Reviews with content warning for Child death - Magnolia Parks

i just don’t understand the hype or how this can even be second chance romance under any of the circumstances presented, i also hated the writing style and how the author would describe every single outfit and brand the characters wore

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readingwithmeredith's review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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midnight_rose_reads's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Magnolia Parks is the first book in the Magnolia Parks Universe series by Jessa Hastings. It revolves around Magnolia Parks and BJ Ballantine and their group of friends who live in London. They are all fabulously wealthy high society socialites.

This was a beautiful and heartbreaking story about two people navigating a complicated relationship. There’s gorgeously written passages about how Magnolia and BJ feel about each other. It’s definitely a book where you’ll feel a lot of different emotions. There’s also a nice side setup for the next book with Daisy, Christian, and Julian. I can’t wait to continue this series!

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toofondofbooks_'s review against another edition

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dark emotional funny lighthearted reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Update: bumping this one up to 5 stars because I haven't stopped thinking about it and it's been a week. ALL I WANNA DO IS READ THE REST OF THE BOOKS AND NOTHING ELSE BUT I don't have money so I have to leave them on my wishlist for now rip

There are a lot of things to like about this romp of a book. The world of high society London complete with a cast of filthy rich 20 somethings and 30 somethings was engaging and compulsively readable. Jessa Hastings has a unique but digestable writing style that makes our main characters feel like they're writing confessionals directly to the audience, so in a way, it felt like my favorite parts of reality TV. I don't mean that in a bad way by any means, I just mean that I liked having a front row seat to all of the drama even though the drama toward the end made me feel exhausted. I do think that this book could've been cut in half and it would've been even better. Still, I annotated and tabbed the hell out of this. There were a lot of quotable moments and moments worth reading and re-reading.

On to Magnolia and BJ themselves - I know they shouldn't be together, you know they shouldn't be together, Jessa Hastings probably knows they shouldn't be together, and yet...you want them to be together. There is no logical reason for me to want them to be happy. Firstly, they both have major growing up to do, and secondly, neither of them are very good people. A bad person doesn't mean a bad character, though. I still enjoyed reading their antics and sometimes BJ, even at his worst, was able to squeeze my heart in just the right way, damn him, stupid goblin boy.

I have some slight issues here and there that I can't get into without spoilers, but I overall loved this one and can't wait to read the rest of them.

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