The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman

Genre: magical realism

I read it as a(n): hardback

Length: 383 pp

Her Grace’s rating: 4 out of 5 stars

In this fourth and final novel in Hoffman’s Practical Magic series, readers see Kylie and Antonia Owens, the daughters of Sally Owens, as young women living their lives in ignorance of their family’s history as bloodline witches. When the entire extended family gathers for a funeral, Antonia and Kylie learn of their magical heritage. Antonia, the logic-driven med student, scoffs and blows it off. Kylie is intrigued, and becomes involved up to her neck when her boyfriend is hit by a car and hovers between life and death. 

Taking off to England with Faith Owens’s dark grimoire in hand, Kylie is determined to break the curse that has followed her family for generations. Hot on her heels is her mother Sally, her aunt Gillian, and other family and friends met along the way. They learn what is important and just how much they are willing to sacrifice for those they love.

This was a great end to the Practical Magic series. I will miss reading more about the Owens women, but am grateful that I have the four books in the series to revisit when I feel the need for a fix of Tipsy Chocolate Cake and witchery. I also found recipes for both the chocolate cake AND the black soap that both sound honestly nice, so I’m going to make those one of these days and have myself a proper day of witchiness. 

It was nice to spend time with Kylie and Antonia and get to know them more. As expected, both strong and independent women. But we spent as much time, too, with the aunts, Sally and Gillian, and their long-lost grandfather Vincent. Adding to the cast is Ian Wright, a professor of history and magic, and Tom Lockland, a distant relative, each man with agendas of their own.

For me, this book dragged just a little in the middle, which is why I gave it 4 stars and not 5 stars. I got a little bored with some of the things Kylie and Antonia (mostly Antonia) were doing and it felt a little long. But it didn’t last long and it picked up again and gave way to a fantastic journey across England, through history, and through the human heart. Highly recommended!

Favorite lines (possible spoilers!):

• Some stories begin at the beginning and others begin at the end, but all the best stories begin in a library.

• Curses are like knots, the more you struggle to be free, the tighter they become, whether they’re made of rope or spite or desperation.

• But stories change, depending on who tells them, and stories are nothing if you don’t have someone to tell them to.

• “If you can’t eat chocolate cake for breakfast, what’s the point of being alive?” Franny said.

• There are some things you have only once in a lifetime, and then only if you’re lucky.

• When Kylie and Antonia were growing up, their mother had told them if they were ever lost it was always best to find their way to a library.

• “There are no witches,” Antonia said. “Only people who want to burn them.”

• “Do you think I’m a fool” “No, I think you’re a witch.” “Then you’re not so stupid after all.”

• “If it isn’t written down, it will likely be forgotten,” Isabelle had told her. That was why women had been illiterate for so long; reading and writing gave power, and power was what had been so often denied to women.
• A woman with knowledge, one who could read and write, and who spoke her own mind had always been considered dangerous.
• If a woman doesn’t write her own history, there are very few who will.
• It never hurt to have some assistance from a sister, and this was a simple spell that had been used by women since the beginning of time, with words that resembled the wild clacking of birds when they were spoken aloud.
• What a life she had, most of it unexpected. She would not have it any other way, not even the losses. This life was hers and hers alone.
• Love was inside every story. 
• Her love was the fiercest part about her. 
• The Book of the Raven was meant to go to the next woman who needed it. It might sit on the shelf for another three hundred year or it might be discovered the very next day, either way it would continue to live, for people often find the books they need.
• Once, a long time ago, before we knew who we were, we thought we wanted to be like everyone else. How lucky to be exactly who we were. 
• Women here in Massachusetts had been drowned and beaten and hanged, especially if they were found to have access to books other than the Bible…