The Book of Magic

Another hard one to rate... I like Alice Hoffman's writing, so that's good, but how can Kylie be so damned stupid? Her stupidity made it hard for me to read this book, and that's why it took so long for me to actually finish it.
I mean... if you are a stranger in a town, and a lady at a pub warns you about a guy you met earlier the day, maybe not take sides, but for heaven's sake, don't assume they are talking smack about the guy just because you met the guy first! People usually don't warn strangers about people just to make things difficult. They usually at least think they have good reason to do so. And her being under a spell or something like that? Nah.
And then we have the red dust. I mean... had I been stepping on red dust and that caused me almost die, I'd be very careful about red dust.

I am Alice Hoffman's biggest fan, so any thoughts that this will be an impartial review can be left at the door.

For this fourth and last in the Practical Magic series, it's a solid read. The other three in the series can be read in any order. They weren't written in chronological order. However, THE BOOK OF MAGIC makes more sense if you've read the other three first.

This storybook tale of witches and spells travels from Massachusetts to France to England and back again. It's has all the lyricism of most of Alice Hoffman's books. Reading it is a dream, from the opening sentence: “Some stories begin at the beginning and others begin at the end, but all the best stories begin in the library.” to near the end: “Some people vow that a book contains the soul of the writer, and often the best ones are written by those who have no voice, yet still have a story to tell.”

I don't know if it was the story or the fact that it was the last in the series, but I almost cried at the end, which I won't reveal. It hit me hard, because I never cry while reading, so saying I almost cried says a lot.

If you want to read a book about true love, read this!

2.5 stars, rounded up to three only because Hoffman on several occasions references the wonderfully quirky [a:Edward Eager 131683 Edward Eager https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1238364444p2/131683.jpg] children's fantasy books that I read and re-read hundreds of times. I loved [b:Practical Magic 22896 Practical Magic (Practical Magic, #1) Alice Hoffman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1629464836l/22896.SY75.jpg 4030671]; it's one of the few hardcover books that I still own. Right away I was set on edge because this book takes the lovely ending of one of my favorite keepers, and takes a dump all over it (Sally's policeman husband apparently only lived for a few years and died of a sudden heart attack). I guess I could have lived with that, but the entire Book of Magic didn't work for me. The narrative is long and rambling, with too many infodumps including several about a 17th century Jewish woman who may have inspired/written Shakespeare's plays but basically has nothing to do with this story. The magic realism is layered in so heavily that every other sentence feels like it is about another strange happening because the moon is full, a certain flower is in bloom, somebody sneezed and didn't use a kleenex, etc. (that last one doesn't really happen). 25 years ago when Practical Magic was first published I was a lot younger and less cynical, and I swooned over the way Hoffman's characters fell in love so quickly and irrevocably. I'm much less of a fan of that dynamic now; but unfortunately pretty much every character in Book of Magic who starts a romantic relationship sees the object of their affection and boom, that's it, they know they're in love. They may be mean to each other because they don't want to be in love, but other than that there is little to no actual relationship development, you know, two people spending time together and getting to know each other, etc. The only halfway interesting character arc in the book is Sally's daughter Kylie, who is already in love when the book starts. She takes a journey into the dark side of magic and struggles to break free of a dangerous man who promises her what she wants but has much more devious plans. I guess if you have read the entire series, including [b:Magic Lessons 50892349 Magic Lessons (Practical Magic, #0.1) Alice Hoffman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1593355938l/50892349.SX50.jpg 75786942] and [b:The Rules of Magic 34037113 The Rules of Magic (Practical Magic, #0.2) Alice Hoffman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1492802012l/34037113.SX50.jpg 55038896] you will want to see how it all turns out. But alas, for me the magic was long gone.