Practical Magic

by Alice Hoffman

Hardcover, 1995

Call number

FIC HOF

Publication

Putnam Adult (1995), Edition: First Edition, 244 pages

Description

Alice Hoffman's enchanting witch's brew of suspense, romance and magic -- now a major motion picture from Warner Bros. When the beautiful and precocious sisters Sally and Gillian Owens are orphaned at a young age, they are taken to a small Massachusetts town to be raised by their eccentric aunts, who happen to dwell in the darkest, eeriest house in town. As they become more aware of their aunts' mysterious and sometimes frightening powers -- and as their own powers begin to surface -- the sisters grow determined to escape their strange upbringing by blending into "normal" society. But both find that they cannot elude their magic-filled past. And when trouble strikes -- in the form of a menacing backyard ghost -- the sisters must not only reunite three generations of Owens women but embrace their magic as a gift -- and their key to a future of love and passion. Funny, haunting, and shamelessly romantic, Practical Magic is bewitching entertainment -- Alice Hoffman at her spectacular best.… (more)

Subjects

Fantastic fiction

Large Type Books

Massachusetts Fiction

Media reviews

Entertainment Weekly

If there is an author north of the border who has managed to successfully translate the language of magic realism into the American idiom, it is Alice Hoffman.

— 1 more

New York Times

Indeed, the title of Ms. Hoffman's latest novel, "Practical Magic," says it all: if you are going to believe in magic, it had better have palpable and easily comprehensible results.

User reviews

LibraryThing member StoutHearted

I had a poor opinion of Hoffman's writing after I read her later novel Here on Earth, her tribute to Wuthering Heights. That novel put me under the impression that Hoffman didn't get characters at all. After reading Practical Magic, I take that back. This novel is an extraordinary good character

study of two vastly different sisters, and the two daughters of the one.

Fans of the film starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman will get a different story here, but the central action does revolve around the aftermath of Gillian's destructive relationship with Jimmy. But mostly, the book is a close portrait of the sisters. Sally is always the sensible one, there to cook healthy meals and hides herself from the pain of love after her husband dies. Gillian, on the other hand is sensual as she is lazy, but emerges with interests that may surprise the reader as it rounds out her character. Sally's daughters become strong characters in their own right, as they deal with adolescense, young love, and self esteem. The aunts are not the main characters as they are in the film, but are mysterious and marginal until called upon to help the sisters, when three generations of Owens women connect in ways they could not earlier in the novel.

The "magic" in the novel is diminished to the aunt's love spells, (and is moe frightening in this respect) but it is more present in the way the characters interact with each other. Their empathy, their heightened senses, their depth of perception is weaved with importance among knowledge of herbs and superstitions. The magic effects the townspeople without their knowing, as they are drawn beyond their power to the beauty of Gillian or the the lilacs that spring up overnight in Sally's yard.

Hoffman also creates a vivid New England that evokes tales of Salem and autumns with rainbow foliage. There are few authors that can really nail down a certain area of geography, and Hoffman is one such writer who has a talent for describing New England and New Englanders. It is difficult to describe how she does so, as the novel gives off an intangible sense of this location.

I eventually reconciled my appreciation for this novel with my intense dislike for Here on Earth. I can only surmise that Hoffman does better with her own original material, and can fully explore her characters when not bound by preconceived structure. I would recommend this book to those who enjoy character studies of women.

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LibraryThing member TheBentley

Some of the very best magical realism I've ever read. Just the same, though, I have to say this is one of the rare cases in which the film outperforms the book--not by a huge margin but in certain important ways. Certainly the screenplay is more cohesive than the novel and the excellent cast

elevates the characters somewhat. But the book is different enough from the film to be worth reading even if you have seen the movie.

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LibraryThing member Rhinoa

Sisters Gillian and Sally grew up with their Aunts after their parents died in a house fire. There the aunts make a living by doing spells at twilight for the local people (usually woman seeking love). The girls learn about the dangers of love and the mistrust of the townspeople. As they grow older

Gillian becomes a beautiful young woman who has many short lived relationships before running away to get married. Sally on the other hand just wants a normal life.

She falls in love, marries and has two children, Antonia and Kylie, but her happiness is short lived when her husband dies. She breaks down before pulling herself together to bring up her daughters alone. She never allows herself to fall in love and doesn't even date. Her normal life is throw out the window when Gillian arrives out of the blue with her current (and abusive) boyfriend Jimmy dead after giving him too much nightshade to make him sleep. They bury him in the back gadren, but he refuses to stay there for long and soon his malicious spirit is causing the family terrible luck. Kylie and Antonia are going through puberty and to make matters worse an investigator comes looking for Jimmy with regard to some of his more recent crimes. The investigator may be just what Sally needs...

I love the film and was really looking forward to reading this despite some mixed reviews online. I really like Alice Hoffman and really loved this novel. It's hard to describe the differences between the book and the film, but the book focuses more on the practical rather than the magic and the movie is the other way around. It's a little like the differences between Chocolat the film and novel. I loved getting to know the Owens family and really related to Kylie the most trying to find her place in the world.

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LibraryThing member MelissaPrange

At 11:00pm last night, I became extremely peeved when my copy of Practical Magic abruptly ended at page 260 in the middle of a sentence. I had been trying to read through the last two sections before going to bed. Unfortunately, I was brought to a halt twenty pages short of the conclusion. This

morning, I had to rush out to the library to pick up another copy so I could know how it all ended.

First, let me say that I loved this book. And I mean LOVED. As soon as I read the first sentence, I knew it would be one of those rare books that I could just lose myself in from beginning to end. This rarely happens for me, and so its absolutely heavenly whenever I find a book that I connect to in this way. Alice Hoffman has a way of making you feel like you're being buoyed in warm bath as you read her novels. This isn't to say her books are what most people would consider comfy cozy. I'm probably unusual in that my comfort reading tends to include death, heartbreak, and desire. I don't like happy books and so Hoffman's more realistic (albeit magical) stories appeal to me.

In Practical Magic, I loved that the story focused on the relationships between women. Its rare to find a book that feels truthful in its depiction of what women are really like. Alice Hoffman is gifted in being able to reflect the complexity of these relationships with such understated ease. Of course, everything Alice Hoffman does is understated. I am sick to death of books that bang you over the head with all their themes and romances and complicated relationships. It is so refreshing to find an author who just gives you an interpretation of life and allows you to glean from it what you may.

This is only the third book I've read by Alice Hoffman, but I'm already looking forward to my next. She's becoming one of my favorite, authors and for me this is exhilarating since I rarely like any author well enough to read more than one of their books.

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves stories stories about strong women, magic, and the worth of true love.

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LibraryThing member nycbookgirl

Sally and Gillian Owen are just little girls when their parents die and they move in with their two aunts in Massachusetts. For hundreds of years the Owens women in this town have been blamed for things going wrong in the town. They are believed to be witches. And maybe they are. But this doesn't

stop the town women to secretly go to the Owens during the night to get love spells performed. In this environment, Sally and Gillian are raised. They have pretty much all the freedom they could want at home while being tormented at school for being witches. Sally, the eldest, grows up to be responsible...beyond responsible...boring responsible. Gillian, the irresponsible and beautiful younger sister, breaks hearts left and right.

After seeing so many women come to the aunts for help with love problems the sisters vow to never be like them. Uh huh. But they also want normalcy. They both find ways to escape: Sally by marrying and Gillian by eloping and running away. Years later, when Sally's two daughters are teenagers and her husband has passed away, the bonds of sisterhood are tested when Gillian seeks Sally's help for, shall we say, accidentally murdering her boyfriend. And how do two women, who've been hurt in the past because of love, find happiness?

I love how Alice Hoffman writes. So magical. I think it's a bit more refined in The River King but I just love it. The only thing I didn't like is that she uses some pretty strong language here and there sometimes. While maybe to a point it is necessary, I just could have done without it. But the differences between the book and movie...I loved both versions. I think the movie made the story flow a bit better. And I kind of liked the daughter's younger age in the movie vs the book. And the ending was a little anti-climatic compared to the movie...but I liked it.

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LibraryThing member littleton_pace

The movie is one of my favourites, and I saw it before I knew it was a novel first and was curious to see how it altered from the film, and I did in fact prefer the film better because of the details it added that the book held back from. Namely, the zaniness of the Aunt's and the magical

connection between sisters Gilly and Sally, in the book they seem to always bicker and Sally is a highly unlikeable, no-nonsense mother, and I found myself having to picture Sandra Bullock and the sweetness she brought to Sally in the movie to get through it.

The magic in the book is lovely, it's not too much, it's not made a massive deal, it's just part of the setting, these women are witches and it is part of their lives and always will be.

The ending is slightly anticlimactic, in the movie Gilly is possessed by the ghost of the abusive boyfriend she and Sally murdered in self-defense, and the town who have been cruel and judgmental towards the Owens family come together to help. In the book; it just falls a bit flat. There's no real mention of his ghost, and they take care of him over a page or two. I was expecting more.

I do love the final lines of the book, and this is from a reader who does not like romance novels.

"Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can."

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LibraryThing member NineLarks

I think I've read this book before, but didn't remember until midway through. Which kind of speaks for its memorability. I picked it up because I liked Garden Spells a lot and it heard this was similar. .... I think they are a little too similar.... It was a little strange.

I didn't like this one

as much because the only thing this book cared about was love. There was no mention of girl friends or of being happy single or enjoying life just because. It only revolved around boys. Fairly shallow. Especially with all the amount of time and words dedicated towards describing how beautiful a character was and how so many boys lusted after them.

I don't think I liked any of the characters. The girls were all written well, written to be realistic and shown in different stages of their life where they learn and grow and change. But still. Meh. And I just felt sorry for Sally.
The boys were just abnormally-perfect-love-mates for the girls. All of them. Blah.
And really, were there any other characters besides the Owen girls and their respective love mates? Yeah. Well then.

I wanted a little more magic. Herbs and little stuff doesn't cut it when they have the potential to force a false love with a single dove heart.

And I don't really see how Jimmy had all that power to cause all that trouble. More like a forced story plot.

I was just not impressed. Which is just sad because I liked Garden Spells, which was oddly very similar.

Objective rating is probably three stars, but personal rating I'd have to give it two stars for lack of interest and shallowness.
Maybe recommended for people who like realistic magic and slice of life books. You probably have to be a girl to like this book too. Sorry boys.

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LibraryThing member PinkPandaParade

I used to love the movie for this book, and I didn’t even know until after I had seen it that it was originally in book form. After finally getting a copy of the book and reading it, something magical happened: I didn’t know which one I liked better. Usually, having to decide favorites between

the book and the movie is very easy. Except in the case of Grisham's The Pelican Brief, I almost always prefer the book versions. In some cases (as with Gone with the Wind and Scarlett), I simply refuse to see the movie, while in other cases (like The Great Gatsby and Jurassic Park) I prefer the book hands-down though the movie versions are certainly more than tolerable. With Hoffman’s Practical Magic, I just don’t know.Part of the reason for this anomaly in my reading life may be the fact that the movie and book bear little resemblance to each other. Here is what is in the book that is also in the movie: the names of the characters (which in itself is a bit skewered), and the fact that this all has to do with witches, family, and magic. That’s about it. Other than that, even the basic plotline is very different. I can understand how the movie might need to condense the plotline to fit its regular two hours, but this plotline has been almost completely altered.Unlike the movie, the book gives more equal attention to each of the sister protagonists, Sally and Gillian. This was both a good and a bad thing for me, due to my fascination with the characters and my partiality towards actress Sandra Bullock, who plays Sally in the movie version. The aunts, who are prominently figured in the movie as well, appear only as absent characters throughout most of the book. The children, Antonia and Kylie (their names are switched in the movie), are much older than their elementary school-age movie counterparts, and have very deep and intriguing characterizations that are lacking from the movie. Overall, the book does a better job of observing and presenting the importance, history, and closeness of sisterly relationships. Hoffman’s writing has an utterly absorbing lyrical and poetic quality to it that I greatly admire. I ate this book up, partly because I was pushing for the protagonist Sally’s vindication (a point made in such a focused and concentrated manner in the movie), and partly because Hoffman’s writing is just superb and catching. I swallowed down pieces of this book for hours at a time, and would have to literally shake myself out of the mood of it all if I were so RUDELY interrupted. =) The “magic” is of a different kind in the book, less magical in some senses, and focusing more on clairvoyance and intuition, a point much easier made and mystified in book form. Hoffman takes full charge of this, infusing this in every sentence of her text, and making the readers literary clairvoyants in their own sense. The predictability and unpredictability of this story makes it a book that can be read as I did in one gulp as I did or in a strolling leisurely fashion without losing anything of the book’s power or meaning.Without a doubt, the movie has tainted, and at the same time, enhanced my reading of the book, so much so that I don’t even have a suggestion as to which medium persons should expose themselves to first. Should you read the book after seeing the movie, though, there are some things you should keep in mind. Certainly, one of the main things to remember is that Hoffman’s Gillian is no Nicole Kidman. Another thing to remember is that the movie, because of its required brevity, only touches upon the deep psychological implications and character insight of the book. Most importantly, the book characters don’t get wasted on midnight margaritas and dance around the dinner table to Harry Nillson’s “Coconut” song.

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LibraryThing member emania

As rare as it may be, for me, this was one of the first books I’ve read where the movie was better than the book. The story was completely different, and I’m sure avid fans of the novel would call me a blasphemer for even suggesting it, but I really did like the movie much better. The book sort

of took too long and encompassed too many years. Also, the characters weren’t as strong as they were in the movie, neither one of the Owens sisters were.

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LibraryThing member AuthorMarion

When two young girls, Sally and Gillian, are orphaned it is Sally (who is wise beyond her years) that calls her aunts (white witches) and says that she and her sister are coming to live with them. The girls spend their childhood as targets for taunts and pranks of the other townschildren simply

because no one understands them and associates them with the Owens women who have been rumored to be witches. Indeed they are witches, of the benevolent kind. The girls get a view of hypocrasy when every evening the women of the town come to the back door of the aunts' house and beg and plead for a spell to bring them true love. But as Aunt Bridget cautions, "Be careful what you wish for". In an effort to save herself from heartbreak young Sally vows never to fall in love; Gillian, however, "can't wait to fall in love".

As they grow both girls can't wait to be free from the aunts. Gillian runs off with a young man and works her way through three husbands. Sally finds herself deeply in love with a local man. They marry and have two lovely daughters but alas, Sally's husband meets with an untimely death. She moves herself and her daughters back to the aunts house and suffers a year-long bout of depression. She vows yet again to take keep her daughters from harm and herself from love. To that end she moves her small family to Long Island, a place where she feels they can be normal.

One night Gillian arrives at the Long Island house with the body of her dead boyfriend in the car. In an effort to cover up the deed (an overdose of a potent natural drug), Sally helps Gillian bury the body in her yard. That's when strange and potentially evil things start to happen. It takes a visit by the aunts along with some strong magic to dispell the strange happenings and bring true love to both Gillian and Sally.

I enjoyed this book immensely. Tightly woven story, lyrical prose, a bit of humor, lots of magic, and charismatic characters. Like other reviewers I wanted to finish this book in one sitting. It is definitely a page-turner. Hoffman has a definite winner in this book.

Also recommended: The Probable Future by Alice Hoffman

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LibraryThing member samantha.1020

Summary from Barnes and Noble:

For more than two hundred years, the Owens women had been blamed for everything that went wrong in their Massachusetts town. And Gillian and Sally endured that fate as well; as children, the sisters were outsiders. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the

whispers of witchery, but all Gillian and Sally wanted was to escape. One would do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they shared brought them back-almost as if by magic...

This was my first book by Alice Hoffman and I adored it. I'm cheating a bit by using the summary for Barnes and Noble but I couldn't figure out where to start summarizing. This cuts it down and gives you the gist without the spoilers so now I can share my thoughts. I loved this book and my first experience with this author. There is the hint of magic throughout the story but this book is mainly about love. The things that people will or won't do for love as well as the joys and pain that love causes. The beginning of the story moves quickly through the early years of Sally and Gillian's lives and their experiences and hardships that come from living with the Aunts. It then moves on to their lives as grown women and the moment that they are brought together again. There are no chapters in this book, rather the story is broken down into four (I believe) sections. Each of the parts of the story were woven together into the perfect story that it was. I was captivated with this novel and don't care if that is a cliche. LOL! :)

One of the things that kept me on edge with this book is that you never knew what was going to happen next. Hoffman includes enough twists and turns to keep the reader slightly off balance and trying to figure out the ending. I loved it and was inclined to read later and later into the night. The author wrote about love throughout the story and one particular passage that I marked said:

"This girl had no right to demand anything more. What had she thought, that love was a toy, something easy and sweet, just to play with? Real love was dangerous, it got you from inside and held on tight, and if you didn't let go fast enough you might be willing to do anything for its sake."

After reading that, don't you just love the way the author writes? She writes in such a fluid, descriptive way that I was able to picture the characters in my head with the way that she wrote them. I would hazard a guess that this book fits in with the magical realism genre which is a first for me. It definitely won't be my last though and I am going to be reading more from this author soon. I finally got the chance to see why Hoffman is a favorite of so many. What a magical tale and a perfect way to end the Winter Reading Challenge!

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LibraryThing member gingergargoyle

trudging, trudging - that's the way you will feel about this book. Normally I will watch a movie before reading the book which inspired it - normally the book is much more enjoyable that way ... not this book. it is written in a form of thrid person-present tense that is maddening. I'm 2/3rd

through the book and keep hoping it will get better ... but its not. This is one of the very rare times where reading the book FIRST would have been recommended ... that way the movie would be able to fill in the missing bits of information!

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LibraryThing member SophieCale

Having never known that the movie was based on a book I could hardly break my "no movie till the book has been read" oath following the Lord of the Rings tragedy. But here I think I hardly have worried, because I have found that rare thing, a story that is better on the screen than the page (in my

opinion). The spirit of the characters is all the same, except for Sally's two daughters; in the book, the younger sisters, we follow up to their teens and are much more fleshed out literally and figuratively. Most of the book centers on the interpersonal relationships of the two sets of sisters and their love lives. There's so much introspection and emotional characterization that I didn't feel like I was reading a good story so much as a parable in the form of a therapy session. Getting rid of Jimmy Angelou takes no more than 3 pages at most at the very end of the book. I don't even think "magic" or "witch" is used more than twice each. There is a "magic" of a sort in the book, but its a more inherent kind, rather than using potions or spells, but the women have no real control over the way they affect their surroundings, their mere presence sets off all kinds of havoc. The movie was more gripping and less touching, but at least it doesn't leave you exhausted and haggard afterwards. The main difference is big and its this: the movie tells you that sisterhood conquers all attackers. The book tells you that your worst enemies are yourself and your "sister" and no one else can protect or sabotage you better than they.

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LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C

I liked this from the start and by the end loved it. The perfect feel good book if you're feeling blue. The novel creates its own unique world that could be described as urban fantasy or magical realism. The story concerns the Owens family. At the novel's start, two little Owens girls, Sally and

her sister Gillian, are living with their aunts. The entire town shuns the girls since Owens women have been seen as witches in the New England town for generations. Both grow up and breakaway from the town, Sally settling with her own two girls, Antonia and Kylie in Long Island.

The style is marvelous--omniscient point of view done with a light, sure touch with passages of beauty and perfectly paced. I can't recall any part of this book that ever dragged and Hoffman has the gift of making you fall in love with her characters--even ones that don't seem at all appealing at first. The plotting is great too. A small detail on one page comes back to bite about 140 pages later. Stupid things characters do actually have consequences they learn from. And I love how love figures into this--both familial and romantic.

I could criticize the novel for it's bolt out of the blue romances--but I don't have the heart to. It fits somehow with the way the book is permeated with magic, and the book left me smiling at the world.

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LibraryThing member stormyhearted

I'm a fan of the 1998 movie, which certainly colored my experience of the book. On its own, the book is interesting. The point of view shifts fluidly between characters; the quantity of sex and fantasies and thoughts about sex surprised me a bit, likely because the movie didn't really touch on

that. It's painful getting into Gillian's head, seeing her lack of self-worth up close, but it feels realistic. The aunts have a much smaller role, since the majority of the book doesn't take place at their home, and Jimmy's much less a menace. Sally's daughters are older, too, and lack the closeness they have in the movie.

I feel like overall there was even less plot in the book than there is in the movie- it meanders, touching on bits and pieces but never really establishes a significant issue to overcome by the end. It was a quick read and swept me along as I read, but it felt unsatisfyingly unfinished.

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LibraryThing member mbertsch

This book was a little disappointing. While I absolutely loved the movie, I was thinking the book would be better. Not so in this case. I believe all the events in the book were good, but maybe would have been better in a different order. Also the ending was a let down.

LibraryThing member NancyChase

Fantastic Story!

This is my first novel that I have read by Alice Hoffman, and I thought it was fantastic. The story is an easy read, with beautiful scene descriptions and very believable characters that I can relate too. The author drew me into the story of Sally and Gillian and I was sad when I

finished the last page. So I read it again. One of my favorite books. Highly recommend.

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LibraryThing member elliepotten

I'm afraid I ruined this book for myself somewhat by having already seen the film a fair few times. Back before I'd even heard of Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic was one of my favourite movies! As so often happens when I watch an adaptation first, I found myself comparing screen to page too often,

and inadvertently reading certain parts faster than I should, waiting for the two versions to tie up again.

This, however, is not Hoffman's fault in any way, hence my 4-star rating. It might even have toppled The Ice Queen from its position as my favourite Hoffman novel so far, had it not been for the movie thing. Anyone who's read Hoffman before knows what to expect: a beautifully written, wistful novel blending elements of magic (and more subtle magical realism) with strong, unusual characters and an exploration of the bonds we form with places, lovers and family.

In Practical Magic the story revolves around Gillian and Sally, the beautiful Owens sisters. Orphaned at a young age, they have had a strange upbringing in their aunts' house, where they are simultaneously feared and revered by the local townspeople. Desperate to escape, Gillian runs away to seek her own path and Sally marries a wonderful man and has two headstrong daughters. But when Sally loses her husband in a tragic accident, and Gillian accidentally kills hers, the two are reunited at last. Will Sally's teenage daughters, Kylie and Antonia, make peace with each other and be happy? Will Gillian and the aunts reconcile their differences? Will Sally ever find love again? And will they finally escape the dark and vengeful spirit of Gillian's abusive husband, which casts its bitter shadow across their whole existence?

If you've seen the film, read this anyway - but go into it with a more open mind than I did, because there are substantial differences between the two. If you haven't seen the film, then I highly recommend the book. Hoffman is such a lyrical and haunting writer, and Gillian, Sally and their quirky aunts are some of the most appealing and relatable characters I've come across in her books yet. I still love the movie though!

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LibraryThing member bellamia

Well I did like this book but......I think I had a harder time liking the book at first because I had already seen the movie. And I LOVE the movie. At first I did not like that Antonia & Kylie were teenagers in the book but when they became more invloved in the story, it did get better. I don't

like the way Sally was portrayed as much in the book compared to the movie. I do wish that the aunts had more of role in book. But over all I did enjoy the book. Sometimes it's harder to get into a book after seeing the movie first because you end up comparing.

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LibraryThing member KinnicChick

Loved this book. I was a little worried that it might turn out to be one of the rare cases where I enjoyed the movie more than the book since I fell in love with the movie so long ago and didn't give the book a chance until now. But it was not the case.

It was a great movie. But I liked that Alice

Hoffman acutally had Sally's girls age more and gave them so much more depth in the book so they weren't just the silly little girls as portrayed in the movie.

I liked that there was so much no emphasis on the clean up of the mess by the other women of the town and that it was all contained to just the Owen's women, where it belonged. I loved the relationship between Gillian and Sally in both the movie and the book, but I felt it more in the reading.

Alice Hoffman provided relationships. Hollywood, as usual, provided drama. But I won't complain, because I still love the movie, and will top off the week with yet another watching of a great story.

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LibraryThing member 23eris

This book was generally enjoyable. The author was recommended to me by a friend, and after reading something else by her (or attempting to read), I picked up this one.

Practical Magic follows the lives of two orphaned sisters who are sent to live with their strange aunts at a young age. After

suffering a childhood of estrangement from the surrounding community (townsfolk say they're witches), the sisters both leave their hometown to strike out on their own. Circumstances once more bring them together as they face a dire situation.

It suffers from a somewhat meandering storyline that seems to have too many endings, or places that could have been endings.

I also hoped for a little more depth in the characters, especially the elder sister's Sally's children, whom the narrator follows for a while, and them promptly dumps them and goes back to the story of Sally and Gillian. The characters generally seem to do their tasks without any motivation.

But although this work was not great fiction, it was diverting and enjoyable. Good airplane reading!!

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LibraryThing member anikins

a family (of mostly women) who has "special abilities" and who come together and accept each other after a tragic event. it's light, uncomplicated and filled with just enough humor. one of several titles in my library that i won't hesitate to pick up and read again.

LibraryThing member bastet

One of the best books I have ever read. Period. This book is so much better than the movie that I advise everyone to ignore Hollywood's version. This book has it all: romance, magic, mystery, suspense, and a sense of the mystic.

LibraryThing member gr8nurs1271

I LOVE books that are made into movies! I love to compare and contrast; see how different the screenplay is from the novel, etc. This book was NOWHERE near the movies, which I loved! The book, I could take it or leave it.

LibraryThing member fiveforsilver

This is the book that the movie is based on. I like the movie a lot - it's different from the book, though, if I'd read the book first I probably wouldn't like the movie at all. This way, it was fun to pick out which parts were taken from the book and used in the movie, which characters were

combined or deleted.

I enjoyed the book, but I can't say how much I would have if I didn't already like the movie. As much as I like the writing style, it doesn't seem to have much of a plot (which is why there's no attempted plot summary here). It jumps from one event to another, from one character to another, without any warning or even any division on the page. I liked it because I already knew some stuff about the characters and the story - the movie cuts a lot out, but many things are still the same, or close enough to recognize - but I don't know if I'd like that without the prior knowledge.

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