Series: Magnolia Branch
Release Date: August 5th, 2014
Jemma Cafferty and Ryder Marsden have no intention of giving in to their parents’ wishes. They’re only seventeen, for goodness’ sake, not to mention that one little problem: They hate each other! Jemma can’t stand Ryder’s nauseating golden-boy persona, and Ryder would like nothing better than to pretend stubborn Jemma doesn’t exist.
But when a violent storm ravages Magnolia Branch, it unearths Jemma’s and Ryder’s true feelings for each other as the two discover that the line between love and hate may be thin enough to risk crossing over.
• Death
• Cancer
• Does have OM drama
– The Heroine kisses and goes on dates with OM (before the Hero and her get close)
• Does have OW drama
– There’s a rumour that the Hero hooked up with the Heroine’s cousin (we never find out if it’s true)
– Hero leads on OW–Heroine heard the Hero and the OW made out but there’s no clarification if that happened or not
– The Hero was trying to make the Heroine jealous
• Does have the Hero and Heroine pushing away
• No separation between the Hero and Heroine
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
Rating: 2.5/5 stars
What do you think would have happened if the Capulets and the Montagues didn’t hate each other? What if the two famous feuding families were actually each others’ best friends? Well, welcome to Magnolia Branch, where Jemma and Ryder face this dilemma: their families adore each other, and for the first time ever, their lineages have lined up, with Jemma and Ryder being born only a few weeks apart. It’s perfect! Now the two families can become one with the marriage of their two youngest children. But the only problem is, is that they hate each other.
Magnolia had such potential. It had the romance where neither of the two main characters wanted to fall for each other, but they obviously were. There was the close-knit community where everyone knew everything about everyone and the awesome best friends and the heartbreaking and heartwarming sub-plots.
Cook, I think, wanted to stay true to the origin of this plot, the Shakespearean Romeo and Juliet, so Magnolia was divided up into three acts, and the chapters were titled as scenes. It was creative and exciting. But the plot! It focuses on two families with mothers who desperately want their children to fall in love with their best friends’ son/daughter. They’ve gone so far as to plan the wedding! This was comical at times but got kinda freaky at others. But the thing that annoyed me the most about Jemma’s and Ryder’s relationship, where they apparently hated each other, was that it was the definition of miscommunication! Possibly the most annoying thing ever because it’s so avoidable.
Another complaint was that the book didn’t have a significant time frame, there was Act 1 which took place a few weeks before the hurricane and a little into the storm, Act 2 which seemed (at least to me) to be all about the hurricane (which lasts like two, three days, maybe?) and then the third act is the rest of the book. This time frame made the idea that Jemma and Ryder were slowly crossing the line of hate to love improbable.
This then leads to the fights they’d have since, you know, they “hated” each other. They literally fought over nothing. Seriously. I don’t even know how they went from a docile conversation to yelling at each other they hated each other. My eyebrow probably did that weird whaaaat thing.
And did anyone notice when reading Magnolia that Jemma seemed a lot more badass than Ryder? It was cute at times, but the way he kinda seemed to look down at her sometimes (Jemma calls it him being bossy–cue the eye roll) was so annoying! Especially when he was the one that was freaking out.
However, for the many complaints that I did have, Magnolia was quick, short and cute (although exasperating). It passed the time on a nothing-to-do Sunday.
I do wish that Magnolia would’ve had more substance, and it seemed that the book ended a little abruptly.
