want to be with a guy like Travis Maddox. For those wondering, Travis is a broke version of Grey on steroids. Anytime Abby shows any sort of spine there's no follow through. She gets manipulated and played out of her resolve. Save your time, sanity, and money.