When Alex's mother dies, she is forced to move from her home in California to live with a wealthy, status-oriented grandmother she's never met before in Savannah, Georgia. Miss Lee - as her grandmother insists on being called - is dead-set on Alex joining the Magnolia League, a cliquish group that has been around for generations. Apparently even Alex's mother was once a part of it, although she had never mentioned it when she was alive. Formal, exclusive groups have never been Alex's style, but even she has trouble resisting when she discovers that the League actually practises a form of magic: hoodoo, created by the Buzzard family and paid for by the League. As Alex ventures further into the secrets and spells of the Magnolia League, she begins to realize that it may have darker roots than she'd initially imagined. And once you've joined the Magnolia League, the only way out is death...
I don't usually have issues with books that contain magic, because I love to escape into worlds where almost anything is possible. However, some of the uses of the magic in this story irritated me. Usually selfish uses of magic are performed by the antagonists in stories. However, magic used by the Magnolia League - including Alex - included agelessness, eternal skinniness, wealth, and forcing the object(s) of the women's affections to love them. I didn't like how all of these except the love spells were portrayed in a positive light. Why should any of these characters be more deserving than other characters? That was never justified by any of the other characters, or even brought up internally by Alex. The only character who even mentioned that it wasn't necessary - although he wasn't complaining - was Thaddeus, Alex's love interest.
This novel was one of few where I actually appreciated the multiple viewpoints. The Magnolia League and the Buzzard family had many rules and terms, as well as secret meetings, that the reader has to know about in order to understand all following events. These were explained through the views of several other characters, all in third-person, and all in separate chapters from Alex's storyline. I usually don't enjoy when the story deviates from the main characters' perspective, but in this case I didn't mind, since not only was it necessary, but it was done in such a way that there could be no confusion about whose perspective the reader was now looking through.
Although I may not have enjoyed the uses of magic in the story, I did enjoy looking at the spell recipes, which were included at the end of the book. There were quite a few, and since they were separated from the story, they seemed almost like their own little book. The recipes were very well thought-out, and explained in such depth that I almost want to try some (although they are very complicated). This is the feeling that I missed through the rest of the novel: that magic is real. I almost convinced myself, while reading the spells, that they could work. I probably won't ever truly try them, but I love the feeling of possibility that I got from them. It's funny, since Alex used many of these spells in the novel, but I never got the same feeling from her (probably because of my issues regarding the ways in which she utilized them).
I found that this book got better the deeper into it I read. In the beginning, it took me a while to warm up to Alex, because much of the beginning was spent in memories. When she was brought back to the present, though, the characters and events became more interesting. The ending did include a major plot twist, and was really all that let the sequels come to be, since this story was just about to be cleanly wrapped up before the final issue was brought to light. Even considering the cliffhanger, I don't think I'll read the rest of the series. I rate this book three stars. Although I did end up liking it, I had way too many issues with the characters to enjoy it enough for four stars. This story would be enjoyed by readers looking for magic, old-fashioned formal groups, and high school drama.
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