Well, I only made it to page nine of this overwrought, strained book. Soon after learning that the protaganist's younger sister was so precious that "bees would drink the sweat of her skin," and that she was in fact made of "laughter and moonlight" and that "white moths would rather circle around her than fly into the sky up above" I abandoned her to whatever wretched, flute-music-infused fate awaited her.

Review Temporarily Removed.

Author: Alice Hoffman
Title: Green Angel
Genre: magical realism, tale of survival
Publication Info: Scholastic. New York. 2003.
Recommended Age: 13 and older

Plot Summary: Green, a moody, introspective 15-year-old, stays at home while her parents and younger sister travel to the city to sell their vegetable produce. Being intentionally left behind to tend the garden causes her to not say goodbye to her family. From across the river, Green watches in horror as the city explodes into flames. Even at he More...

Green, patient, quiet and attentive, much different than her wild beautiful moon like sister, her gentle mother, and her superstrong father. She could hear plants growing and dying, whispering their secrets, and many more.
Green did not fit in with the other people because of her shyness and timidness. In the city, though, she could be who ever she wanted, and no one would care.
On the day she was supposed to go to the city, her parents told her to stay at home, for their harvest had been abunda More...

Um, was I supposed to love this highly acclaimed crap?
This is probably the smallest book I've read but it sure as felt like a billion pages long. I am not joking, by the end of it I fell flat out asleep. Really.

This book's outline is kind of like If I Stay but rest of the story is very different and equally boring. I am telling you, I love these depressive, sad kind of books but Green Angel wasn't even close to it.

I have got to stop reading these waste-of-time books!
More...

Amazing book. I can see why it's on a favorite's list. It's one of those things where I just want to hand it to people. Hoping maybe even if they never read it, somehow the message would be understood. The magic would just come through. That's what I had to say after finishing this book Friday, not all that long after having picked it up. I'm not sure I could do it much justice by adding to the original impression. This is one of those stories you just know you could read again and again. It's L More...

Green is known as the patient one. Her younger sister is known as the wild one. Green can sit for hours and watch the plants grown. Her sister can hardly sit still for 5 minutes. Together, they are each other's whole world. When Green's sister and their parents go into town they ask Green to stay behind and take care of the plants. She resent them for this and refuses to say good-bye. Little did she know that was the last time she would ever see them again.

There were parts of this book that I a More...

I'm never quite sure what to make of Alice Hoffman's books. When we read Turtle Moon for my bookclub a couple years ago, I found it interesting, but I did not appreciate her writing style and the sense of magic and mystical-ness that she endowed in it. That book didn't speak to me.

I picked up Hoffman's book, Green Angel, written for the YA market, the other day. I really enjoyed it, and not only did I enjoy it, but the book did seem to speak to me. I think I'm starting to "get" Hoffman. Perhaps More...

In this young adult book, Green is a shy girl who lives with her mother, father, and full of life sister. They live near a city and every year her parents go into the city to sell items from the garden. Green has the green thumb and that’s the reason why they call her Green. She is shy, nothing like her sister Aurora, who is playful and beautiful. On the day her parents decide to go into the city they take Aurora instead of Green who has been dying to go. There is a terrible disaster and a fire. More...

I read GREEN ANGEL years ago and wanted to revisit it, to see if I still thought it was a little gem. I do. It's a fairy tale, an allegory, told swiftly but with its soul intact.
15-year-old Green gets her name from her skill with plants, on helping things to thrive and grow. Her family lives a rural life near a city where they sell their produce, but one day Green is left to tend the garden while her mother, father and sister go to market. On that day, terrorists attack and destroy the city, cau More...

This story was beautifully written. Each and every phrase evocative of a deeper meaning, that i honestly find myself lacking the proper words to describe how much i liked it. Liked it, is just too insignicant... i guess it becamed part of me, as only the greatest stories; the ones that truly touch our hearts, are capable of doing it. If we let them...

For me, this author is outstanding in this gender. She weaves the most sad, heartbreaking stories, in perfect tapestries, made of memories and ghos More...

I read this book right when it came out, and I remember loving it. I mean, seriously. Devastated, broken-hearted girl with her hair burned off by fire and eyes blinded by embers and ravens and rose thorns tattooed all over her body and nails poking through her heavy black boots, hating herself for what she used to be and not knowing how to heal…?

Teenage me was like, “Hell yes this is SO DEEP and I can totally relate because of the darkness in my own soul,” and that was good at the time.

But I’m More...

Yes, this is a book written for young people but adults can begin to understand how young people may deal with death. Green, a 15-year-old, with a wonderful family, makes everything grow. She can whisper to the plants, hear them and surpasses her mother in plant knowledge. She is quiet, unassuming and prefers to stay in the background. In contrast, her sister, Aurora, sparkles and stands out. The two love each other very much and spend much time together.

One day when it is time to take garden ha More...

I've realized that if I don't appreciate a work and find it boring, it's often because I don't get it. I must admit, on the first read of "Green Angel," I don't get it. After reading a friends review that it has a great elaboration on grief, I see I missed the point entirely. I thought it was about a reclusive girl who survives the death of her family from a landwide catastrophe, and finds herself through helping others -- which, if understood, is part of the grief process. I will have to read t More...

Despite being a very long time fan of Hoffman’s, this is the first of her young adult work I’ve read. It’s a slim book, more of a fable or fairy tale than a conventional novel. Despite its brevity, it evokes strong feelings.

Green is 15 years old and gets left to tend the farm one day while her parents and sister head into the city to sell their produce at the market. Upset at missing out on the trip, she does not say goodbye to them; no worries, things will be worked out when they get home. But More...

When reading another Alice Hoffman book, I'm reminded that she is one of my favorite authors. She consistently weaves magic into characters that have a mystical, yet down to earth, quality about them.

The setting of this haunting book is a town and countryside destroyed by a terrible conflagration.

Using metaphorical symbolism, Hoffman tells the tale of Green who stayed behind on the day her mother, father and sister went to town to sell their vegetables. Resentful, Green does not say goodbye. Thu More...

Another one of my all time favorite novels. I immediately fell in love with Green Angel when I picked up 7 or 8 years ago. The story captivated me to the point where I could no put it down. I remember my parents getting on to me for neglecting my chores because of it.
Green is a young girl who loses her family to a horrible fire in the city, Turning her whole life upside-down. Embittered by this event, she changes her name is Ash and begins to tattoo herself and dress in thorns in an attempt to More...

Nanette Vasquez
November 2011
Green Angel
Alice Hoffman



The book I was reading was called “Green Angel”. The main character was Green. Green had a sister named Aurora. Aurora had white hair and was as bright as the moon. Aurora would always be pinching and pulling Greens hair because she would never cry .Green had a garden and in order to get money they have to go in town to sell what they have grown.




Green never liked to stay behind when her family would go and sell what they needed to sell. One d More...

Alice Hoffman by way of Cormac McCarthy. Fifteen-year-old, raven-haired, and green-thumbed Green would love to go to the market with her parents and her practically moon-glowing sister, but someone needs to stay behind and take care of things. The three most important things after location, location, location are timing, timing, and timing. The family picked the wrong day to bring produce to the city. A fire. Think London, 1666, with a dash of 9/11. Green not only loses her family but is affecte More...

Well this is nothing short of a truly AMAZING book! I absolutely loved it and can't wait to read "Green Witch" the sequel.

This book got real mixed reviews. In my opinion, the people who gave it a low rating just didn't "get it". There are books that are read purely for entertainment and those that have a deeper meaning. This is one of those books. Every single paragraph in this book is dripping with meaning. You don't have to read between the lines, you read into the lines. This book is "Magical More...

Let me start this out by saying that I didn't realize it was first in a series until I pulled it up on Goodreads. Not sure how I feel about that at all.

Series potential aside, Green Angel is an uncomplicated parable told in deliberately florid prose. It's very good if you take it for what it is: instructive parable, not dramatic novel.

I think most detractors (and I see there are a few on Goodreads) are stumbling over the trappings of linear narrative, which are present but largely just props fo More...

Green Angel / 0-439-65878-0

This story of a young girl's loss of her entire family and her own identity, and the subsequent struggle to regain herself in the aftermath of the loss, will no doubt make an impression on anyone. The deep themes of loss and survivor guilt are explored thoroughly, against a backdrop of magical realism.

Somehow, "Green Angel" puts me in mind of "Island of the Blue Dolphins", for the titular character "Green" often seems just as isolated and alone, despite her interactio More...

Such an amazing book.

I actually stumbled across it by accideent. After I read Matched, I went to the author's website and found "other books you may enjoy," one of which was Green Witch. When I went to check out Green Witch from the library, I found out that it is a sequal, and felt it only right to beging with Green Angel.

I knew nothing going into it.

In the first few pages Green (the protagonist and narrator throughout the story) discribes her family--mother, father, and younger sister--who s More...

I was bought this book for Christmas 2009, by my boyfriend's mother, who I love talking about books with. I asked her to choose me something I'd like and she chose well for me - I did like it.

Green Angel is a sweet and charming read about grief and how one young girl deals with it after losing her family in a fire.

Is it supposed to be aimed at younger readers? I've read several of Alice Hoffman's other books and they feel very different, in tone if not entirely in plot - although the post-apoc More...

Green Angel is a dark fantasy that tells the story of Angel, a young girl who loses her family in a fire. Angel is able to escape from the fire and make it back to her home, but she finds herself alone; her family is not going to come back. The beautiful garden that Angel created is destroyed by her. She kind of turns gothic and starts dressing in black and tattooing herself with pictures of ravens and roses and bats. She meets a young boy who cannot speak and becomes friends with him. She also More...

This is the story of young girl o 15 years that in one aftrnoon looses everyone she ever loved. A terrible fire swallowed each and everyone along with the loved ones of everyon in her village. The fire cast a terrible sah over everythig and soon food was limied. Stray animals were everywhere looking for thier missing families.... youn people had turned to drinking and looting.

Green at first was swallowed up by fear and saddness. As she tattooed her body with pins andblack ink she bcame numb to More...

This book was interesting. I will not read it again ever, but it seemed to be some sort of allegory of grief. At least, I hope the things in it did not literally happen. The book takes place in a less technologically advanced time, and a fire wipes out a city where the main character's family had gone for the day to sell vegetables from their garden. Green (the main character) then spends the rest of the book dealing with the pain of losing everyone she loved. She stops being Green and becomes A More...

This is still a highly visual story that would translate well to the graphic novel medium - but only if it could be illustrated by Charles Vess. On a farm across the river from a city live two sisters different as night and day. Shy retiring Green, older and capable, is left behind to mind the house farm while younger vivacious Aurora gets to travel into the city with the parents to trade their produce. While they are there, something unspeakable and indescribable happens, something that produce More...

I really liked this story because it gives a deep perspective on Green's thoughts and feelings on everything that happens to her throught the story. Her parents and sister are killed in a fire at their house and Green goes through a transformation throught the story from the lighthearted Green to the sorrow-filled Ash. She goes through it because she loses herself by destroying her feeling but also destroying herself, inking ravens, bats, and roses into her skin. It is a very,very, good story. I More...