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A review by thexwalrus
Magnolia Parks by Jessa Hastings
slow-paced
2.5
nothing happens in this book, like, plot-wise. it's toxic, insufferable people being toxic and insufferable and honestly? it was very fun to read! like a terrible reality tv show you're ashamed to say you can't stop bingeing.
the line-level writing needs a lot of work - there are some typos and grammatical errors an editor should've caught, and some sentences that are fragments that were probably left that way for a stylistic choice but they just sounded awful. there's a lot of flowery talk about love that probably accounts for 50% of the length of this book.
magnolia has patrick bateman-like habits - she describes the specific details of every item of clothing everyone is wearing. it makes total sense for her character! i just come from the trenches of mid-2000s fandom where every fic featured that and it's now something that irks me in published works. like i said, she's insufferable. but i didn't read this book to like her as a character, i read it because it was described to me as toxic people being toxic to each other and i was like "ooh, i love mess!"
it's not terrible - it's a middle of the road book that i'm not upset i read, but i probably won't read again. it was fun for what it was!
the line-level writing needs a lot of work - there are some typos and grammatical errors an editor should've caught, and some sentences that are fragments that were probably left that way for a stylistic choice but they just sounded awful. there's a lot of flowery talk about love that probably accounts for 50% of the length of this book.
magnolia has patrick bateman-like habits - she describes the specific details of every item of clothing everyone is wearing. it makes total sense for her character! i just come from the trenches of mid-2000s fandom where every fic featured that and it's now something that irks me in published works. like i said, she's insufferable. but i didn't read this book to like her as a character, i read it because it was described to me as toxic people being toxic to each other and i was like "ooh, i love mess!"
it's not terrible - it's a middle of the road book that i'm not upset i read, but i probably won't read again. it was fun for what it was!