A Beautiful Funeral: A Novel (Maddox Brothers) Paperback – August 15, 2016

I can't believe how many people are giving this book 5 stars... Let me say, I have loved this series from the beginning. I wasn't too fond of Ellison's book, but hey can't win them all! However, this book took a great series and turned it into the worst! I am so devastated by the way this book ended and it just left a bad taste for the whole series. I will never read the original stories again. It left me sad. It also made me question everything in the book due to the fact that the characters weren't using common sense! Not to mention the timeline is off! Nothing was resolved and it was terrible to see how all the characters treated each other. Also, why would you kill off Olive? It was so unnecessary and added nothing to the story! If anything, it added to the fact that the deaths were completely avoidable and useless. Then to just brush off her death was so unfair. Seriously, they knew that they were in danger and then to just be outside for a long period of time? So stupid. This book left me with absolutely no closure and everyone left in turmoil. I can't believe that she ended this series this way. I sort of hope there is another book because I would like closure, but I'm not sure I could even read it after the betrayal I feel.

I have previously enjoyed the Maddox series but the last few were just hard to read. I only finished this one because I like most of the characters and wanted to know the ending. It’s very clear that the author has done little to no research on FBI anything. The whole set up is improbable at best and this goes back to Thomas’s story. Besides being far fetched there are inconsistencies in the story and timeline compared to other books. In Something Beautiful the end says that America would keep the gender of her baby secret for another three weeks. So she was already at least 8 months along when Abby announces that she’s pregnant with the twins. In Sheps first chapter he says that his oldest is only a month older than the twins. How would that be possible? It doesn’t add up and that bugs the hell out of me. How do you not know your own story? It seems like a stupid place to get things messed up. There are other inconsistencies I’ve noticed through out the series. Like Cami being at thanksgiving in Ellie’s book but in her own book she went to her roommates parent for thanksgiving. And yes. They were the same thanksgiving. The one before the vow renewal. I can only look past so much before I just find the authors lack of knowledge on her own series downright annoying. And seriously, the plot of this one is just so far fetched. When she decided to spice things up with the FBI asspect she really should have tried to do some research on the subject or better yet, not go there because she obviously doesn’t know abything about it.

****SPOILERS****I just finished Beautiful Funeral, and I have to say, I was let down. The constantly changing POV was hard to follow, since all of the characters sounded the same. Everyone lost their individuality, and became self-absorbed characters. In every recent book, I have disliked how Abby was placed on a pedestal. I've said in other reviews that while she is consistently described as intelligent, clever, etc, I never see any of that. She certainly doesn't act anything but annoying. The characters are supposed to be in their 30s, but all acted like teenagers.Speaking of age, it was revealed that Jim became a father to Thomas at age 21. If Travis is around 30, I am assuming Thomas is late thirties. I am estimating that Jim is in his late fifties, maybe early sixties. I get that he was not in the best health, but Jamie McGuire aged him really poorly. They treated him like he was 95 years old! They put him in suspenders, night lights all around, tucked him in, fed him, and talked to him like he was an invalid. He was supposed to be a former police officer/detective, but throughout the entire series (except maybe Beautiful Disaster), he was depicted as a bumbling idiot. When he fired the gun at the end, I was surprised considering how frail he was. Maybe his health really was that poor, but a lot of people Jim's age are not that bad.The FBI stuff was far-fetched. I won't even go into detail, because I don't care that much. Olive's death didn't bother me as much as I thought. I liked her as a little kid, but thought he relationship with Trenton was just weird in this book. I also thought that there were way too many extra characters, and it was hard to keep everyone straight and who had which kids. I was also surprised at how easily the children were forgotten about. With all the hiding in Jim's house, shootings, death, and more, I thought it was unusual how the kids were always just "sent upstairs to play" and didn't really question much. Abby and Travis's twins were around 11, right? Kind of old to be playing without a second thought and not being concerned.There is more I can go into, but I won't at the moment. I was let down, and had hoped for a better conclusion to this series. Like other reviewers have said, each book has gotten a little worse. I will probably still read other works by Jamie McGuire in the future, but this book was not her best.

Jamie McGuire has a new book coming out in August. I started to read it, and it does involve some characters from her previous books. I have not read the Maddox brother series in several years, and found myself trying to remember more around the past reads than the current one. So, I decided to binge read the previous series!I actually did not previously read this, so I was even more excited to get to this one. I am not normally a fan of so many perspectives, but since it following so many characters I have grown to love it just worked. It did get hard to keep all of the children situated as there were so many people (the brothers, al the wives, and all of the children).This made me so mad! I cannot believe Jamie went where she went with this, and that she did that to the family..both things! This did not take the route I thought it would. You will think this will go one way based on the title. When it first started I was holding my breath waiting for someone to die. I was not expecting this!That ending! The tears! Why??Overall, one of my favorite series and I am excited to start the newest book coming out this year!!