White Trash Beautiful

by Teresa Mummert

[Cocktails and Books]

Despite having a title that made me giggle and cringe at the same time, the title beautifully depicts how twenty three year of Cass, living a horribly harsh life in a step slightly above squalor, has her life changed when she meets Tucker White and he sees beyond where she lives and works to the beautiful girl that lurks inside.

Cass lives a horrible life. She lives in a crappy trailer with her drug addict mother and her abusive, dealer/user boyfriend. She does what she needs to in order to scrap by for all three of them because she's determined to be there for both of them...something no one has ever done for her. She's lost her hope and she's beaten down by everything, which is just downright depressing. Everything that surrounds Cass reminds her that no one is really there for her, except herself. She stays where she is in hopes that the mother she remembers from before everything fell apart will somehow reappear. She's desperate to grasp onto any shred of goodness in either of her mother or her loser boyfriend, Jax, just to give herself a reason for doing what she does. One the one hand, I was in awe of what Cass was doing, because I'm pretty sure I would have given up eons ago. But on the other hand I wanted to shake her and ask why she didn't just run because her mother and Jax were just using her. But I also knew that Cass had a boatload of emotional issues that kept her where she was.

Then she met Tucker.

Tucker was in a similar situation as Cass' but he was saved from that kind of life by the foster care system and eventually his adoptive mother. Somehow he was able to seen beneath the tough exterior that Cass had around her to who she truly was. He knew she was incredibly strong, but also knew that she needed someone who would protect and and always be there for her. Even when she pushed him away or ran from him, he never really gave up on her. He would give her he space she would need, but would always be there when she reached out to him again. There was never a time when Tucker truly threw in the towel and said Cass wasn't worth it. To him, she was and always would be...despite everything. It's that attitude (and his tattoos and rock star job) that made me love Tucker.

This is another one of those New Adult books that is tough to read at times. It's dark, gritty and again reminds me of how lucky I was to have what I had at that age. But it's worth the read...even if I have to wait until next year to get the next book in the series.