Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman is the book that launched the series and tells the story of Sally and Gillian Owens. Starting when they are young girls they come to live with their aunts, Jet and Frances, in their big rambling house where they help people out with their love related problems. While living with the aunts is somewhat nice the townspeople nearby are well aware of the family’s reputation as witches and tend to treat them with hostility. Sally responds to this situation by doing her absolute best to be normal by following all of the rules and doing everything as perfectly as possible while Gillian goes the opposite direction and tends to leave chaos and broken hearts in her wake. Years later Sally is now a single mom to Kylie and Antonia after her husband passed away and has moved out of town to provide a clean slate for her and her girls when Gillian unexpectedly shows up needing help. While trying to gain a measure of peace from her abusive boyfriend Jimmy, Gillian believes she may have unintentionally poisoned him to death instead of just to sleep. Together they have to work on cleaning up the problem and the resulting chaos that it unintentionally spills into their life.
This book was interesting in that it covers a lot of rather disparate themes and yet still creates this incredible story. I say that because it really does cover a lot of different themes and topics within this one story. At its core the story is about the relationship of family and how you handle that which is shown in the relationship between Sally and Gillian but also their relationships to Jet and Frances, and to Kylie and Antonia. Mixed within that is a rather distinct focus on the relationships between sisters shown in the interactions between Sally and Gillian but also between Kylie and Antonia. It also shows how trauma can manifest in different people and the somewhat unexpected results in Sally and Gillian and their seemingly opposite reactions to their childhood. The story somewhat deals with witchcraft and being witches as the family does seem to follow in that tradition quite heavily but that also is surprisingly a background feature of the story and only really comes to the fore when something happens relating to it. In all honesty, the story could have functioned almost as well without it but it does flow a lot better with it there. Perhaps the biggest theme though is the idea of falling in love. I can honestly say I personally don’t know much about that topic but from what I do know this story does a good job of showing all the different ways that can happen. It also shows both the good and bad sides of doing so which is not something many people take into account. In my opinion, it adds a lot of authenticity and honesty to the story by doing so though. The story itself is really great as it gradually builds up the suspense of what is happening and how they have to handle everything along with showing how the characters are forced to grow as people in the course of those events. I may not generally like stories that are considered women’s fiction but I did enjoy this one so it gets 4.5 out of 5 stars from me.
This book is a great book to read and is probably best classified as women’s fiction more than anything else. It also deals with some minor elements of fantasy or perhaps horror with the inclusion and references to witchcraft and ghosts. If the story sounds appealing than I would recommend you consider trying it but feel free to decide otherwise. In terms of recommended age range the book was probably intended for adults and I would mostly agree with that. There is practically no violence and while there are mature references there is no direct mature or explicit content though it comes close at times. In my opinion, it would only be suitable for readers over the age of about sixteen. Overall it is a good book and I hope you will consider it. If you do feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.