magnolia parks by jessa hastings

this episode, we wade into the emotionally unstable, couture-drenched world of Magnolia Parks by Jessa Hastings… and, well, we have some thoughts.

if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to witness a slow-motion relationship implosion between two wildly codependent people—while surrounded by designer fashion, public spats that feel like a highschool Facebook fight, and enough black vans to stink out the UK, you’re in the right place.

we also ask the important questions, like: is anyone in this book okay? and how many times can one person sabotage their own life before we take their Gucci privileges away?

choose our next podcast read by going here and voting in the first week of each month!

make sure you subscribe to hear our groundbreaking thoughts as soon as they are unleashed. if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talklit.gethit on Instagram and TikTok.

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join talk lit, get hit podcast for deep dives into the hottest BookTok recommendations, trending contemporary fiction, and literary favourites! each episode features book discussions, spoiler-filled chats, and thoughtful literary analysis of novels everyone is talking about - from viral romance and fantasy to modern classics. whether you’re looking for BookTok book reviews, author interviews, or a virtual book club experience, out podcast is your go-to space for readers who love stories and want to explore them in depth.

talk lit, get hit are reading and recording on Giabal, Jagera, Jarowair & Turrbal lands. we acknowledge the cultural diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and pay respect to Elders past, present and future. always was, always will be.  

Transcript

Laura 0:01

Hello and welcome to Talk Lit Get Hit, a podcast where we read viral books the internet won't shut up about and rate them lit or shit.

Bridget 0:08

We're your hosts Bridget and Laura, lovers of sad girl fiction and tragic endings, fearers of smut, urban fantasy, and the Who Did This To You trope. Join us as we pick apart all the books the internet loves and embark on a journey to figure out why.

Laura 0:23

Grab your Gucci and bag up your Balenciaga because this episode we're going on a trip to London, and you're coming with me. I'll actually die if you don't come. Don't you love me? Aren't you supposed to be my codependent friend? Whatever, who cares? I'm over it. This episode we're talking about Magnolia Parks by Jessa Hastings and discussing codependent friendships. Bridget, hello. Hello. That blew me away. I'm speechless. That was so good. But are we still friends?

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Um, yeah. Okay. We grew up together. We are faded. Let's not get too into it yet.

Laura 1:06

How's your month been?

Bridget 1:08

My month has been pretty boring, actually. Nothing much has really been happening. I looked through my camera roll because I couldn't remember a thing that I had done. Still playing Pokemon Go. There's lots of Pokemon Go screenshots. Cool. If anyone wants to be my friend on Pokemon Go, let me know. I'll send you my code. Other than Pokemon Go, I went and saw Gracie Abrams. Hmm. What can I say without getting the stands mad at me?

Laura 1:34

You were quite nervous about this.

Bridget 1:36

Yeah. I like Gracie Abrams a fine amount. I had a good time, but I will say, Gracie, if you're listening, please stop interacting with the fans on my time. On my dime, actually. I'm not interested in seeing you interact with people. I don't want to watch you write a tattoo for someone four times because you didn't like your handwriting. Oh my god, it took so long because she would just stop and talk to people. Not interested. Please just sing your little songs and let me go home. It was a Wednesday night, I think. And I had a two-hour drive after. And we got lost on the way back to Toowumba. Like, how many times have we done that drive? We ended up like halfway to Boona. But anyway.

Laura 2:18

I don't even really like when they speak ever.

Bridget 2:20

No, same. Don't talk.

Laura 2:21

Hate an encore.

Bridget 2:22

Say uh same.

Laura 2:25

We all know your dreams.

Bridget 2:27

I hate it. When I'm in charge of the world, there'll be no more. They will be outlawed. I hate it so much.

Laura 2:34

When we went to see Idols, I think Brian went to that show too. And it was great. But at the end, someone was like, Encore. And the guy was like, No, I've done enough.

Bridget 2:45

And I've done enough as an audience member. Yeah. Hate them. I hate Encore. One of the many reasons why I like Tail Swift. So anyway, other than that, not really doing much other than getting ready for England. I'm going at the end of this month. So by getting ready, I mean not doing anything to get ready and then like not having anything booked, but just pretending that that's fine. It'll get sorted. It is gonna be okay. It'll be okay. We're staying with Brian's family for most of it, but we have booked flights.

Laura 3:14

Tick. It feels like a bit of a whirlwind, even to me, because I think going as far as Europe, that's like a two years in advance kind of situation.

Bridget 3:22

Yeah.

Laura 3:23

In my head. Well, having never been.

Bridget 3:25

It is a bit of a traumatic played journey as well. But that's okay. It's about the destination, not the journey. I think that's it for me. How about your month? What have you been up to?

Laura 3:36

Oh, also pretty boring. Also looked through my camera roll and found nothing but tripe in there. It was like such a boring month. So my husband and his sister and I, his sister lives with us now. We've been trying to do some sort of semblance of 75 hard, which feels so embarrassing to say out loud for some reason. And it's going really well, but it is a boring life to live. I keep snip-snap-snip-snap flip-flopping between how I feel about it, because on one hand, the routine is really appealing in that you know what you have to do every day. You wake up, you do your exercise, you go to work, you eat your special little meals that you made on a Sunday afternoon, you come home, you do an exercise, you're really tired, so you don't really have many options but to have a shower, read your little book, and go to bed and rinse and repeat. It's like, okay, people that do that as their life, I guess they've found a formula, but then it's also like, where is the joy? So I don't really have anything else inside of to say about it, but it is nice to feel yourself, you know, lift up a heavier weight or have less of a hump back. Which is I'm like still on an eternal quest to correct my posture. Apart from that, it's been pretty quiet. Um, I had a lovely day out with my mum. We went to see a play at QPAC. It was the Dictionary of Lost Words by I think the author's name is Pip Edwards or something like that, but I could have completely fabricated that. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

I was gonna say Pip, but I don't even know how I know that. How did we know that?

Laura 5:04

I haven't read that book. But the play was really amazing, and I think probably maybe even a better setting to see it in. And something that was phenomenal about it was that the actress that was playing the main character, who had like probably 80% of the dialogue in the play, had come in at short notice because the normal cast member was sick and she was still holding her script. So they made like a special announcement at the start of the play to say, like, hey, she just flew in from Melbourne or whatever. She's been busy learning her lines. I think she'd done maybe one show already, and then she read from the script, but in like a really professional, barely noticeable way. It like blew me away. It was amazing. So good. Didn't miss a beat. So that was really lovely. I don't know. I've been on a hike, went to the footy. The only other thing is that because I've been getting up early to exercise, something I've been experiencing, particularly on these Friday and weekend mornings, is like the jump scare of turning on my car, the radio's on, and it's like the carryover nighttime club music. It is a horrible feeling. Like I left just before six to come to Toomba, and it was like Friday night club music wrapping up. And I thought, I've been out too late, put me in a cab, send me home. I don't like that at all. So I think petition to turn that shit off at like four o'clock. I'm just gonna get it started. Doesn't it get you like pumped up for the gym though? No, it really upsets me. In terms of reading, I feel like you're gonna have a lot more to say than me. So I might just rip off the band-aid and go really quickly because I didn't read anything. I read Babel, which is our next podcast book. I read Magnolia Parks. I read a book called Victorian Psycho, which was fine. It was a three-star read. So, you know, it was pretty middle of the road. I can see why you'd like it. Could barely tell you what it was about, even though it was like not hard to follow. I just like couldn't be bothered to. Um, and then I read about 10 pages of 20 different books, and like nothing really stuck with me. How about you?

Bridget 7:06

I kind of did that too as well. I've I think I've got about 10 books on the go and not really making much progress with any of them, and have actually returned some of them to the library, so won't be making any progress with them for a long time. I did have three notable mentions that I wanted to quickly talk about and then one big stinker. The first one was an audiobook, and it was Bright Young Women by Jessica Noll. And this one was a semi-fictional Ted Bundy sort of takedown, written from two different perspectives. One was from the president of a sorority house that Ted Bundy had like busted into and killed a few of the members, and then the other perspective was one of his victims, and so reading her last chapter was quite harrowing and sad. But jumps between past and present. It's very female focused, which I think is often missing when we are reading these, like I think I'd probably classify them as like Ted Bundy circle jerks. Like he's so hot and he's so smart and he's so manipulative. These stupid women got killed, but this book, the main point was that he was a loser.

Laura 8:10

Yeah.

Bridget 8:10

Yeah. So it was really good. I don't normally like true crime or anything like that, but I think it was a really good story.

Laura 8:18

I think I've been on the wait list for that one since early last year. It's actually it's not a shit. It's actually quite popular. I've been waiting so long.

Bridget 8:27

Hopefully, you get it soon. The second one was an ARC that we received from the publisher, and it was Julie Chan is Dead by Lian Zhang. And I read this coming down from reading Yellow Face and recording the episode about it, and I think it hit the same kind of sweet spot. Like Yellow Face, it was about taking on a dead person's identity. This person was actually her twin sister, and they were separated when they were quite young from each other after their parents died in a car crash. One of the sisters, Chloe, she was sent to live with a fairly affluent white family, and Julie was sent to live with her aunt, who was quite mean to her and quite abusive. They didn't really connect until years later when Chloe was quite a famous YouTuber and quite a famous influencer, and Chloe found Julie in her place of work and brought a camera crew to show that I bought my twin sister a house, and then no more contact after that until Julie received a phone call from Chloe. Very weird, like garbled sounds. It turns out that Chloe was dead when Julie arrived at her apartment, and so then she sort of assumes her identity and turns into the influencer and goes on like brand trips and stuff, and it all sort of falls apart from there. It was like Yellow Face, in there's like deception that has to be covered up and kept up, I guess. But this one was more focused on influencers and like the dark, seedy underworld of online influencing in the land of brand deals and the sponsored content. It was funny, it was like a bit ridiculous. I really enjoyed reading it. The last good book that I read this month was How to End a Love Story by Yulein Kuang, and I have to say, I started reading this as an audiobook while I was at work, and as soon as I got home, I was searching high and low for an e-book copy because I couldn't listen to it fast enough. It was so good. It was sort of giving Emily Henry vibes, which is fantastic, because the author is actually writing and directing the Beach Reed movie, and she wrote the screenplay for people we meet on vacation. What a partnership. I know. I keep seeing those onset paparazzi shots of people we meet on vacation, and I'm so keen for it. But in this book, the main character, Helen, is a successful author whose book series is being turned into a TV series, and she's put her hand up to write on the TV show as well. But one of the other writers is from her hometown and was driving the car that killed her sister when they were in high school. So there's a lot of history between the two of them, you might say. It just had that well-written romance feel, like Emily Henry books have, and I think it might be one of my favourite books I've read so far this year. Wow, okay. But then, sorry to end on a downer, but The Big Stinker was another ARC that we received from the publisher. It was Summer in the City by Alex Astor. And I have to say, I had high hopes. The marketing on TikTok really worked on me. But sadly, this book was so ridiculous and it just spiraled into more ridiculousness, chapter after chapter. And it was just like all of the worst tropes put into one book in the worst way. Actually, can't say how much I didn't enjoy reading this. But the main character Elle, she's a secretly successful screenwriter operating under a pen name, and she was like Bella Swan, Anastasia Steele, and Olive from the Love Hypothesis, like all built into one. She went to a club in New York. She doesn't normally do that, but she was moving to another city and she made out, nearly hooked up with this guy she thought was a bouncer in the stairwell. And then when she found out he was actually like this tech billionaire, she was really mad at him because, like, how could you not tell me, even though they spoke like two words to each other, and she just assumed he was a bouncer.

Laura 12:00

God, don't you hate when you make out with a bouncer and then they turn out to be a freaking tech billionaire?

Bridget 12:05

And then don't you hate when you move back to New York City and you move in next to the tech billionaire that you hate?

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Oh, you just scram.

Laura 12:14

Okay, well, it's that time in the episode where we have to stop talking about ourselves and start talking about the book we've just read. Magnolia Parks by Jessa Hastings. I'm wondering if you could give me your initial thoughts, expectations, hopes, and dreams heading into this book.

Bridget 12:29

I would say that I've always been mildly interested in reading this book. The chaotic covers, the original covers, have always really intrigued me. And I do love a book set in London. Reading the blurb and like the promo reviews on the first page made me a little bit less excited. Like the one that says, if Gossip Girl in Maiden Chelsea had a baby, it would be this book. But I think that's just me being a snob. But then looking at some of the others, they said things like the most emotional romance book I have ever read. And that made me a little bit less keen because I see those sorts of uh reviews attached to books that I don't usually enjoy. How about you?

Laura 13:09

As I so often find myself saying, I think I had next to no interest in this book. But the comparisons to Gossip Girl did really entice me because I used to love Gossip Girl, and I think that's a hole I've always tried to fill. Like I think I've spoken about it here and there in different episodes. I'm such a sucker for a group of rich, elite, hot people doing what they want and spending money and like it's a bit sort of voyeuristic. It's a little bit, I don't know, if aspirational is quite the right words. I do enjoy that, but I feel that it's rare to find it done well. Stretching a little bit beyond my initial thoughts, expectations, hopes, and dreams, ahead of us reading Yellowface, I did for some reason get really excited and read about 20 pages of this. And I was messaging you like a rubber dog. Let me at Magnolia Parks, burn Yellowface, burn the other books we're reading for the podcast. I have eyes for only Magnolia Parks. It's all I ever want to read. I don't know what it was. It was like really hitting a sweet spot in those 20 pages. And I was very excited to read the rest.

Bridget 14:22

Spoilers for Magnolia Parks lie within this episode. We're also very likely to spoil any and all other books in the Magnolia Parks universe. So if you'd like them to remain unspoiled, pause the episode, subscribe to the show, and come back when you're ready.

Laura 14:36

Trigger warnings for this book and episode include alcohol use, assault, cheating, drugs, accidental overdose, emotional abuse, toxic relationships, and violence.

Bridget 14:45

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 Ballantyne are meant to be, and everyone knows it.

Laura 14:59

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 endeavor to get over one another, it's still each other they crawl back to.

Bridget 15:15

But their dysfunction is catching up with them, pulling at their seams and fraying the world they built. A world where neither has to ever let the other go completely.

Laura 15:24

As the cracks start to show and secrets begin to surface, Magnolia and BJ are forced to face the formidable question they've been avoiding all their lives. How many loves do you really get in a lifetime?

Bridget 15:36

Okay, we have finally read the book. We have nearly spoiled this episode about 15 times already. Our thoughts are bursting out of us. Laura, I would love to hear how you felt after reading Magnolia Parks by Jessa Hastings.

Laura 15:51

Well, I thought the first two chapters were great. And then after that point, it was kind of like she put the first two chapters into AI 65 more times and just said, rewrite this, rewrite this. It was the same thing over and over and over again, and it got old pretty fast. How about you?

Bridget 16:15

Yes, I would agree. I finished this book about two or three days ago, and I read about 80% of it in around three hours. When I finished it though, I felt a bit devoid of any comprehension or opinion about it because I sort of checked out and I was like, oh gee, this bodes well for having to record and talk about it for like an hour or two. But I think since I closed the book and then did some research and started like watching interviews with the author and seeing all of these things, like I've had a lot more thoughts about that, and they have sort of informed my read on the story. Overall, I wouldn't say that I enjoyed it, but I was engaged in a way, and that way was wanting to reach into the book and like shake sense into all of the characters or like tell them that they were just bad people.

Laura 17:02

Yeah, I kind of know what you're saying. I don't think it's even close to the worst book I've ever read, despite being so bad. I felt there was something engaging, whether it be the writing, some element of the characters, or yeah, like you were saying, just that want to kind of reach in and ask them to have like a little bit of self-respect.

Bridget 17:24

Yes.

Laura 17:25

I don't know. There was something that kept me reading, and I also had the same feeling afterwards of thinking, what the hell will we actually talk about? Because normally when we talk about books, we break it down into like a little discussion of the author. We might go through the characters one by one, we talk about like specific points in the plot, and to that I was thinking, but what plot? Like, what actually are we gonna say? It's literally the same scene 85 times.

Bridget 17:52

And who are the characters?

Laura 17:54

Who are they? I don't know.

Bridget 17:58

Saying all this might be a bit controversial, but I think I would read the rest of the series. I don't know if I'd be right now, but I think I would try the rest. How about you? Do you think you would?

Laura 18:08

I don't think I would. I just got really nothing from this book. Like it didn't add anything into my life, but it did take up a fair bit of my time. And when I say f a fair bit, I mean more than I wanted it to.

Bridget 18:18

Yeah.

Laura 18:19

I'd Google what happened.

Bridget 18:20

I did see some spoilers and didn't feel upset about that. So maybe that's a sign that I shouldn't read the books.

Laura 18:26

I have absolutely zero emotional connection with anything that happened in this story, but I do think that the skeleton of like interesting characters, interesting premise, interesting plot is there. It's just like not in a format that I could give any sort of rats about. Maybe we could start off talking about the author Jessa Hastings herself, because I think some of the most interesting commentary about this book and about these characters comes from her herself and then my reaction to her commentary on these characters in this book. So we were both surprised to learn that she is Australian.

Bridget 19:00

Yeah, I didn't know that, but when I realized that, a few things sort of started to click into place because there were some words and phrases, and I can't quite remember what they were, but I was like, oh, that's a weird thing for an English person to say.

Laura 19:12

That's funny that you say that because I didn't pick up on anything reading as not being English, but I did think a lot of the dialogue sounded familiar. And then when I went on my beloved Reddit, I did come across this one person that was like, the inaccuracies are astounding. Like he's BJ says, I'd bet you a million bucks. The poster said, in no world would someone from England say a million bucks, I'd say a million pounds. And then one that cracked me up was I think BJ's mum is like, Oh, they've got egg rolls. And the poster was like, in what world would they serve egg rolls at a spring party? It would be spring rolls. It's like, okay, good point. They are, you know, in higher society.

Bridget 19:54

Yeah, that is true because although we don't call them egg rolls here, we call them spring rolls. They are the fried, you know, spring rolls. But that is true because you know, you're hard pressed to find an Australian party that you wouldn't get a spring roller. But I feel like these characters are upper middle class bogans who might live in Bondi. They holiday in Byron, they frequent the icebergs, they go swimming in the morning and they get high on cocaine at nighttime.

Laura 20:21

Yeah, I don't think there was much about these characters that really made me think that they were a part of high society. And I guess I don't know that she was trying to paint that picture. Maybe that's sort of a preconceived idea. I came in with like expecting that gossip girl kind of thing to be fulfilled. But a lot of this stuff, I was like, oh, these people are like not very classy. They're behaving in quite a trashy way in public right now. And, you know, I mean those associations with like gang lords and I don't know, just their public antics and BJ wearing Vans all the time. Like, nobody that spends that much money on Gucci surely would be wearing Vans that much. Back to Jessa and her language choices. I was kind of thinking that as dull as the actual plot of this book was, I found that a lot of the kind of like jokes and like chatter between the friends was a little bit more engaging or humorous for me. And I was wondering if it was that same kind of thing. Like once I realized that she was Australian, the same kind of thing that we experienced with the hating game, where it was just a little bit more familiar, a little bit more outpace.

Bridget 21:26

I felt exactly the same way the whole way through the book. I was like, why do I like this dialogue? And I think it might be because of that. So, what did you learn about Jessa Hastings? Jessa Hastings being Australian was like the tip of the iceberg for me. Her husband is in the Hillsong band. Oh did you know that? No. It answered quite a lot of questions for me because I finished the book and then I was reading some of the acknowledgments and stuff, and I saw that it was self published and had a very fancy name. I think it's the House of Hastings. And I was like, oh, so she's rich, Rich. They've Made a publishing company, or maybe not a publishing company per se, but she's been funded to write this book by the church. And so in the acknowledgments, she's giving thanks to her husband, Benjamin, and she says, You have not just believed in me and supported me, but paved the way for me, paid the way for me, afforded me so much time and space to be long before we could afford to. No one has believed in me how you have believed in me. And all my favourite things about being a human, I can tie to being yours. I love you, Benjamin William Hastings. And then I was like, oh, sorry, he's rich, rich. All these things were like sort of checking out, and I was like, oh, who is he? He is a Northern Irish Christian music artist known for being a member of Australian worship bands Hillsong Worship and Hillsong United. That sort of changed my perception of the book a little bit once I found out. I'd say from my perspective, the Hillsong Church's reputation in Australia is quite notorious. And so that was quite interesting to me that they were are, not sure if they still are, a part of that church. And that sort of confused me a little bit because I was thinking, why is she writing about, you know, sex, drugs, rock and roll when she seems to be quite heavily part of the Hillsong Church? And I didn't find any other references to God or religion in her acknowledgments. And I thought that was interesting as well. And then I was looking on Goodreads at her other books. I realized that she was the author of a book that I had seen some controversy about maybe last month or the month before. Um so this book was released on the 1st of April 2025, and it's called The Conditions of Will. And the front cover has quite a beautiful painting, and there is a blonde white woman standing higher than the people in front of her, and they're looking up to her, you know, as if she's a god. And basically it's sort of a remake of a painting of Our Lady of Fatima, who is Mary. I have seen some good reads, reviews from Catholic readers who have rated it one stars, and they've said, I'm not going to read this book. This cover is so blasphemous towards Catholics and Our Lady of Fatima. I was debating whether or not to continue with this series, and it's now a definite no. There are a few other ones that said such a blasphemous cover. Shame on everyone who approved this, shame, shame, shame. So it's quite weird because she's got at one side she's made some remarks about abortion, she's sort of vaguely pro-life, she's made some comments, but then at the same time, she's married to a member of the Hillsong Church. So she is very confusing to me. It's not really shedding any light on what I think about the book, but it is making me think about it in a different kind of way.

Laura 24:34

Yeah, that does add a really confusing layer to this book because I hadn't read that about her. I didn't know that about her husband, but I was listening to a podcast episode with her where she mentioned meeting the podcast host at church, like through a church thing, and I was like, wait, okay, like that's good of you to be so progressive, but not to make this about Hillsong, but like my understanding of like some sort of past controversies of Hillsong have been around like, you know, allegations of sexual misconduct in the church, financial mishandling, uh, some sort of really quite like harmful messages that they teach women about um sort of subservience to men and crafting yourself to be optimally appealing to men. So I don't know. I can't, I'm just like really digging deep here. I obviously have absolutely no idea about Jessa Hastings' viewpoints on any of these topics, but it does make a very confusing layer to this story. Keeping this big question of her faith and her like religious leanings in mind, it does make some of the comments she's made around fidelity or like cheating in relationships like very progressive, but also like very confusing as well.

Bridget 25:50

A big theme in this book is cheating. We have BJ obviously cheating on Magnolia. We have Magnolia's father cheating on Magnolia's mother with her nanny.

Laura 26:00

Magnolia cheating on Tom. And then sort of like these emotional fairs, like you know, Magnolia leaning on uh Christian, I want to say, um, Magnolia leaning on Tom once again. Actually, the book doesn't really seem to cast any sort of judgment one way or another on these things. It's just sort of treated as a like, well, it happens. Like, with the exception of Magnolia being upset that BJ cheated on her, no one else really seems to mind all too much about this happening.

Bridget 26:35

I would say also that Jessa herself doesn't seem to mind all too much about their cheating. I listened to the same podcast that you listen to, I think. And she said that she didn't know that in the TikTok romance genre that cheating is worse than murder. At multiple times during this interview and a few other interviews I have seen, Jessa has made some pretty interesting remarks about the readers of her books, and I'm sad to say she comes off as a bit of a mean girl. She's constantly talking shit about the people that read her books and the opinions that they have. And she does always sort of chuck in a caveat saying, like, obviously, like it's nice that they're so passionate, but and she sort of made the comment that the people that are okay with cheating are the people who are the BJ stands. And the BJ stands are older, more mature, and have more experience than the younger people who seem to want Magnolia to go to Julian, let's say, or Tom. I thought it was very interesting because she's actually brought this up in a few interviews that she said, um, you know, there's an age divide between who wants Magnolia to end up with BJ and who wants Magnolia to end up with Julian or Tom or, you know, Christian or somebody else. And she is firmly in the BJ camp. She said that he is her favourite character. So some of those comments regarding her own relationship where she said if her husband cheated on her, then she thinks that she would be able to get past that because I think she said, like, it's just sex.

Laura 28:05

I think in that same podcast, when talking about the BJ haters, she kind of turned it back around and was like, if you don't like BJ, that's a problem with you. And she said that when she first wrote BJ, she purposely described him in this like vague kind of way. She wanted him to be like a self-insert for whoever your BJ is. And then she said, I kind of wanted everyone to kind of put their BJ in place, and so that you were kind of like projecting your own story onto being like, everyone has this person that you just really struggle to get over at one point or another. And I've kind of concluded that the way people react to BJ is usually dependent on their disposition and how they are and where they are with their own version of BJ, with their own lives. So I think like reading between the lines, I feel like she's saying, you just hate BJ because you hate yourself. Like you have problems in your life. You just hate BJ because that guy doesn't like you back. I'm quite fearful of like talking about this because the same as you, I've observed that she's like really active in her fan space, but it is often in this like kind of combative or like argumentative way. And I think you don't often see authors talking to their fans like that or like kind of clapping back. And on one hand, I sort of respect it because I think like if I were an author and people were saying stuff that I found to be really delusional or like baseless about these characters that I had created and I felt I had ownership of, I'd be like, just shut up. You are actually stupid, like it's all made up. You've lost your damn mind. Stop talking at me. I feel like I'd find it very hard to not react that way. But at the same time, it does come off as quite mean in many instances. And it's not really your space as the author to be interacting in those reader spheres and telling them how to interpret your book and how to understand it.

Bridget 29:56

I did see her talking about some fans' behaviour at a book signing, and I think that's sort of crossing the line for the fans, you know. If they're at a book space and the fans are coming up to her and maybe being potentially abusive or rude, then that's a different story. Like have your opinion on that however you see fit. But I think that talking about the way that people write reviews or maybe they're making fan content might cross the line a little bit into the reader space. But I also have seen her threaten to kill off characters when people are being quote unquote mean to her. So this one time that I saw was when she used AI to create some characters, fan art, and then like understandably everybody was upset, and then she was like, uh, I just wanted to make something at three o'clock in the morning. Ugh. And then she was like, I'm gonna kill Julian, and I don't care about it. So I mean, I don't know, it's uh she's a funny one. I think it is really funny though how much she's like, I don't care what they say. Like, I think she said at one point, these are just books, but on the other hand, she's like constantly tying herself in knots about what people are saying about these books, and I thought this was a really funny example of that. On her Instagram, there was a letter written from Magnolia Parks to the readers, and she said, Hello, it's me. Jess has willed me out of retirement for this because she thought it better to come from me rather than her, lest anyone say mean or disparaging things to her. She is, just for your information and awareness, at any given moment, either bizarrely inoffendable or so unreasonably sensitive that if you glance at her sideways, she'll question every decision she's made up until that moment. Thus it's very difficult to predict which way she will fall. Which is all to say, this announcement comes from me, not from her. It's been brought to my attention that an increasing number of you think Mags, or God help me, Maggie is an acceptable nickname for me. You would be deeply mistaken. I would sooner die. Magnolia is fine, Parks is fine. Parksy is my favourite, but you aren't allowed to call me that. Actually, honestly, I'd probably prefer Hey You or that obnoxious girl with the beautiful eyes than Mags or Maggie. If I hear it one more time, I will be issuing the responsible party a cease and desist and will likely sue for defamation. All the best, Magnolia Parks XO. And like, obviously it's funny, haha, like the the made-up character's not gonna sue for defamation over a nickname. But in what world is this author seeing the readers make up a nickname for her character, freaking out about it so much that she's like, I'm gonna write an open letter from the character. That's insane behavior. That's crazy.

Laura 32:31

And then, like, on the inverse, when people say, Hey, I think like this relationship's exhibiting some kind of iffy behavior, yeah, to be like, it's all made up.

Bridget 32:41

Which is her reaction to a lot of it. Like, often she is just like, it is made up like they're crazy. But the call's coming from inside the house, babe.

Laura 32:51

Oh, I mean, I get the inclination. I'm saying I couldn't say I'd be better, but it is interesting to watch. Yeah. I think some of the statements she's made around cheating is really interesting and like a really potentially mature and enlightened and engaging discussion. It's just that none of it actually happens in the book. There are some kind of questionable takes. I don't know, like nobody can tell you what's right or wrong in your relationship. And what one person accepts is so different to what another person's willing to accept in their relationship. So obviously, these are huge blanket statements. But something interesting she said in that same podcast interview was in response to a question that had been written in. And the question was that Jessa Hastings has said that she thinks there are worse things than cheating in a relationship. Do you care to elaborate? And Jessa Hastings said, Oh, she thinks that line came from Clara England, who's a character that we meet in Magnolia Parks. She's Tom's dead brother's widow, and obviously her husband's died. And so Jessa Hastings is like saying that your partner dying is worse than your partner cheating on you. And I would have to say, like, obviously, yes. And then she goes on to make a point that I think is like interesting, but again, not discussed at all in the book. And it's that, like, she's at a point where she's a wife, she has a husband, they have a family and like a whole life together. And she said, I'm like, there's not a lot that you could put in front of me that would be a reason that I would walk away at this point. Like, there's a part of me that's a bit like, I know it's such a controversial thing to say. Part of my brain is like, it's just sex because sex is just like transactional. And I think that's such an interesting point of view. I think, like, to a degree, I agree with her. Like, a relationship is so much more than just sex. It's about like all the ways you enrich each other's lives and like grow together and learn together and the services you provide one another, and like your friends and your family and your possessions, and like all of those like rich experiences. And like cheating might be an event in your relationship, but it doesn't have to be the be-all and end all of your relationship. But that is in no way at any point explored in any depth or nuance in this book. They have the same conversation about BJ cheating on her, like at least 50 times with no development in that conversation.

Bridget 35:20

She said in one of the interviews that I watched that she doesn't ascribe to the one and done thing. So she's sort of saying that people these days, young people these days, you know, they people do one thing and they kick them out. And she doesn't abscribe to that, which I think is fair enough. Like that's her opinion, that's fine. But at no point did she say, obviously, maybe if I was cheated on, I might feel differently. Like she is set in her opinion, and this is how she will feel forever. And I thought that to be quite fascinating.

Laura 35:49

Yeah, because she does say in that interview, she did say earlier that she had been cheated on in the past and it was terrible. And then she went on to say, Oh, but now I'm in this long-term relationship with the whole life, and I don't think anything could shake that, but you don't know until you know, right? Like I don't know.

Bridget 36:08

She also did say that Magnolia was based on a younger pre-therapy her. And so it does make me wonder about who BJ is based on.

Laura 36:17

Well, in a lot of conversations about this book and the word from Jess's own mouth is that there was a lot of character development for BJ in particular in the later books in this series. Um, I hear through the rumour mill that he's been to therapy. Yeah. Magnolia 2. Good for them. They needed it. And to that I say I simply don't care. I understand that characters can develop across a series, but I think they have to develop at least a little bit in one book. And I don't think either of these characters grew at all. Because even at the very end of the book, where Magnolia's like to Heathrow and like decides to leave the country or I don't know, fly to bloody Scotland or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

Who cares where she goes?

Laura 37:00

Who cares? Everything up to this point tells me that she's just gonna be like straight back to BJ in two seconds flat.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Yeah.

Laura 37:08

Because she's been betrayed, like in a really major way, by people that she loves, people close to her, BJ, repeatedly throughout this book, and then flipped right back around and forgiven them in the very next chapter. Time and time and time again. This is the perfect book for Will You Be My Codependent Friend. I I will give it that. It's really good.

Bridget 37:30

Just on that topic of BJ's development, I think it's really interesting once again how Jessa reacts to people who have this sort of criticism like BJ sucks, he's horrible. Like, give Magnolia a break, basically. And so on her Goodreads profile, there's some questions that have been asked of her, and she's answered one that says, if you see this, please don't let Magnolia and BJ end up together. I'm halfway through the first book. Give Parks what she deserves. And Jessa Hastings replies and says, Hi. I think you'll feel differently once you finish the series. I really doubt it. Same.

Laura 38:08

I really doubt it. I was really hoping they wouldn't end up together. Oh, same. What about our leading lady? The namesake of this whole godforsaken series. Do you have anything you'd like to say about Magnolia Parks?

Bridget 38:22

I think that everything about Magnolia does the opposite of what Edward said to Bella. Like everything about me invites you in. And I think it's the opposite. Everything about Magnolia like asks me to leave. But at the same time, throughout the first half of the book, I would say I was really rooting for Magnolia. And I was thinking, I love her. I think that obviously she's a spoiled brat, but she is literally not hurting anybody. She stays at home. She's just living her life. She's watching her little National Geographic documentaries. And I cannot understand for the life of me why nobody in her life cares enough about her to like give her a good shake and say, Magnolia, you are better than this, you are better than him. Like you are smart, you are important, etc. etc. Get away from that horrible, horrible man. It really surprised me how much I liked Magnolia because I was really ready to spend this whole time just being like, oh, she's so annoying. But she endeared herself to me, and I thought at the start of the book she was a really good character.

Laura 39:31

I feel exactly the same. I really, really liked her at the start, and I thought I thought the same thing that she seemed like genuinely a good person. Like I kind of was getting the impression that she'd kept BJ around because she was just like a very soft-hearted, like sensitive kind of person. But then she started treating Tom and Christian and her like gang of men that like flock around her with like such dismissal and disinterest and like just kept going back to BJ. And I was like, you know what? That's a bad call, Magnolia. I think you could be a kinder person than that. But I had the same feeling of sadness of like, why is nobody in her life telling her she deserves more? Why is everybody so encouraging of their relationship? Like this strikes me as a group of friends that just secretly hate each other. I mean, obviously the reveal at the end that her best friend was the one that cheated with BJ or BJ cheated with. And then some lines that I don't think were meant to be sad were so sad, like when she said, Tom's becoming my best friend, and I'd hung out like two times.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

I know.

Bridget 40:42

I also think the way that Jonah spoke to her and about her was quite mean. I don't even really know who Jonah is, if I'm being honest. Like so confused. Three times that he appeared on the page and like I took notice of him. He was being mean to her or about her. A lot of my problems with this book lie in the fact that this is one of those stories where we have to hear about the group of friends and how they're the chosen ones and they're always there for each other. Like it's more telling than showing. I think I'm just not interested in hearing about these people that are actually quite horrible to each other. Because can you imagine if you were someone else in the friend group other than Magnolia or BJ? Imagine like having to deal with their shit every time you hang out.

Laura 41:30

I mean, they definitely have a separate group chat.

Bridget 41:32

They would have to. How could they stay sane?

Laura 41:35

And you just sort of awoke something in me that articulates, I think, exactly how I felt about this book. It's that I felt like I was watching like a really public breakup and then get back together. Public breakup and get back together again and again and again and again on Facebook, age 16.

Bridget 41:53

Yeah.

Laura 41:54

It was like the now kiss scene in the love hypothesis times a hundred every chapter. Like none of those characters were there to do anything other than further the romance with Magnolia and BJ. And most of the men were there to tell Magnolia that they loved her.

Bridget 42:13

As you were just saying that, I was trying to think of a specific example of like a time that that happened, or like a single plot point that I could pinpoint where that was the case. But it all blends into one.

Laura 42:25

Well, Jessa Hastings did actually talk about that lack of plot. It came up as a common criticism, and she said lots of people would say, with Magnolia in particular, they'd be like, I've never really read anything like it. It doesn't necessarily have a plot, like it's all relationship stuff. And I'm like, so what would it be like if I took away BJ? Because that is like it's the story of them and it's their story. That's the story. It's them. I think that's true, but I don't think we necessarily are drawing the same conclusions about whether that's good or bad.

Bridget 42:55

No, and you and I love a book with no plot, our bread and butter. But this is not one of those books. This is a mess repeating and repeating and repeating. It's not the same as a book where there's no plot and there's a lot of time for weighing up the pros and cons of something or thinking about their past behaviour. It's it's not that. It's the same shit rehashed again and again and again.

Laura 43:20

And again, yeah. I was just thinking about when she finally sleeps with Tom when they're in Greece, which by the way, if they hadn't have just kept saying we're in Greece like a hundred times, I would have just thought I mean I just kept picturing them as being in England because like they could have been anywhere, because that scene could have been ripped from any of the 50 other chapters of this book. Yeah. Anyway, I was thinking about when she slept with Tom for the first time and then randomly gravitated to BJ's room to just be like, hi.

Bridget 43:48

I think that was the point where I was like, Magnolia, like I've had laugh with you because I can understand at the beginning when things weren't really happening, why she kept forgiving. Him after they've had like a little tiff or something. But I think this is something major. She slept with someone else for the first time ever. This is a big deal to her. Why go to BJ? Makes no sense.

Laura 44:12

She was just like randomly compelled to do stuff, and then the explanation you'd get on the page would be like, Yeah, I don't know why I do these things. I just do them and I can't explain it, but it's just the story of us. It's how we've always been. Like, but you heard that for the first 30 chapters. I know apparently in the next books there's some sort of development with their relationships, but this book was so close to being interesting to me. And if she had just stayed with Tom until the end of this book, I would have been fine with that.

Bridget 44:46

Yeah.

Laura 44:47

That would have been so much more interesting to me. But like what it was was her saying, I hate BJ because he did this horrible thing to me. But we just for some reason can't keep away from each other. Anyway, we're gonna keep hanging out and he's gonna keep treating me the exact same way, and I'm gonna keep treating him the exact same way. I'm also gonna start sleeping with this guy who I think I kind of care about, but in no way do my feelings about BJ change from chapter to chapter. But if there had been even a lull in any of that kind of development, like if she had stopped for 10 chapters to think, you know what, life without BJ is quite different. It's quite good. Or just have some bloody breathing room from the man.

Bridget 45:31

Can you imagine having access to that much money, privilege, opportunity, and squandering it in the way that she does? Think of all of the things you could be doing with that money. Think of all the places you could be going, books you could be reading, people you could be meeting, and she does nothing. She goes like to the same place every week for lunch, she goes shopping at Gucci every week. It's unbelievable. I cannot imagine what my life would be if I had that much money. I think where I landed with Magnolia is that what I want for her, you know, to heat through whatever she says, I want her to spend some time by herself for the first time in her whole life, figure out who she actually is as a person without that waste of space, BJ. And because it's not like, you know, like Jessa was saying, oh, well, I don't ascribe to one and done. It's not one though. This is the thing. Every time she trusts him, he lets her down again and again and again. And also, while I'm on my rant, I also think the way that the other people in the friendship group and the people around her blamed Magnolia for everybody else's behavior is disgusting. Like it's not her fault that Christian was in love with her. Really? It's so despicable. It's not her fault. It's not her fault that Tom was in love with her. It's not her fault that BJ is a drug addict. It's not her fault that this happened or this happened. She literally did nothing to deserve any of that.

Laura 46:56

I thought that was such a weird line in the sand to draw as well. Like the friends are willing to be like, don't use drugs, but like cheat on Magnolia or continue to sabotage your relationship. Sure. Go ahead. I don't care.

Bridget 47:10

Those men are all there seeing what his bad behavior is. They are enabling his bad behavior, but Magnolia has like three fake boyfriends, and suddenly she's the worst person in the world. But she didn't even sleep with any of them. Didn't even spend any time with any of them. They all knew that their best friend was the one that BJ slept with. Covered it up. They still treated her like shit. No. Despicable. You enabled this behavior. You've covered it up. You're responsible as well. And like, Christian can't help who he loves. She never addressed it. She wasn't encouraging it. They've been friends for how long? She didn't even know. No, she didn't even know. So that got me back onto the Magnolia train at the end. I was defending her again.

Laura 47:54

I think a good way of closing this out is to go back to Jessa Hastings' own words on this. And in that same Godforsaken podcast interview that we've been flogging to death this episode, she's talking about the term toxic and how she doesn't like it. And she sees it applied to their relationship a lot. And she says, I don't think that toxic behavior is a death sentence. It is just like an invitation to get better. And I think that's like a very interesting and mature and intriguing sentiment. And I don't think we see any evidence that any of these characters are getting better or are even being invited to develop whatsoever in this book. Oh, I'm pretty much sick of talking about this book, but one thing that one of our listeners did want us to discuss was the constant detailed description of fashion in this book. Did you have any thoughts about that?

Bridget 48:51

On the first page, when she described herself as wearing a red, blue, and white floral satin jacquard dress with a Peter Pan collar, I was like, wow, I'm so into this. I love Peter Pan collars. Obsessed. And then I got to, you know, the second page was probably like three more mentions of clothes, and then I just kept going. And by the end, I just skipped every single one. Couldn't care less. Maybe if I knew brands or clothes or was like interested in fashion, maybe I would have been interested. But there was so many, too many, and for what reason? I thought that the way that Magnolia figured out who owned the perfume that was on BJ was clever, but I didn't think that it was related enough to the fashion to sort of make sense. I think it maybe if somebody had left behind a dress or if there was some fashion item that was a clue as to who BJ had slept with, and then the friend turned up wearing that. I think that would have been a way to make all of that shit make sense. But there was no payoff for me, so I didn't like it at all.

Laura 49:54

That's so true. And like, didn't her mum own a fragrance line or something like that? You know, there could have been a whole trajectory where she's like, wow, I'm really doing nothing but wasting my life with this boy. Like I'm gonna become a perfumier, like that's my passion, I've got a skill for it. Like I can smell all of these tasting notes or something. I don't know if you can call it a tasting note for perfume.

Bridget 50:19

But that's what she needed to do. She needed to go and do something with her knowledge. She knows everything. She loves it, obviously. Go and work in fashion.

Laura 50:26

Yeah. I had next to no thoughts about it. I it was just like wide noise in my head whenever I read it. I mean, and I knew most of the brand names and some of the like fabrications, you know, when she was like, he's wearing a cashmere hoodie. I thought, God, that's excessive, isn't it? Like, can you just imagine it? But it was too much imagination. Like one or two. That's true. And the fans, I don't buy it. It's like when Christian Grey was wearing Converse.

Bridget 50:54

Stinky. Well, I think Tom was wearing Converse quite a bit, too.

Laura 50:57

Stinky. Stinky movies. Oh my god. Okay, I have nothing else to say about this book. I think let's wrap it up. Bridget, could you please give me your favourite character from Magnolia Parks?

Bridget 51:08

Bridget was my favourite character from Magnolia Parks. The only one who had any sense. Most of the time, she had sense. How about you? Who was your favourite character?

Laura 51:17

Um, maybe Tom. He was pretty nice overall as well. Yeah. I was really rooting for them. I wanted her to get together with Tom. What about your least favourite character?

Bridget 51:28

This is a hard one. I think it has to be Jonah or BJ. Both of them awful people. I think Jonah, if he was in it more, maybe he would be the most because I think he was just quite rude, but I know I'm gonna go BJ because he's a bad person, I think. How about you?

Laura 51:44

Yeah, I'm gonna go BJ. He shows like absolutely zero growth and has the emotional range of like a crumb of eggshell. I don't even know what is something so tiny and pathetic. I hate him. He sucks. Me too. And so time for the most pressing question of all. Magnolia Parks by Jessa Hastings. Bridget, do you rate it lit or do you rate it shit?

Bridget 52:07

I think I'm gonna have to rate it shit. I just made that decision then, but it feels right. I was really stuck on what I was gonna rate this one, but yeah, I think shit. How about you?

Laura 52:17

I did see like a lot of closure and acceptance behind your eyes when you said that. So I really support you on this. Um, I'm also rating it shit. I didn't really enjoy reading it. I didn't really care about the characters. I don't want to read the other books, all the signs that tell me shit, shit, shit. It's a shit. It's not the shittest.

Bridget 52:36

No, but it is shit. I am worried about how the listeners will feel though, because I think a lot of the people that listened really liked this book. Yeah. I'm really happy for them to like it, and I hope you don't hate us. Pull one out for the listeners. Yeah, sorry, we've let you down. Just like BJ, time and time again. We're fuck-ups. Oh, I'm gonna go do some cocaine. Our next bonus chapter will be celebrating us talking lit and getting hit for 50 episodes in a row. With one episode with all our favorite rants, discussions, breakdowns, and twilight mentions. Have your say on what we read next by keeping an eye on the link in our show notes and on our socials. Make sure you subscribe to the show, and if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talklit.gethit on Instagram and TikTok.