Review : Magnolia by Kristi Cook

Title : Magnolia
Author : Kristi Cook
Genre : YA contemporary
Release Date : August 5th, 2014
Publisher : Simon & Schuster

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In Magnolia Branch, Mississippi, the Cafferty and Marsden families are southern royalty. Neighbors since the Civil War, the families have shared vacations, holidays, backyard barbecues, and the overwhelming desire to unite their two clans by marriage. So when a baby boy and girl were born to the families at the same time, the perfect opportunity seemed to have finally arrived.

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.

After reading a lot of reviews about this book, I'm expecting at least an adorable hate/love romance. That's why, I'm happy to say that Magnolia reach my expectations, even more. My only complain was, IT'S NOT LONG ENOUGH. I really want to know more about Jemma and Ryder's relationship (not a spoiler! We all know they'd end up together in the end), and also their family.

Jemma is definitely different from any other girl I've read (in contemporary genre, of course). She's a cheerleader, yes, but she also shoots gun. Like, real gun, ever since she's thirteen years old. Not only that, she has won several shooting competitions, in which most of the participants are boys. In short, she's a badass.

She may looks like a perfect character, but she had some problems in her life. She felt pressured, mostly because her mom is basically determined her life, like, which school she'll go, and even who she should marry (aka Ryder). That's one of the reasons she hates Ryder, because it's her mom's choice.

In some ways, Ryder is similar to Jemma. He hates that his parent always made his choice. That's one of the reasons I ship them hard. The other reasons is, Ryder is a total sweetheart. You could not not love him. He's basically every girl's dream guy. Yes, he is a popular guy, but he has manners, which is pretty rare in YA these day. Heck, he even say sorry to a girl if he feel that he's using her. I don't remember when was the last time I read a book where the guy act like that. Not to mention, he's very good-looking. Jemma is definitely a lucky girl.

It's very obvious now that I ship them. I ship them HARD. They're just so cute and adorable together. Also, there's a lot banters which lead to a lot sexual tensions that got me screaming

and

Yes, they are that cute.

If there's something that I didn't expect from this book, it would be the "lightness" of this book. Reading the summary, one would think that it's just about hate/love romance. Yes, it's the main plot, but Magnolia also deals with natural disaster (hurricane). Since there's no hurricane here, I only know a little about it from newspaper or internet. Based on my little knowledge, I think Cook did a great job describing the hurricane and the situation. If there's no hurricane in your location like me, well, let me tell you : it's very scary. Not just that, it could cause death too, which happen in this book. My point is, Magnolia is not as light as I thought (I'm glad it's not, though).

Anyway, this review is getting ridiculously long, so I'm going to stop it here. If you like contemporary, you DEFINITELY have to read this one. If you didn't like contemporary, you HAVE to try it. I think you'll like this too!