#RSFave Book Review | Magnolia Parks by Jessa Hastings

She is a beautiful, affluent, self-involved and mildly neurotic London socialite. He is Britain’s most photographed bad-boy lothario who broke her heart. But Magnolia Parks and BJ Ballentine are meant to be, and everyone knows it. They’re in the stars… just suspended in a strange kind of love that looks like hurting each other a lot of the time: She dates other people to keep him at bay; he sleeps with other girls to get back at her for it. But at the end of their every sad endeavour to get over one another, it’s still each other they crawl back to. But their dysfunction is catching up with them, pulling at their seams and fraying the world they’ve built; a world where neither has to ever let the other go completely. As the cracks start to show and secrets begin to surface, Magnolia and BJ are finally forced to face the formidable question they’ve been avoiding all their lives: how many loves do you really get in a lifetime?

AMAZON (check out your local library, if you have access) | STORYGRAPH | GOODREADS

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Magnolia Parks Review

content warnings will be listed after the book rating.

I’ve been seeing this book/series circulating and I quickly added it to my TBR, but needed to wait until my mood would bring me back to it. After opening 11 ebooks and none of them caught my attention, figured it was about time to jump into the infamous Magnolia Parks. A lot of the keywords that I saw to describe this venture was “messy”, “angst fest” and “toxic AF”. I knew this dealt with a trope that I don’t usually read, but yet again, my mood reading was here for it.

Zero regrets were made after I just about devoured this, but oof did my heartbreak from the ultimate betrayal at the end.

I was having quite a few conversations with some bookish friends as I was reading, mostly about why this book had me so hooked. And a big part of it is because of the way it’s written.

We’re in the present with dual POVs, Magnolia Parks and BJ Ballentine as our leading characters for this tumultuous journey. They’re in this constant cycle of hurting each other that will seriously leave you breaking apart little by little. The drama is definitely not downplayed at all, but you’re still hopeful yet a little nervous because there’s just this cloud constantly hanging over everything. There’s definitely something coming, something big…and just not great.

From the beginning, the reader already knows what brought them to break up and with every chapter, we’re slowly learning new things as they each rehash certain events. Mostly ones that bring us to what happens in the end.

So, you’ll be learning everything as you get through every chapter and I swear something major was always dropped every time. And my goodness, it worked for me every time! I had to know what happened next while my heart is pretty much bleeding out in the process.

I honestly cannot compare this to anything I’ve read in a while, I loved it yet hated what we all go through. Absolutely a memorable read for the year, tears were shed and I have no idea how I want their story to end. There’s no doubt that they love each other, but at what point do you decide to stop this vicious cycle that they’re on … to move on, be happy, and for them to stop hurting each other.

I have no idea, but I’ll keep reading to find out…

★★★★★

Content warnings: drug use, overdose, cheating

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