Skylight Confessions

Fans of Alice Hoffman's 17 novels (The Ice Queen; Practical Magic; Turtle Moon) will find familiar elements here: fairy-tale plotting, emotional intensity, a naturalistic magic realism, a timeless setting, and superb storytelling. More tragic than her previous novels, Skylight Confessions__about fate, love, grief, forgiveness, and redemption__had some critics weeping, despite what others called the novel's overly maudlin tone. While Arlyn's illness adds depth to what might have been escapist fic

Fans of Alice Hoffman's 17 novels (The Ice Queen; Practical Magic; Turtle Moon) will find familiar elements here: fairy-tale plotting, emotional intensity, a naturalistic magic realism, a timeless setting, and superb storytelling. More tragic than her previous novels, Skylight Confessions__about fate, love, grief, forgiveness, and redemption__had some critics weeping, despite what others called the novel's overly maudlin tone. While Arlyn's illness adds depth to what might have been escapist fiction, critics disagree over whether the novel is one of Hoffman's finest. But if, as USA Today claims, it is merely "a romance novel for college graduates," it's one that readers will likely enjoy.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

I love the title of this book and alll the imagery and ideas that it carries. I like less the obvious implications of a family living in a glass house, a house called The Glass Slipper, as though it is a shoe in a fairy tale that only fits one individual perfectly. In this novel Hoffman has created a family that ill-fits the house in which it lives. Perhaps the family is even ill-suited for each other, for themselves.

This story is sort of told in 3 parts. The first part is Arlyn's story, the sec

I love the title of this book and alll the imagery and ideas that it carries. I like less the obvious implications of a family living in a glass house, a house called The Glass Slipper, as though it is a shoe in a fairy tale that only fits one individual perfectly. In this novel Hoffman has created a family that ill-fits the house in which it lives. Perhaps the family is even ill-suited for each other, for themselves.

This story is sort of told in 3 parts. The first part is Arlyn's story, the second is Meredith's, and the third is Blanca's. The only section that really moved me, that carried real meaning and insight and emotion to me as a reader was Blanca's story. In the character Blanca, in her mature reflections and grown-up (yet somehow still immature, naive) reactions, Hoffman seems to really capture the effects of the family dramas that she developed in the first two sections of the novel. Blanca really reaps what her parents and older brother sowed.

I had a hard time relating to these characters and being interested in them. At first Arlyn seemed magical, then just shallow, then just incompletely fledged out as a character. I preferred her later in the story as a ghost than in the beginnings as a young woman in love, or imagining she was in love. At first I found Meredith really relatable, because she seemed like such a realistic, average, unmotivated college graduate idling through life. But then Hoffman complicated her with past tragedy and built up an emotional roadblock around her that was magically overcome in a single symbolic gesture/act. I find that sort of thing too neat, too tidy, too easy, although honestly I also love the symbolism of it... Being washed clean of our sins, of our past somehow.

All in all this is a case of another enjoyable Hoffman story with some deep, submerged emotional themes. Again, it's a case of thinking I would be more impressed or more moved, or maybe just wanting more. Perhaps I'm a demanding reader.