Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

Magnolia Parks by Jessa Hastings

107 reviews

moonylovesstars's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

3.0

I honestly couldn’t tell you how I feel. It was entertaining. But I’m supposed to root for BJ after all that? How is he going to redeem himself EVER. I don’t know what makes the toxic relationships in this book even worse to me than like every other one. Maybe because to me those ones are less realistic than this one to me. Like granted this isn’t top tier realistic but it’s not a stalker romance or a mafia boss romance that just seems way over my head to believe for even a second it could happen in real life but with this book I can see it happening in real life. It’s so messy. It’s like the Kardashians mixed with the bachelorette mixed with tons of cheating and drugs. I mean like I enjoyed my time but at the same time I wouldn’t count this as a romance. It has romance aspects I guess but I see no romantic stuff anywhere. I just see messy drama. 😭🙏

I do kind of felt like it got a bit repetitive. He cheats, she gets mad, goes to whoever, Christian, Julian, Tom. Whatever. Goes back to him. Repeat. At least 3 times in this book if we are including the time where he cheated when they were first together. 

I just feel like would’ve enjoyed this more if it was marketed to me as a drama tv show and not a romance novel because I went into it with the wrong expectations as well as also knowing it’d be toxic. But I was expecting like Twisted series level toxic, not cheating left, right, center, everyone loves magnolia, repetitive breaking it off, getting back together, yelling at each other and sobbing, then kissing the next few chapters later. Like if I went into it expecting that I think I would’ve ate it up. But when I was expecting more romance than what this is, it disappoints a bit. But I think I’ll continue the series just keeping it in mind that it’s basically a drama tv show and pick it up when I’m in the mood for exactly that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Addiction, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Alcohol

annamay1021's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, and Alcohol

Moderate: Sexual content and Suicidal thoughts

melly1924's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, and Alcohol

Moderate: Infidelity and Violence

kalefactory's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic relationship, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Sexual content, Violence, Vomit, Grief, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Classism

Minor: Child death

xbrunagomesx's review

dark emotional tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Alcohol

lilhappyhermit's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This book had me in a chokehold. It is as if Gossip Girl and Sex in the City had a baby in the UK, and I loved EVERY SECOND OF IT. The means of which you get to know Magnolia and BJ, them currently and their history together, was so raw and venerable while simultaneously being so gripping and jaw-dropping. As an outsider, watching how they both cope with all that has happened, I was in this state of rooting for them and hoping there would be a moment of forgiveness so they could live their happily ever after (but it's never that simple). The ending of this book, and the cliff hanger we were left with, had my jaw on the floor and my heart in disarray. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, and Alcohol

Minor: Sexual content

musicmagician823's review against another edition

emotional sad slow-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Alcohol

madsreadsbooks17's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, and Alcohol

annatl4's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

there is no way this needed to be 450 pages… it didn’t even really get interesting until page 250. it was very repetitive and lacked plot. some things were very confusing and i didn’t like how flashbacks were thrown in between present events, it was hard to follow. all the characters were pretty insufferable and the issues between parks and bj didn’t seem serious enough for that long of a book. i also do not care about what anyone is wearing. full paragraphs descriptions of designer cloths is crazy. i did enjoy the secondary characters, tom, bridget and the humor of the families. i also thought it was a nice touch to have anecdotes speaking to the audience - “you get it don’t you”. i do want to continue reading the series since things got interesting towards the end. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Infidelity, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

toriibrooke33's review against another edition

emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.0

Modern day gossip girl (definitely Blair and Chuck) set in high society London.  

Magnolia is the It girl of London and has been madly in love with BJ but he’s broken her heart over and over. So she schemes to make him jealous while he continues to do dumb boy things. Classic toxic relationships. Will love conquer all?  

Tropes: fake dating, love triangle, millionaire, dual POV, mutual pining, second chance
🌶️ (alluded too, never in detail) 

Trigger warnings: drug use, cheating

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Infidelity and Alcohol