I saw the movie Practical Magic with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman quite a few years ago. It’s one of those movies that I wanted to be better than it was — it seemed to have so much potential, but it just didn’t work, even with the wonderful Aidan Quinn as Bullock’s love interest. I have been in the mood lately, Halloween coming up I guess, to read some witch-related books, so even though I didn’t love the movie I had heard good things about […]
Fall in love whenever you can
Bingo square: Cannonballer Says! Caitlin_D’s review is here. In the 1600s, Maria Owens fell in love with the wrong man. Left desolate and with child, her line was doomed by her curse – that those who fall in love with an Owens will be ruined. Siblings Franny, Jet and Vincent come of age in the 1960s, hardly aware of their heritage – that they come from a long line of witches. But they know they are different, and they thwart their mother’s rules: No walking […]
“But rules were never the point. It was finding out who you were.”
“Rules of Magic: Do as you will, but harm no one. What you give will be returned to you threefold. Fall in love whenever you can. I read Practical Magic earlier this year and was enamored by how much I liked the book despite its vast differences with the movie adaptation I’d grown up with. Hoffman published this prequel last year and it is a great stand alone novel and an adequate companion piece. My biggest complaint about prequels is authors trying to shoehorn the story they […]
“There’s a little witch in all of us.”
I loved Practical Magic as a kid and it was routinely watched in our household. Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman! Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing! Magic! Romance! Dancing to “you put the lime in the coconut!” What is there not to like?! The novel the movie is based on, also called Practical Magic, is completely different than the movie. I think if I had read the novel first I would have been really upset about the movie adaptation but reading it after seeing the movie so many times I come to […]
Alice is the same…maybe I’ve changed?
I used to say that Alice Hoffman was one of my favorite authors. “Used to” as in have always, ever since I first fell in love with the book “Practical Magic,” which is SO much better than the movie, which is really damn good it its own right, but for the record, only covers about 1/3 of the content of the book. Initially in my late teens I read her books with a voracious appetite, and regularly recommend her to others. There are elements of […]
Coney Island Love Story
There are certain settings I think automatically lead to interesting stories worth exploring. Two of them are early 20th century New York and ‘freak shows.’ Alice Hoffman’s The Museum of Extraordinary Things takes both of these on. Museum is the story of Coralie, a talented swimmer playing mermaid in her father’s museum of unusual people, animals and artifacts, and Eddie, a Russian Jewish immigrant with a serious chip on his shoulder and a talent for photography. There are many things I disliked about this novel, […]