The One Where I Don’t Understand the Hype: Magnolia Parks Book Review

I haven’t been reading a lot over the last few months, but I have been seeing this book everywhere (Youtube, Instagram, book blogs, etc) and I’ve been very curious about it. I finally read it in October and here are my thoughts.

Magnolia Parks is the centre of a big friend group and a London socialite. Everyone seems to love her and she loves that everyone loves her! Or, shall I say, guys want her and girls are jealous?

She’s been in love with BJ since her teenage years, but we discover they’ve broken up, the reason for the break up is not revealed till later in the book. They still can’t seem to live and breathe without each other so the reader keeps wondering what’s happened. Their relationship is the most toxic relationship I’ve ever read about and I could not understand how it functions. Their boarding school friends are constantly being interrogated about this or that event from both parties. It must be really difficult to be their friend. And let’s not forget about the paparazzi following their every step and media reporting on them.

I’ve seen a lot of comparison with the Gossip Girl books and TV series. I partially agree, but the writing in MP is worse than GG and the story is more chaotic overall. For example, there’s a very dramatic scene happening and the scene is interrupted for Magnolia to let us know what everyone is wearing, including the brand name, collection, colour and material. This was distracting and irrelevant for me, though it does seem to be Magnolia’s thing according to the friend group.

Despite all that, I read book 2 as well and the writing did not get any better. I was trying to understand the hype around these books. They´re literally a TV show in written form. The books are too long and the multiple points of view don´t really add much to the plot except increase the number of pages. Once again, my curiosity about a book got the better of me, when will I learn? This is not my kind of book at all.

Have you read or would you read this book?