Alice Hoffman

I was really excited to read this book because this is one of my favorite movies. Unfortunately this was one of those rare instances where the movie was actually better than the book. I found that there really wasn't anything in the book that wasn't covered in the movie, and the things that were different seemed better in the movie.
I had a hard time with the way the author described the men falling in love with these women so easily, it just seemed kind of add the way people were falling all over them at times.
Overall, the story isn't bad, it's just not worth reading if you've already seen the film.… (mere)

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS
(Print: 10/6/2020; 978-1982108847; Simon & Schuster; 416 pages)
Audio: 10/6/2020; 9781797111254; Simon & Schuster Audio; duration 13:35:01 (13 parts).
(Film: No).

Series:
Practical Magic Book 0.1 (so, of course, a prequel written after the first two in the “Practical Magic” series.)

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
When I read about the Salem Witch trials in a book called “The Witches: Suspicion, Betrayal, and Hysteria in 1692 Salem” by Stacy Schiff, I was very thankful I had not lived in that place in those times, but Hoffman’s protagonist, Maria, does, and scarier, she IS a witch. Now you’d think, being a witch, one could get out of trouble, or would at the very least attempt to keep out of harms way, knowing just where it is…but, true to life, that’s not quite how it works. Not that this story IS completely true to life—we’ll go with ‘magic realism’.
This was my first Alice Hoffman book, and not knowing what to expect, I vacillated throughout this book with whether I liked it, overall, and had to keep postponing my decision. I generally need to like the protagonist to like a book. But now that you know that, I cannot say whether or not I liked it without spoiling it for you.
I did like that, according to the story, my husband was born on the luckiest day of the year (March 20). . . I think that’s what it said. Lucky, anyway. And, this will be meaningless to you also, but I also like that the author and the narrator are both Pisces.… (mere)

Sally and Gillian were taken in by their aunts when they were small after the deaths of their parents. The Owens women have always been considered witches by everyone around them. They use black soap to wash with and have a garden that produces year-round.
Sally and Gillian are like night and day from each other. Sally is the one who works and cooks and cleans, while Gillian plays and makes fun of Sally.
They grow up and have very different lives from each other. Gillian has been away for a very long time and suddenly calls her sister and needs her help with something. They go through some major changes and become real women.
Love puts them in very different arenas.… (mere)