Practical Magic (Practical Magic, #1) in The Complete Idiots Guide to the Ultimate Reading List

Nov 12, 2008 Gina rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: romantic-suspense, own, romance, paranormal-supernatural

There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain…

When their parents died, Sally stepped up to bat, calming the sitter down long enough to have her riffle through her mother’s address book and called the aunts. If the aunts didn’t step up to the plate, Sally and Gillian would become wards of the state.

The aunts took them in. While growing up, Sally and Gillian are teased and tormented while growing up, asll all Owens daughters are. Gillian, the youngest, rude and selfish, runs There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain…

When their parents died, Sally stepped up to bat, calming the sitter down long enough to have her riffle through her mother’s address book and called the aunts. If the aunts didn’t step up to the plate, Sally and Gillian would become wards of the state.

The aunts took them in. While growing up, Sally and Gillian are teased and tormented while growing up, asll all Owens daughters are. Gillian, the youngest, rude and selfish, runs away at 18. Sally, ever so smart, calm and responsible, has done nothing but take care of them all, cleaning, laundry, healthy meals. She meets a man, falls in love and has two beautiful girls, Antonia and Kylie.

When her husband dies, remained in bed for year before she finally awakens and begins fresh. She’s tired of the life she lives while in the aunts’ house; Kylie, the youngest, is much like Sally, while Antonia is growing up just as spoiled, rude and selfish as her aunt Gillian. Desperate for a change, she buys a house on Long Island and moves the girls away.

And just when the monotony of life feels comfortable to Sally, Gillian shows up at her door in the middle of the night, her mean and abusive boyfriend, Jimmy, stone cold dead in the passenger seat of his car. In the heat of the moment, it’s decided they’d bury Jimmy in the back yard.

And that’s when their lives completely change…

While I thought the story was good, I had a hard time with it. Yes, the characters were interesting, watching them grow, and change from who they were to someone better, learning about themselves as they go along. When Hoffman wanted her character to be rude, the character was; happy, sad, determined… You could feel everything with the characters.

But I had such a difficult time reading this one. There were no chapters, only four parts - which made it a long story with no breathing room. It was getting to the point where my attention was wandering and I wanted to skim the pages, which I barely refrained from doing. There was no separation between scenes from the past, present, and future; it’s reading memories as each of the characters are in focus, or what’s to come later. And no differentiation between characters, either. And for me, that’s a huge fault, and it took away from the book. I hate to say it, but if I’d read the book first, I may have never had the urge to watch the movie. And I own the movie on VHS and DVD.

However, I thought the feelings and lessons learned were beautiful. How each learned to love, forgive, forget, changing themselves into a better person, is the best part of the story. I’m rating this one 3.5 stars - I say read it and come to your own conclusions. ...more

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Jan 20, 2011 Sarah rated it liked it

Shelves: ebooks, read-in-2011

I started off reading this book thinking that it was one of those sugary, once-upon-a-time type of stories and ended my reading with a new appreciation for authors who seek to set themselves apart. Hoffman's writing read a little like Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's in The Mistress of Spices. I enjoyed her descriptions of magic, auras, emotions and earthy elements. The Owens women made for particularly interesting characters and it was interesting to note the different ways in which Sally and Gilli ...more

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Jun 18, 2014 Megan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, library-book, made-into-movies

I read this in less than a day. It was just that well-written. There were things I didn't like about it and I don't know if that was influenced by the fact that I absolutely love the movie. The visuals in the movie - the house, the spells, the garden (OMG that conservatory) - are so vibrant and lovely; comparatively it made the book seem somewhat lackluster. In the movie, I got much more of a feel for all the relationships between the aunts and the main two, the men, etc, even though the book fe ...more

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Apr 07, 2008 Amanda rated it really liked it

Shelves: nypl, fairytale-ish

Sally and Gillian Owen are just little girls when their parents die and they move in with their two aunts in Massachusetts. For hundreds of years the Owens women in this town have been blamed for things going wrong in the town. They are believed to be witches. And maybe they are. But this doesn't stop the town women to secretly go to the Owens during the night to get love spells performed. In this environment, Sally and Gillian are raised. They have pretty much all the freedom they could want at ...more

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Jan 18, 2008 MJ rated it it was ok

Shelves: idiots-ultimate-reading, ok-books, chick-lit

This story is about to sisters Gillian and Sally Owen who were raised by their spinster Aunts in a small town in Massachuetts. The Owen women have always been accussed of being Witches andGillian and Sally want to escape. Gillian runs aways but Sally stays, gets married has 2 daughters. After the death of her husband Sally leaves town with her daughters.

One day out of the blue Gillian shows up at Sally's house with her boyfriend dead in the car. To avoid Gillian getting accussed of killing him, ...more

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Oct 27, 2007 Julianne rated it liked it

Love, love, LOVE, love, LOVE !!!!

Can anyone guess the theme of this book? I'll give you a hint................

If it weren't for all the F-bombs Hoffman drops in this book, I would swear it was written as a YA book. The theme and writing was pretty transparent, and the dialogue and characterization wasn't what you would expect from a more refined author.

But, it was a fun read, fairly easy. Different from the movie. I expected more witchcraft, but que sara sara. ...more

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