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That magical unicorn, a successful prequel! (From someone who’s never read the other books.)

Magic Lessons (Practical Magic, #0.1) by Alice Hoffman

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Don’t let your preconceptions keep you from reading this one if it sounds like something you might be interested in. I thought, because I saw the movie adaptation of Practical Magic one time a couple years back, that I knew how Maria Owens’s story would end, because her story is the entire reason that first book exists. That’s how prequels work! The curse she put on her own family as she was killed for being a witch in Salem: that anyone who loved an Owens […]

It Runs in the Family

Everything My Mother Taught Me by Alice Hoffman

Can You Feel This? by Julie Orringer

The Lion's Den by Anthony Marra

Zenith Man by Jennifer Haigh

The Weddings by Alexander Chee

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Another year, another onslaught of bits and bobs to keep me from sitting down and giving my undivided attention to a hefty book! Everything My Mother Taught Me 3/5 Dang it Alice Hoffman, misadventures at lighthouses are my catnip! Lighthouse Keeper was my dream job when I was younger- big thanks to Ahab’s Wife- it’s a  lonesome and perilous career but also pretty cool! I was a huge Hoffman fan in high school, but I drifted away over the last 15 years or so. I dipped […]

More Practical Magic, Mo’ Problems (No Money)

Magic Lessons (Practical Magic .1) by Alice Hoffman

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Alice Hoffman is a great author, and I’ve been reading her books since high school. My reading style used to be to find an author I liked, and then devour everything in their pantheon. My enthusiasm for her works waned a little in my adult years (eww, gross, old), and I thought I’d outgrown her storytelling style, but the first prequel to Practical Magic, Rules of Magic, sparked my interest and I really enjoyed learning more about the Owens sisters, it was a treat to […]

less practical, more magical

The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman

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Twenty two years after the publication of Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman fired up the ol’ Owens Family Cauldron to brew up (I apologize for NOTHING) the story of “The Aunts”. Before Jet and Franny were kooky caregivers with cupboards full of teeth and dove hearts, they were kids squirming under the overbearing but uninvolved eyes of their midcentury modern parents. Necessarily, when re-approaching a well-defined but of-its-time creation, one must get a little creative with facts and figures. Practical Magic was already a bit screwy with time, […]

the Sanderson sisters are still my favorite witchy siblings, but the Owens family are not messing around!

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

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Lookout y’all, it’s re-read time! Alice Hoffman used to be a favorite author of mine; we slowly went our separate ways after The Museum of Extraordinary Things. There was no big breakup; we just grew apart. We wanted different things. The separation was so slow and gentle that I forgot that she was an author that I really liked, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was a new prequal to Practical Magic hitting the shelves, oh wait, there already was a prequal? This […]



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