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Practical Magic

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Author: Alice Hoffman
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$14.00~~
Buy Used: $5.65
You Save: $8.35 (60%)

New (36) Used (24) Collectible (2) from $5.65

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

182 reviews
Sales Rank: 39437

Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.9

ISBN: 0425190374
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780425190371
ASIN: 0425190374

Publication Date: August 5, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Paperback, water damage, cover wear, spine is creased. Ships promptly w/notification emailed after shipping.

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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com Review
For most adults, fairy tales are among the childish things we've put away. Alice Hoffman, however, feels differently. Practical Magic starts out as a tale of Gillian and Sally Owens, two orphaned girls whose aunts are witches--of a mild sort. For the past two centuries, Owens women have been blamed for all that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town, ever since their ancestor arrived, rich, independent, and soon accused of theft: "And then one day, a farmer winged a crow in his cornfield, a creature who'd been stealing from him shamelessly for months. When Maria Owens appeared the very next morning with her arm in a sling and her white hand wound up in a white bandage, people felt certain they knew the reason why." The aunts are daily ostracized by the same upstanding citizens who sneak to their house at night for magical love cures. To the sisters they are for the most part benevolently absent, though their bell, book, and candle routine makes life a torment for Gillian, beautiful and blonde and lazy, and Sally, who's all too responsible. But when one of the aunts' cures works too well, ending as a curse, the dangers of real love become all too clear. In Hoffman's world being bewitched, bothered, and bewildered is no mere metaphor--and neither is desire. The elbows of one enamored man pucker a linoleum counter, another walks around with singed cuffs. It's difficult to catch the author's power in brief quotes. She needs space and increment to build her exquisite variations of vision and reality, her matter-of-fact announcements of the preternatural. Practical Magic again and again makes one recall the thrill of hearing at bedtime, "Now will I a tale unfold..." --Kerry Fried

Product Description
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...

Customer Reviews: Read 177 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

practically magical September 25, 2008
If you've only seen the movie then you need to read the book. You're missing so much and that is such a shame. The movie is only a wildly adapted slice of what the book contains. Gillian is even more flawed than Nicole Kidman could have handled and Sally is as rigid as rebar. These are older, wiser, more complex characters than the film portrays. Although the aunts, delightfully fleshed out by Stockard Channing and Diane Weist, are only background characters here, Sally's daughers are given front and center attention as girls becoming women. It is, I think, an even trade. Hoffman tells the story of the Owens' sisters simply and beautifully. The tone is almost matter-of-fact, not unlike wisdom shared, sage advice given by the older and the wiser.

3 out of 5 stars

not her best. September 24, 2008
This isn't Haffman's best, but was still a desent read. I would reccomend it to someone who wasn't expecting anytihng like the movie.

3 out of 5 stars

A little disappointed. August 7, 2008
It took me a little bit to get through this book. I lost interest a couple of times. It had a lot of potential, but I have not been able to read another Hoffman book since.

2 out of 5 stars

Ummm.... July 18, 2008
When I first bought this item i was so excited to read it but then i realized that it wasn't what i expected, It has nothing to do with the movie (which is all the way better), maybe only the names......... it was boring and i can hardly see the magic on it.

5 out of 5 stars

Gray eyes scrying in the rain. June 23, 2008
As with many, I saw the movie first. This is where there is a rift as to whether the book or movie is better. I will leave that to you. (See my review of the movie)
This is the story of a family that on the surface that seems different from most families. Later we see it is anything but. The lives of several generations of the Owens family are covered from major events to those thing that seem minor at the time. This book has a dark undertone and make you think the cat is going to jump off the refrigerator at any moment. Yet if you quit trying to anticipate the story, you find it rich in beautiful pose and people interaction. Contrarily, this story is interspersed with vulgar language and repugnant images (probably necessary to portray bad guys and bad times.)

I enjoyed reading this book. I suppose now I will have to read something else by Alice Hoffman to see if this is her style or a radical departure.
Throughout the story you are not sure if it is luck, logic, or just practical magic

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