A review by sarahemhavens
Magnolia Parks by Jessa Hastings
dark
emotional
sad
3.0
phew this book was an quite an experience. I didn’t shed tears over this book, but it did bring me back to an incredibly difficult, tumultuous time of my life. This book is giving gossip girl, & toxic love in all the worst ways (or best if you’re into that for whatever reason). While reading this, I found a lot of things to be romanticized that I feel shouldn’t be. Specifically, the way that eating disorders or starving oneself were talked about made me really uncomfortable. So many red flags in this book too, don’t even get me started.
I struggle with the rating of this book because there are some things I found enjoyable, and some things I found highly relatable to my life experiences. Chapter 7 in particular really took me for a loop, and I think the ability to relate to something heavily in a book automatically makes me want to rate it higher. If i didn’t find this book relatable in some way, it definitely would not have made even 3 stars for me. (I’ll be honest it’s teetering on the brink of 3 stars, as is).
I think that Hastings has writing capabilities. There were some powerful, impactful, and thought provoking lines, but I found honestly quite a few typos in this book and all in all, the writing was for the most part confusing and jumbled? Lots of weird run on sentences, poor grammar - sometimes I reread sentences over and over because it didn’t even sound like it made a complete, coherent thought. I wondered a few times reading this if it was rushed, a draft, or if it even had an editor?
(I also really hated the whole fashion detail that magnolia did throughout the whole book, sorry but I skimmed over that just about every time).
I did enjoy reading this book, but I can’t say I stand behind shipping a toxic love, or supporting magnolia in any of her toxic behaviors
I struggle with the rating of this book because there are some things I found enjoyable, and some things I found highly relatable to my life experiences. Chapter 7 in particular really took me for a loop, and I think the ability to relate to something heavily in a book automatically makes me want to rate it higher. If i didn’t find this book relatable in some way, it definitely would not have made even 3 stars for me. (I’ll be honest it’s teetering on the brink of 3 stars, as is).
I think that Hastings has writing capabilities. There were some powerful, impactful, and thought provoking lines, but I found honestly quite a few typos in this book and all in all, the writing was for the most part confusing and jumbled? Lots of weird run on sentences, poor grammar - sometimes I reread sentences over and over because it didn’t even sound like it made a complete, coherent thought. I wondered a few times reading this if it was rushed, a draft, or if it even had an editor?
(I also really hated the whole fashion detail that magnolia did throughout the whole book, sorry but I skimmed over that just about every time).
I did enjoy reading this book, but I can’t say I stand behind shipping a toxic love, or supporting magnolia in any of her toxic behaviors
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Drug abuse, Infidelity, Eating disorder, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic relationship, Drug use, and Gaslighting