Themes: Contemporary Fiction
The synopsis
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?
The review
I was very surprised to be hooked on the first page of this book which is far from what I usually read. I can’t call it a romance because the relationship between Magnolia and BJ is yes based on love but a toxic one. They keep hurting each other, especially BJ who knows what he’s doing while refusing to see the impact his actions have on Magnolia, when I believe Magnolia is just trying to cut off from this toxic pattern without managing to and producing a toxic behaviour herself. The writing makes the story even more interesting since we’re in the heads of both of our characters and so see the events unfolding with their stream of consciousness. So, you have a lot of repetitions in their thoughts, as in the ones of a real person, and these repetitions are reinforced by the ones of the plot which is marking the fact they’re trapped in a vicious circle they don’t seem to know how to break.
Their toxic relationship isn’t impacting only them but also the ones around them, be it their closest friends or Tom. They too are toxic in their own way, the friends not knowing how to react or not trying to at all to some actions Magnolia and mostly BJ undertake. So, you have a well-constructed cast of characters who are all deeply flawed, even though you can understand some of the behaviours given their rich-kid family lives are only based on the appearances of some of them.
THE NEXT PART MIGHT BE SPOILERS. So, if you want to avoid any, thanks for reading so far, see you soon. Ok, you’ve been warned 🙂
The only thing I don’t understand is BJ’s behaviour because he doesn’t have any excuses contrary to some of his friends and even Magnolia. He has a loving, united family with parents who seem to be present and love each other. That’s why I think that as a reader you can’t understand why he cheated on Magnolia (not a spoiler, the book literally revolves around that fact). During the entirety of the book, BJ is making you and Magnolia believe he had a reason to cheat on her, almost that he was forced. But in the end, you discovered that nope he was only making excuses for himself and that he didn’t even have the ‘excuse’ (to be taken veryyyy lightly) of being drunk. In fact, he’s just selfish and immature as his actions in the entire book have proven it.
In brief: While I started this book thinking to be a 5 stars, I ended up not really knowing my feelings about it. Surprisingly, I devoured it up to its 80% and then made quite a pause before finishing it. Was it because it became too repetitive or that something made me lose my interest, or was it only because of the pause the last 20% seemed to drag a bit? I don’t know. But what I know is that I still really enjoyed this reading experience which was far from my usual comfort zone and I would advise you to give it a try if you’re hesitating to pick it up because it’s not usually what you’re reading.
My rating: 4/5
A Book by the Fire 