The Book Blog: ***Blog Tour Stop and Giveaway*** Beautiful Failure by Mariah Cole

Title: Beautiful Failure

Author: Mariah Cole

Genre: New Adult

Publication Date: December 17, 2013

Tour Host: Dreams Come True Promotions

If you're looking for a heartwarming story about a girl who falls deeply in love with a troubled boy who changes her life--a sob story with pretty metaphors and a million ways that'll tell you how "broken" she is, STOP. Don't read another word of this.

I'm not that type of girl.

My name is Emerald Anderson and I'm not going to bullshit you: I flunked out of college after my sophomore year, I've been fired from every job I've ever taken, and I've never had a fully functioning relationship in my life.

I wish I could say that I had a cheerleader in my corner, someone who says, "No, Emerald--You're great and you are good at something!" but I don't. My grandparents are completely oblivious to my life, and my mother's dying words to me were "You're going to end up just like me one day. A beautiful nothing."

She was right.

As I decide to start my life over and take two jobs that will forever change me--one from the inside, and one from the outside, I keep my mother's words close to my heart so I can keep the sexy and mysterious Carter Black away.

He's the first man who's ever pursued me, the first man who seems bent on finding out why I am the way I am, but he's wasting his time.

I'm not broken. I don't need to be fixed. I'm perfectly fine being a beautiful failure...

Lesley's Thoughts

“My mother was a whore.” No Joke this was the first line in the book. My thought to that was “Oh, hell.” I wasn’t sure where this story was going to take me but it held my attention from that sentence on. Emerald Anderson, didn’t have a normal childhood. Not one even close to being normal. It makes mine seem normal and it was nowhere close. Which, may be why I can relate to some parts of this story.

“My deepest fear is that I’ll look back on my life and wonder what I did with it…”-Anonymous

Emerald’s mother, Leah Belle, was an “escort”. Leah had Emerald at a young age and she did her best for Emerald. Unfortunately, her best was a skewed view on all things in life. She taught her that looks were more important than brains. That you use people to achieve things in life. They dubbed these people as “sponsors”. My favorite part was how Leah treated Emerald as a friend instead of her daughter. Let’s drink alcohol, apply some mascara and shove our emotional baggage in the proverbial closet. We all know skeletons in the closet come back to haunt us. Well, they haunted Leah stronger than Emerald knew. Em finds herself all alone with only the lessons her mother taught her. Uhh… not exactly the best morals to exceed on.

“She taught me that people were unreliable and untrustworthy, and that eight dollars for a bottle of numbness, and painlessness was worth much more than any friendship I could ever build.”

Emerald, who ends up in the small town of Blythe, Alabama; finds herself struggling. She struggles with things like holding a job, dealing with rejection, and well, life in general. Flunking out of college. Losing job after job. Drinking bottle after bottle of liquor. Basically, Emerald is spiraling out of control. She’s on her way down and she didn’t even realize. Using the skills her mother taught her get her nowhere. Emerald is at odds with her true ambition. She wants to succeed as a writer. Publish books and win awards. In order to make it she’ll have to face the thing that hurts her the most. Truth.

“You complain about everyone telling their stories and crying, but you can relate. You just don’t want to admit it because you think it’ll make you look weak.”

Throughout this journey she meets new people and experiences life in different ways. Finding people who do nice things because they want to. Meeting a special man that just proves that not all people are bad. Carter is a sweet, mysterious and persistent man. However, He doesn’t do things the typical way Em is used too. This confuses her. It makes her question what his real motives are? Can she trust him? Will Emerald be tempted to use him or will she let her walls down?

“…I don’t know if I can hold onto it. I’m going to find a way to F%^k everything up. I can feel it.”

This story isn’t your normal love story. It’s not pretty in the sense that life is already a depressed, black hole. Emerald is damaged. She’s snarky and jaded. But she owns that. She doesn’t make excuses. Her wit and fire keeping her walls strong until she starts to take the bricks out on her own time. This story is about growth and healing as well as love. Carter may play a part in her healing, but its Emerald who heals herself.

There are so many things that I enjoyed about this book but mainly, the execution of this story was spot on. I felt the depth without it feeling like the pity me party. I understood the darkness and watched it begin to lighten. I felt the chemistry between Emerald and Carter. Some of those moments left me fanning myself. I loved the bible thumping grandparents, who were true Christians. By that I mean they loved Emerald unconditionally. It was just a very well rounded book. It has the full package. It ends with a tiny cliff. I’ll say it’s more like a teaser but It’s seems that Carter and Emerald’s story isn’t quite over. Stay tuned for book two out soon, “Beautiful Temptation”. I rate this book 4.5 stars.