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trikaratops's review against another edition
4.0
I am glad I didn’t give up on Alex. She showed me a fancy world full of magic and choosing which side you play for. Go here for my full review: http://epicbooknerd.blogspot.com/2011/06/magnolia-league-by-katie-crouch.html
heyheyhaley's review against another edition
2.0
I mainly bought this book because it is set in Savannah, GA and I am from Georgia. I thought it would be a fun book about the upper class in Savannah mixed with magic. First, they gave the main character dreadlocks to start with and she's white - a big issue I have in basically anything. Then, they took way too long for the main character to find out about the magical underbelly of the society she is entering. This made the ending extremely rushed in my opinion. I am so mad that this book has a sequel because I want to know what happens in the stupid plan the main character cooked up but I REFUSE to read any more of this nonsense.
familiar_diversions's review against another edition
2.0
Alex has lived her entire life at the RC, a hippie commune in California, helping her mother grow medicinal herbs. Sure, the RC grows a little marijuana, but Alex's mother's medicines are what really make the RC famous.
Then everything changes after Alex's mother dies in a car crash. The rich grandmother she didn't even know she had sends a lawyer to pick her up and take her back to Georgia, ripping her away from her new boyfriend and the only life she's ever known. Suddenly she's supposed to be part of something called the "Magnolia League," a sort of club for Southern debutantes. Except that Alex has dreadlocks, is chubby, and has no intention of trading in her t-shirts for designer dresses. However, she might not have much of a choice. Once you become a Magnolia Girl, you're one for life.
This is one of my very old ARCs that I picked up at a past conference and never got around to reading. Better late than never, I guess.
Unfortunately, it didn't appeal to me at all. Yes, Alex's grandmother was snobby, and Madison wasn't much better (I kind of liked Hayes, though - she made an effort to be friendly and seemed genuinely nice). But Alex wasn't all that great either. Almost every opportunity she got, she lectured the people around her about their gas guzzling cars, the unhealthiness of the food they ate, etc. If Hayes and Madison hadn't basically been required to spend time with her, I doubt they'd have stuck around. I don't know that I'd have blamed them. Even though I didn't disagree with Alex, her lecturing and moralizing was off-putting.
Deep down, Alex thought she was better than her fellow Magnolia Girls - not really one of them, more down to earth and "natural." Thaddeus, Alex's eventual love interest, had the usual "not like other girls" moment where he admired Alex for being so different. However, she was shallow too - it just presented differently. She started wearing her hair in dreadlocks when Reggie, the guy she liked back in California, commented on how hot a white girl with dreadlocks he'd seen was. Then when Alex started to think that Thaddeus didn't like her dreadlocks, well, off with the dreads. And hey, I forgot to mention the pot, which she also started smoking because of Reggie - pretty the only thing she didn't do that she knew Reggie wanted was have sex, supposedly because she knew her mom wouldn't have approved (never mind that her mom wouldn't have approved of the pot).
There was some interesting magical politics going on - the rich white Magnolia Leaguers and - but in this book, Alex only got to nibble at the edges of it. The next book probably delves into that more deeply, but I disliked most of the characters too much to want to continue on. And considering the way this book ended, several of the characters would probably give me even more reasons to dislike them before eventually making up and (I assume) finally figuring out how to break up the Magnolia League and the hold it has on them. No thank you, I'm done.
(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
Then everything changes after Alex's mother dies in a car crash. The rich grandmother she didn't even know she had sends a lawyer to pick her up and take her back to Georgia, ripping her away from her new boyfriend and the only life she's ever known. Suddenly she's supposed to be part of something called the "Magnolia League," a sort of club for Southern debutantes. Except that Alex has dreadlocks, is chubby, and has no intention of trading in her t-shirts for designer dresses. However, she might not have much of a choice. Once you become a Magnolia Girl, you're one for life.
This is one of my very old ARCs that I picked up at a past conference and never got around to reading. Better late than never, I guess.
Unfortunately, it didn't appeal to me at all. Yes, Alex's grandmother was snobby, and Madison wasn't much better (I kind of liked Hayes, though - she made an effort to be friendly and seemed genuinely nice). But Alex wasn't all that great either. Almost every opportunity she got, she lectured the people around her about their gas guzzling cars, the unhealthiness of the food they ate, etc. If Hayes and Madison hadn't basically been required to spend time with her, I doubt they'd have stuck around. I don't know that I'd have blamed them. Even though I didn't disagree with Alex, her lecturing and moralizing was off-putting.
Deep down, Alex thought she was better than her fellow Magnolia Girls - not really one of them, more down to earth and "natural." Thaddeus, Alex's eventual love interest, had the usual "not like other girls" moment where he admired Alex for being so different. However, she was shallow too - it just presented differently. She started wearing her hair in dreadlocks when Reggie, the guy she liked back in California, commented on how hot a white girl with dreadlocks he'd seen was. Then when Alex started to think that Thaddeus didn't like her dreadlocks, well, off with the dreads. And hey, I forgot to mention the pot, which she also started smoking because of Reggie - pretty the only thing she didn't do that she knew Reggie wanted was have sex, supposedly because she knew her mom wouldn't have approved (never mind that her mom wouldn't have approved of the pot).
There was some interesting magical politics going on - the rich white Magnolia Leaguers and
Spoiler
their dependency upon the Buzzards, a black family filled with long-time hoodoo practitioners(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
rachelaustin's review against another edition
2.0
The characters were very cliche and I didn't like where the story went toward the end. It seems like the author thinks that in order for a book to be "young adult" it has to have dumbed down language and cliche stereotypes. I own the second book, but I really don't feel like reading it with the way this book ended. Maybe I will change my mind later. If not these books will be going to a charity shop
foreveryoungadult's review against another edition
Graded By: Erin
Cover Story: We Were So Close!
BFF Charm: Aw, HELL No.
Swoonworthy Scale: 0.5
Talky Talk: Freaky Friday
Bonus Factors: Food Descriptions, Evil Grandmothers
Anti-Bonus Factors: People Who Don't Understand How Racism Works, The Vampire Diaries/Skeleton Key School of African-American Characters, Goddamn Dirty Hippies
Relationship Status: That Awkward and Boring First Date That You Later Googled and Found Out They Were a Member of the Ku Klux Klan or Something
Read the full book report here.
Cover Story: We Were So Close!
BFF Charm: Aw, HELL No.
Swoonworthy Scale: 0.5
Talky Talk: Freaky Friday
Bonus Factors: Food Descriptions, Evil Grandmothers
Anti-Bonus Factors: People Who Don't Understand How Racism Works, The Vampire Diaries/Skeleton Key School of African-American Characters, Goddamn Dirty Hippies
Relationship Status: That Awkward and Boring First Date That You Later Googled and Found Out They Were a Member of the Ku Klux Klan or Something
Read the full book report here.
bev3203's review against another edition
3.0
This book was nothing like I expected. After her mother dies, Alex "Alexandria" Lee has to trade in her life at the RC, an organic farming commune, for the old-time southern elite in Savannah. Alex's grandmother, the head of the mysterious Magnolia League, wants her granddaughter to follow in her footsteps, but Alex isn't a typical magnolia--she's a little heavy, wears jeans and tees, and has ratty dreadlocks. The further Alex gets into her new life, she uncovers troubling information about her mother and the league. I am not a big fan of the supernatural, but I'm glad I listened to this book because many of my students enjoy this kind of book. The first in a series. I may check into the second book to find out what will happen next.
yangyvonne's review against another edition
2.0
Alexandra Lee has spent her life on a communal farm with her mother. There, they grow herbs and live a happy and simple CA life. When her mother is killed in a car accident, Alexandra is forced to leave and go live with her (maternal) grandmother in Savannah, GA. There, she learns that she is part of the Magnolia League, a group started by her grandmother and 3 other women in the 1950's. The group has ties to hoo-doo and the members use spells to perform various things. Alex just wants to go back to CA, but when she runs away, she finds that the farm is now a pot operation, the boy she loved lied to her, and she returns to Savannah. Now immersed in the League, she begins to learn more about her powers and the group's connection to the local hoo doo family. At the end, she discovers that her mother's ghost is trapped in a room in the mansion and she is determined to help her, even if it means becoming leader of the League.
This is your typical young adult fiction. Heavy on drama and love triangles and light on facts or history. There is zero mention of who Alex's father was, why her mother got the stone (we only know vaguely how), how they hide their eternal youth from the public, and why the hoo doo family hasn't stopped the arrangement in all these decades. The hoo doo element is interesting, for sure, and different from the usual "magic" you see in YA lit. But Alex is your typical bland and uninteresting "heroine". She is naive, clueless, dispassionate and easily swayed into being friends with almost anyone. She floats from boy to boy and takes advice from her fellow Leaguers without really considering the source. She "rebels" in the most ridiculous ways and somehow expects she can fool her grandmother? WTF? I'm not sure Book 2 can save this mess.
This is your typical young adult fiction. Heavy on drama and love triangles and light on facts or history. There is zero mention of who Alex's father was, why her mother got the stone (we only know vaguely how), how they hide their eternal youth from the public, and why the hoo doo family hasn't stopped the arrangement in all these decades. The hoo doo element is interesting, for sure, and different from the usual "magic" you see in YA lit. But Alex is your typical bland and uninteresting "heroine". She is naive, clueless, dispassionate and easily swayed into being friends with almost anyone. She floats from boy to boy and takes advice from her fellow Leaguers without really considering the source. She "rebels" in the most ridiculous ways and somehow expects she can fool her grandmother? WTF? I'm not sure Book 2 can save this mess.
melissa_clark78's review against another edition
2.0
2.5 stars. In my opinion, most of the book deserved a 2 star rating due to the fact that the characters don't seem to have any redeeming qualities. However, at the very end I got a spark of hope that Alex might turn out to be alright, and I'm kind of curious to see what happens in the next book, so that's why I'm giving it the extra half star. But up until the very end I just couldn't bring myself to care about the characters or story.
I also found the numerous pop culture references to be annoying. My rating of a book is usually inversely proportional to the number of pop culture references. It just drives me nuts and cheapens the story.
I also found the numerous pop culture references to be annoying. My rating of a book is usually inversely proportional to the number of pop culture references. It just drives me nuts and cheapens the story.