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alexalovesbooks's review
4.0
(Review originally posted on Alexa Loves Books)
I was very glad to have The White Glove War right on hand as I finished its predecessor, The Magnolia League. I can’t have imagined a better way to go into it, as all the details from the first book were still fresh in my mind. While I was initially worried that it would become a sophomore slump, I actually ended up liking it even more than The Magnolia League.
The setting, of course, was the main thing that drew me to this book - and I’m happy to say that we find out even more about it. There’s more about where the Buzzards live, for instance, and more about the houses of Hayes and Alex, and even more about Savannah in general. Though the descriptions weren’t necessarily completely vivid, I did think that I got a pretty good idea of what things looked like.
While magic was certainly a big part of the first book, it definitely came into its own in The White Glove War. There was seriously so much more going on with this hoodoo business, and I found everything utterly fascinating and never confusing. It’s definitely interesting to ponder on what it means to have all this magic that can give you wealth, beauty, power, even love at your disposal. It was a treat to learn more about the magic, and to see how it could be both a helpful and a harmful tool in the lives of the Magnolias.
Speaking of the Magnolias, the relationships became even more intense in this one. There’s definite tension between lots of different parties - Alex and her grandmother, Hayes and her grandmother and mother, Alex and Hayes, Alex’s grandmother and Hayes’ grandmother and the Magnolias and the Buzzards. All this tension certainly made for some explosive and emotional moments, and I felt like a gleeful (if slightly ashamed) observer as I watched things implode. It makes me glad to be able to report that, by the end of the book, things are sort of resolved to my liking - with a twist I was not expecting.
There’s definitely a whole lot more happening in this book. Secrets are unraveled, relationships are viewed with a lens of honesty, dark magic is messed around with, the romance starts to become the real deal... It’s a lot for one book to take on. The White Glove War, however, is successful in bringing it all together in a story that had my attention from page one up until the end.
I sincerely hope there’s a third installment in this series, even if it is the final one. Though things definitely ended in a satisfying way, I can’t shake the feeling that there is definitely more that could happen to all these characters I’ve grown fond of. The White Glove War brings even more of that Southern charm, with a twisty story, an exploration of the characters and their relationships and a whole lot of hoodoo magic.
I was very glad to have The White Glove War right on hand as I finished its predecessor, The Magnolia League. I can’t have imagined a better way to go into it, as all the details from the first book were still fresh in my mind. While I was initially worried that it would become a sophomore slump, I actually ended up liking it even more than The Magnolia League.
The setting, of course, was the main thing that drew me to this book - and I’m happy to say that we find out even more about it. There’s more about where the Buzzards live, for instance, and more about the houses of Hayes and Alex, and even more about Savannah in general. Though the descriptions weren’t necessarily completely vivid, I did think that I got a pretty good idea of what things looked like.
While magic was certainly a big part of the first book, it definitely came into its own in The White Glove War. There was seriously so much more going on with this hoodoo business, and I found everything utterly fascinating and never confusing. It’s definitely interesting to ponder on what it means to have all this magic that can give you wealth, beauty, power, even love at your disposal. It was a treat to learn more about the magic, and to see how it could be both a helpful and a harmful tool in the lives of the Magnolias.
Speaking of the Magnolias, the relationships became even more intense in this one. There’s definite tension between lots of different parties - Alex and her grandmother, Hayes and her grandmother and mother, Alex and Hayes, Alex’s grandmother and Hayes’ grandmother and the Magnolias and the Buzzards. All this tension certainly made for some explosive and emotional moments, and I felt like a gleeful (if slightly ashamed) observer as I watched things implode. It makes me glad to be able to report that, by the end of the book, things are sort of resolved to my liking - with a twist I was not expecting.
There’s definitely a whole lot more happening in this book. Secrets are unraveled, relationships are viewed with a lens of honesty, dark magic is messed around with, the romance starts to become the real deal... It’s a lot for one book to take on. The White Glove War, however, is successful in bringing it all together in a story that had my attention from page one up until the end.
I sincerely hope there’s a third installment in this series, even if it is the final one. Though things definitely ended in a satisfying way, I can’t shake the feeling that there is definitely more that could happen to all these characters I’ve grown fond of. The White Glove War brings even more of that Southern charm, with a twisty story, an exploration of the characters and their relationships and a whole lot of hoodoo magic.
astoryuntold's review
5.0
Like The Magnolia League, The White Glove War didn't fail to disappoint. I would even go out on a limb and say it was better than TMG.
I love the idea behind this series. There isn't a exclusively witch-y YA book out there, filled with spells, hoodoo, voodoo, afterlife, walking dead and all the awesome things that usually are in a book about a witch convent. At least, not that I know of. This time around Crouch took scary and dark to a whole new level, by introducing The Gray Man, a freakish dead man who is caught between life and death and wants out at any cost. The scene he had with Hayes after the party was brilliant. In hindsight, I should probably not have read that particular scene at night, and neither should you. When reading The White Glove War, I constantly felt like there was an invisible, eerie threat, pretty much like an axe murderer was going to burst into my room and hack me to pieces. Which pretty much sucks, but that's the coolest part of it and in the end, what you expect to find in books like this.
As far as the characters go, there's was some changes going on in Hayes's and Alex's lives and that pushed their characters even further. I kinda expected that from Alex since she is the protagonist, but I didn't expect it from Hayes and I like that we got to get a glimpse of her dark side a little bit, and hopefully in book 3, we get to see more of it, because bad Hayes is amazing. Also, we got to know more about the Buzzards, who are pretty awesome "villains", Hayes mother and grandmother and the decades-long feud between their family and Alex's. All the romantic readers out there, I'm afraid I got nothing for you. Thaddeus doesn't make a significant appearance and I think the same will happen in book 3. If the story remains this good though, I can't say I mind all that much.
I loved The White Glove War and I hope you will, too. I also hope that book 3 will not take as much to get published as book 2. *crossing fingers*
And remember, don't read it at night!
I love the idea behind this series. There isn't a exclusively witch-y YA book out there, filled with spells, hoodoo, voodoo, afterlife, walking dead and all the awesome things that usually are in a book about a witch convent. At least, not that I know of. This time around Crouch took scary and dark to a whole new level, by introducing The Gray Man, a freakish dead man who is caught between life and death and wants out at any cost. The scene he had with Hayes after the party was brilliant. In hindsight, I should probably not have read that particular scene at night, and neither should you. When reading The White Glove War, I constantly felt like there was an invisible, eerie threat, pretty much like an axe murderer was going to burst into my room and hack me to pieces. Which pretty much sucks, but that's the coolest part of it and in the end, what you expect to find in books like this.
As far as the characters go, there's was some changes going on in Hayes's and Alex's lives and that pushed their characters even further. I kinda expected that from Alex since she is the protagonist, but I didn't expect it from Hayes and I like that we got to get a glimpse of her dark side a little bit, and hopefully in book 3, we get to see more of it, because bad Hayes is amazing. Also, we got to know more about the Buzzards, who are pretty awesome "villains", Hayes mother and grandmother and the decades-long feud between their family and Alex's. All the romantic readers out there, I'm afraid I got nothing for you. Thaddeus doesn't make a significant appearance and I think the same will happen in book 3. If the story remains this good though, I can't say I mind all that much.
I loved The White Glove War and I hope you will, too. I also hope that book 3 will not take as much to get published as book 2. *crossing fingers*
And remember, don't read it at night!
shutupnread's review
4.0
While I personally enjoyed this series, I realized after reading the books that a lot of people on Goodreads did not enjoy it at all. In fact, the first few reviews I stumbled upon gave it a 1 star. I honestly found that surprisingly. Though it certainly does not warrant a 5 star for either books, I did not find the books to be appalling. In fact, I found them both quite enjoyable with a few exceptions, of course. Also, I’m fairly certain there is supposed to be a third book because the second book left a lot of questions unanswered and honestly, it was a cliffhanger but since the book was published in 2012, it’s been 3 years and there is no news about a third book so perhaps not. It really does leave the readers wondering about a few certain key things, though.
The beginning of the book definitely had an interesting premise. The main character, Alex, just lost her mother from a car accident and was forced to move to Savannah, Georgia where her grandmother resided rather than stay at the nature/pot/hippie farm in California. She certainly had a lot of attitude and wasn’t afraid to speak her mind about saving the environment, and other related topics. She didn’t understand the use of expensive clothes when everything she owned were hand-me-downs. The one thing that kept circling was Alex’s size – I guess she was fat but it was never really detailed on how fat she was which I honestly thought was strange because she barely ate any sweets, ate super healthy since she grew up on a hippie farm, yet was somehow fat? So either she wasn’t really “fat” or had some sort of genetic disorder that caused her to gain weight like no other. I wished the author went into detail because it would’ve helped me in picturing her in my head. After all of the hoodoo/magic spells that were going on, she lost a ton of weight and became like a normal Magnolia girl – less snarky, more pretentious, more bimbo-like and significantly less brain cells. While this was unfortunate, I still felt that deep down, she was still the same but more cynical on life.
Hayes and Madison came across as the typical bitches you would find in a high school and it wasn’t until the second half of the book that their southern sweetness came shining through. I felt that the transition between the awkward friendship between them and Alex and the sisterhood of the Magnolia league was a bit odd since it was clear they didn’t like each other and was in fact forced to hang out with her but then somehow, towards the second half, they became super close friends and Alex would trust them with her life. I just wish the transition was a bit smoother.
The romance between Alex and Thaddeus was also a bit bland. I didn’t see any interest from Thaddeus’ side until after Alex turned skinny whereas from Alex, she found him incredibly attractive but that was it. There weren’t any deep interest between the two of them – in fact, I got the impression that they liked each other because Alex found him attractive and after she lost weight from the magic spells, he liked how she looked. It just seemed very shallow but somehow they were in love by the second book so I was a little confused by that. I wish the romance was portrayed in a better way.
Overall, I still enjoyed both books but I wish the ending of the second book was more conclusive rather than leaving it incredibly open-ended. Otherwise, I guess I would recommend to those who are interested in magic in a southern setting.
The beginning of the book definitely had an interesting premise. The main character, Alex, just lost her mother from a car accident and was forced to move to Savannah, Georgia where her grandmother resided rather than stay at the nature/pot/hippie farm in California. She certainly had a lot of attitude and wasn’t afraid to speak her mind about saving the environment, and other related topics. She didn’t understand the use of expensive clothes when everything she owned were hand-me-downs. The one thing that kept circling was Alex’s size – I guess she was fat but it was never really detailed on how fat she was which I honestly thought was strange because she barely ate any sweets, ate super healthy since she grew up on a hippie farm, yet was somehow fat? So either she wasn’t really “fat” or had some sort of genetic disorder that caused her to gain weight like no other. I wished the author went into detail because it would’ve helped me in picturing her in my head. After all of the hoodoo/magic spells that were going on, she lost a ton of weight and became like a normal Magnolia girl – less snarky, more pretentious, more bimbo-like and significantly less brain cells. While this was unfortunate, I still felt that deep down, she was still the same but more cynical on life.
Hayes and Madison came across as the typical bitches you would find in a high school and it wasn’t until the second half of the book that their southern sweetness came shining through. I felt that the transition between the awkward friendship between them and Alex and the sisterhood of the Magnolia league was a bit odd since it was clear they didn’t like each other and was in fact forced to hang out with her but then somehow, towards the second half, they became super close friends and Alex would trust them with her life. I just wish the transition was a bit smoother.
The romance between Alex and Thaddeus was also a bit bland. I didn’t see any interest from Thaddeus’ side until after Alex turned skinny whereas from Alex, she found him incredibly attractive but that was it. There weren’t any deep interest between the two of them – in fact, I got the impression that they liked each other because Alex found him attractive and after she lost weight from the magic spells, he liked how she looked. It just seemed very shallow but somehow they were in love by the second book so I was a little confused by that. I wish the romance was portrayed in a better way.
Overall, I still enjoyed both books but I wish the ending of the second book was more conclusive rather than leaving it incredibly open-ended. Otherwise, I guess I would recommend to those who are interested in magic in a southern setting.
kellyhager's review
3.0
I love the idea behind this series, where you have the power (through hoodoo) to completely transform your life and that the ease of having the perfect life without necessarily having to work for it could corrupt you. I think it would require an incredibly strong person to be able to have that kind of power without abusing it or being changed by it. The characters in these books are not incredibly strong people.
I'm not sure what it says about me that I enjoy stories about people being corrupted. (I also enjoy redemption stories, and I'm pretty sure that's what the next book in this series will be.)
There will be at least one more novel and I do look forward to reading it. These are total guilty pleasures. There was an interview with the author last year where she said (and I'm paraphrasing) that it's easy to write YA because you just do action and not worry about nuance. You can definitely tell that is her opinion in these books (Hayes and Alexandria's narratives both sound similar and sometimes I had to flip to see who was talking) but it's definitely entertaining. I wouldn't expect a lifechanging story but it'll give you a fun few hours.
I'm not sure what it says about me that I enjoy stories about people being corrupted. (I also enjoy redemption stories, and I'm pretty sure that's what the next book in this series will be.)
There will be at least one more novel and I do look forward to reading it. These are total guilty pleasures. There was an interview with the author last year where she said (and I'm paraphrasing) that it's easy to write YA because you just do action and not worry about nuance. You can definitely tell that is her opinion in these books (Hayes and Alexandria's narratives both sound similar and sometimes I had to flip to see who was talking) but it's definitely entertaining. I wouldn't expect a lifechanging story but it'll give you a fun few hours.
deereadsthings's review
1.0
I'm DNFing this one at 79 pages. I literally do not care about anything that's happening. Ugh what a waste of time.
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