White Trash Beautiful by Teresa Mummert

“Sometimes we don’t know what we are missing until we find it.”

First things first, props to the gorgeous cover! Second, it’s got a tattooed, motorcycle riding rock star. But this is different. It’s kind of sad but hopeful and completely engrossing. It is a short book, a few hours read at most.

Cass lives a completely depressing life in a trailer park in a small town in Georgia. She works as a waitress in the local dumpy diner and lives with her drug addicted mother and abusive druggy boyfriend. She knows that this is her lot in life, she is stuck.

“I’m not naive. I know I don’t get the happily ever after. My knight in shining armor took the highway detour around this god forsaken shit hole. I’ve made peace with that. That doesn’t mean I’m going to lay down like a doormat and let every cocky prick in the trailer park have his way with me.”

When Tucker White comes into her diner, all badass and tattooed, Cass sees he doesn’t belong. She thinks he is one of those guys that thinks that trailer trash is easy, so she is a total bitch to him. But he keeps coming back.

He represented everything I wanted in life. He was freedom, he was a fantasy. A dream that played inside of my head since I learned how cruel this world could truly be.

Despite Cass’s attitude, I liked her. She was a good person doing the best she can with what she had. She was horribly down on herself and hopeless, but that little hope she had always came through. Her boyfriend, Jax, had been her hero when they were younger, but when the drugs began, he became abusive. Cass still felt she owed him for taking care of her and her mom earlier.

“You promised me you wouldn’t do that anymore. You promised.” Tears formed in my eyes, but I struggled to keep them from falling. He ignored me and tightened the belt around his arm.

The last time she blew off Tucker, he dropped something on the ground as he stormed away. A ticket to a “Damaged” concert. Cass knew the music, but had never seen them, nor has she ever been to a concert. She overhears some fans in the diner talking about Tucker White, the lead singer of Damaged, and realizes who Tucker really is. Since Jax and her mom are passed out on her couch like every night while she has worked all day, Cass decides to take the chance and go to the concert.  They connect a few more times throughout the book, and Tucker treats her like a fairytale princess who has to be home by midnight. (But in this case, she will get beaten up by her no-good ‘boyfriend’)

“In a perfect world, I would have run into Tucker’s arms and never looked back at this godforsaken place, but that wasn’t reality. I had a mother to take care of, and bills to play”

Throughout the story Cass knows it’s a temporary visit to the good life, and realizes how much harder it will be going back to her own sorry existence, but Tucker is so wonderful. He is the ‘white knight’, coming to take her away.

“Please don’t regret me, Cass.” His voice was barely audible as he ran his thumb over my cheek, catching the stray tear that had betrayed me. His words unleashed a floodgate. I didn’t regret being with him. I regretted letting him into my heart and knowing he would be ripped out very soon. It was too much to take.

Likes:

• Though it was pretty dark and angsty, it was still a cinderella story to me.
• Cass was a good person, and kept her good morals throughout.
• Cass never let go of that small hope of making something better of herself, despite her hopeless situation.
• I was nervous the whole time that there wouldn’t be a happy ending, I liked not knowing (and I won’t tell you).
• A lot of the story took place in Savannah, and it has made me really want to check the area out.

Dislikes:

• It was way too short. At less than 200 pages, It could have gone so much deeper.
• We didn’t get to know Tucker well enough, and find out his motivation for falling for Cassie.
• Tucker was almost too good to be true.
• The last 15-20% wrapped up WAY too quickly.
• I would have liked a little more of an adult feel to the book.