DNF Series Review: Beautiful by Emily McKee

Series Review: Is this series worth your time? Does it get better as the novels progress? Or does it get worse? Find out below:

Synopsis for A Beautiful Idea (from Goodreads):
Isabelle Clark always had ideas, but that’s all they ever were . . . until now.

She grew up in a world filled with poverty and hatred from the person who gave birth to her and had decided she would finally make her ideas a reality.

After moving away to college as a junior she ran into the University of Maryland’s walking one-night stand. Literally.

Ryder Mitchell was every girl’s wet dream all in one muscled, tattooed, pierced, baseball playing package. He thought he had the life: going to school, tattooing people by day, and giving girls the best orgasms of their life by night.

When he found out that Financial Aid didn’t fully cover Isabelle’s room and board Ryder had an idea: Isabelle should move in with him.

On the outside everybody sees Isabelle as a quiet bookworm and Ryder as a player, both on and off the baseball diamond. They soon learn who the other truly is.

Either way, they’re about to realize this idea was a beautiful one.

SERIESous’ Top Picks: Worst Reads 2016
Series: Beautiful
Author: Emily McKee
# of Books: 5 (View Titles Here)
Book Order: Connected
Complete?: Yes
Genre: New Adult, Romance, Contemporary
Heat Rating: not sure…
Point of View: First Person, Single; Alternating
Publication Dates: October 2013 – March 2014
Source & Format: Own–eBook

Disclaimer: I stopped reading A Beautiful Idea at 32% & A Beautiful Mess at 19%. Find out why below…

Why I Picked it Up / My Expectations:

I picked up A Beautiful Idea for free on Kobo some time ago and then the rest of the series when they were on sale in the time since. Roommate romances have to be some of my favourite to read, so I was eager to read this when I pulled it out for my Make Me Read It Challenge. I wasn’t able to read it for that challenge, but I was able to read it as a part of my Rock My TBR Challenge.

What I Liked:

–All My Favourite Tropes in One Series–

Unexpected roommates falling in love; in love with your BFF’s brother; a bad girl falling in love–some of my favourite plot devices to read in a new adult romance. It’s just a shame that the writing doesn’t use these devices to their full potential.

What I Didn’t Like:

–Is A Beautiful Idea a Rip-Off?–

If you read any of the Goodreads reviews for A Beautiful Idea, you’ll see that lots of people call it a rip-off of a Beautiful Disaster. It’s been years since I’ve read Beautiful Disaster but they do share a lot of similarities. However, the whole “roommate” trope is pretty cliche in and of itself if you ask me so of course you are going to get similarities to any novel that shares the same premise.

–Telling and not Showing–

I like to be shown things as I read. I don’t like when certain things are told in passing because they happened “behind the scenes”. Like the romance. I don’t like when things are implied and I felt like this book was just stating facts and not letting the reader experience the scenes.

–Boring–

Everything seemed to be a little “happy-go-lucky” to me and the drama I could see brewing (I really didn’t get that far despite being 20-30% into the novel) was melodramatic and unnecessary. It was also a little cliche. Which I can usually handle but everything seemed so superficial in these relationships that I wasn’t into it.

Will I Finish It?

When I DNF’d A Beautiful Idea, I was willing to give A Beautiful Mess a shot. I was intrigued by the other characters and wanted to see if their stories would be any better.

And so, I started to read A Beautiful Mess…and promptly stopped reading it at the end of Chapter 1. I just couldn’t handle the way Jason talked about wanting to be with Ashlynn in a physical way and his flare of the overdramatics. Things just happened too fast without any build-up.

So no, I don’t plan to finish this series despite the fact that I have Book 3 and 4 waiting on my Kobo to be read.

Series Rating: DNF

This book just didn’t have a strong execution at all. The characters were superficial and the drama melodramatic. Just not what I like in a New Adult series.

Read if You Like: melodramatics, love at first sight
Avoid if You: deeper new adult stories