Y’all, I love me some Chip and Joanna Gaines. But I may have overdone it by reading The Magnolia Story, the Magnolia Journal magazine, We are the Gardeners AND Capital Gaines all in about six months.
Capital Gaines is essentially The Magnolia Story written from Chip’s point of view. There are a few new stories tossed in, more about Chip’s life pre-Joanna as well as more about his roles and goals for Magnolia, but essentially the same story told by another person.
While Joanna Gaines tends to be a gentle humble narrator, although a little boring at times, Chip Gaines is bold, loud and kind of annoying. It took me almost two months to get through this book. His jokes felt super immature and he came across as the kind of guy that tries really hard to be cool but ends up annoying everyone.
The hard part of this read is that while he is annoying, Chip comes across as someone who genuinely loves and cares about his family, his company, the folks who work for him, the city of Waco and about a million other things. You want to like him! It’s obvious he is passionate about life and holds nothing back when it comes to chasing down an idea and following through. I can respect that and definitely admire his fearless all-in attitude. I didn’t like the “I believe in you” and “I’m in your corner” bits. Those portions of the book felt very forced and fake.
Capital Gaines also includes excerpts written by people who work for Chip. It was fun to read about Chip and Joanna from their perspective as well as read about some of the crazy stuff that goes on that neither Chip or Joanna mentioned.
All in all, this books gets 2.5 stars. While it was fun, there was nothing new or ground breaking and it felt more like a book deal cash grab contract that needed to be fulfilled.
Until next time, happy reading!
Cheers,
-R
Hops & Lit 