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Some might be wondering about our love of witches here at Heart.Wants.Books.  Alice Hoffman beautifully explains it in the introduction to the 25th Anniversary edition of today’s book:

Witches are outsiders, and those among us who have been bullied and ostracized can relate to their plight. Part of our fascination with witches is that they are the only female mythic figures with power. These are women who don’t need to be rescued by a prince or a king but, instead, can save themselves—sometimes with the help of a sister. They are wise and fearless women of courage. In short, they are everything little girls wish to grow up to become.

Vampires are another story all together, but also fun to read about, especially when it’s about slaying them.  I hope you’ll join us to do just that on Friday, October 30 at 7:30 CSTwhen we dig into The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires.  While we do have readers from literally across the country join us for virtual book club, so far at least, all of them have lived in the South for a season, and we’re a book club, so we need a guide to slaying vampires, right?  Just go with it, it’ll be fun she says, and sign up here.

Oh friends, in case there was a question, present day me does not like the idea of watching a movie before reading the book, but past me, especially circa 1998, had no such scruples.  As such, the film version of Practical Magic was my introduction, and it’s been too many years since I’ve seen it.  Yes dear readers, I’ve seen this film multiple times, and would delightfully sing about pina coladas dancing through the kitchen and then have a quiet margarita with a dear friend, because that’s how I feel about the movie, and the book now that I’ve read it.  Also, the story of Maria Owens coming out on Tuesday, October 6, I encourage readers to get to know the earlier generations of Owens women, including the aunts!  All of the above are now on my TBR list, and dear readers, if you adore other books by Alice Hoffman, please share those titles in the comments below and I’ll add those too!

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman was published in 1995, and I have to say, it stands the test of time, at least for me, having lived in a time without smart phones and when the street lights coming on indicated it was time to go home.  Will it hold up for younger readers who were practically born with a device in their hands?  I sure hope so because this book is glorious.  The thing about this book that I’m sad is still relevant and hope doesn’t hold up is, “Practical Magic addresses serious questions about the place of women in our society—questions that are as important, or more so, than they were twenty-five years ago.”  Hoffman continues in the 2003 edition to list some of the issues, which are still issues today, and then reminds us “Magic may not be able to right these wrongs, but sisterhood just might.”  See, the darkness and the hope, along with the strength and perseverance.  THIS is what I love about books and about witches.  

Just like the movie, at the heart of Practical Magic, it’s about love, both romantic and familial, and the power of family.  It has an almost dark feel, in the same way a gothic novel does, but it’s also hopeful.  Gillian and Sally Owens are a tragic joy to read about, and I adore their aunts.  One of the delightful differences in the movie and the book is Sally’s daughters are teenagers in the book, so in addition to everything I was expecting after seeing the movie, I got the complications of two teenagers and all their (expected) drama with life and their mom added in, and it was fantastic!  But what really made the book is the gorgeous writing and lush descriptions.  Despite my out of order experience, the tale was more vivid because of the writing, which feels like it shouldn’t be, but that’s just how good the writing is (or how much is lost in a film adaptation, or both, probably both).  

Despite wanting more at the end, as usual, I give this a solid four stars.  I’m likely to reread it, as it already feels like a comfort read, with a familiar story and breath-taking writing to escape into for a while.  I knew of the book about the aunts and Maria going in, and I’ll get to those, but I also want the story of Sally’s daughters and the next chapters of their lives.  Given the way Sally raised them and all they experienced during Practical Magic, I want to know what they do with their legacy.  I’m not sure Hoffman will share that with us, but I can hope.  Other than that, I’m left aspiring to be more like Sally, at least in the garden, and “Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.”   

~Nikki

Alice Hoffman is a prolific and well-lauded author of over 30 works of fiction. Her first novel, Property Of, was published at the age of 21 while she was studying at Stanford and earning her MA in creative writing. Her 2017 release, The Rules of Magic, was chosen as Reese Witherspoon’s October book club pick of that year and is a prequel to Practical Magic. Here on Earth was an Oprah Book Club pick. She often writes about magical realism, but her true talent lies in her descriptions of love and human relationship, especially between sisters.

I consider myself a lover of the 1998 film Practical Magic as the DVD has lasted through multiple media purges and several rounds of the KonMari method where I had to decide what items bring me joy. This movie has brought me great joy. The book also brings me joy, but I don’t see myself re-reading the novel, I’m going to give it a 3.5 star rating for mostly meeting expectations but I felt something a little off-putting with Hoffman’s asides like the following: 

The lilacs had gone absolutely wild since Gillian’s arrival, as though paying homage to her beauty and her grace, and had spilled out from the backyard into the front, a purple bower hanging over the fence and the driveway. Lilacs were not supposed to bloom in July, that was a simple botanical fact, at least it had been until now. Girls in the neighborhood had begun to whisper that if you kissed the boy you loved beneath the Owenses’ lilacs he’d be yours forever, whether he wanted to be or not. The State University, in Stony Brook, had sent two botanists to study the bud formations of these amazing plants going mad out of season, growing taller and more lush with every passing hour. Sally had refused to let the botanists into the yard; she had sprayed them with the garden hose to make them go away, but occasionally the scientists would park across from the driveway, mooning over the specimens they couldn’t get to, debating whether it was ethical to run across the lawn with some gardening shears and take whatever they wanted.

What paragraphs like the above did to me was imagine a greater amount of time had passed, like weeks, but then the following paragraph could bring us back to the morning after the ‘fertilization of the lilac bush’ when obviously it took days or weeks for the neighborhood girls to want to be kissed underneath or the botanists to come from the university. It was the imagining of time passing in these descriptive paragraphs with no demarcation that they were expository paragraphs about a specific situation or item rather than paragraphs that further the plot and denote the passage of time. It made the book seem disjointed to me. I love the visuals that the above paragraph and ones like it bring to the characters, but my frustration at their continual use made me need to concentrate more on where we were in the main story.

Part of why we chose Practical Magic to be the end of Survival September and the beginning of our October Witchy Reads is apparent in all of the ways the Owens women have survived the machinations of the world. Sally and Gillian survive being orphaned by being taken in by their aunts as young girls. They survive ostracism and bullying. Sally survives becoming a widow with two young girls to raise and leaving her hometown to do it. Gillian survives domestic abuse and sexual assault. Antonia and Kylie survive the horrors of teenagerhood, among other horrors. All of the Owens women survive heartbreak and family drama of the most trying kind, only to be brought together again stronger, with more love and understanding towards each other. Gilllian, I think, makes one of the greatest observations about romantic love near the end of the book: “She knows now that when you don’t lose yourself in the bargain, you find you have double the love you started with, and that’s one recipe that can’t be tampered with.”  But, not losing yourself in any relationship, romantic or familial or friendly, allows you to have double the love, the love for the person and the love you feel for the person you’re becoming by loving them. 

What books have challenged the way you think about survival and how our relationships allow us to overcome our trials? This witchy read has certainly made me think about how love is what brings us through the hard times even if we can’t see it when we’re in the muck.

~Ashley

PS: I survived completing my 2020 Reading Goal by the end of Q3, just by the skin of my teeth! #proudofme #needanap

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