I was really excited to read this book because this is one of my favorite movies. Unfortunately this was one of those rare instances where the movie was actually better than the book. I found that there really wasn't anything in the book that wasn't covered in the movie, and the things that were different seemed better in the movie.
I had a hard time with the way the author described the men falling in love with these women so easily, it just seemed kind of add the way people were falling all over them at times.
Overall, the story isn't bad, it's just not worth reading if you've already seen the film. ( )

Sally and Gillian were taken in by their aunts when they were small after the deaths of their parents. The Owens women have always been considered witches by everyone around them. They use black soap to wash with and have a garden that produces year-round.
Sally and Gillian are like night and day from each other. Sally is the one who works and cooks and cleans, while Gillian plays and makes fun of Sally.
They grow up and have very different lives from each other. Gillian has been away for a very long time and suddenly calls her sister and needs her help with something. They go through some major changes and become real women.
Love puts them in very different arenas. ( )

I am an Alice Hoffman fan, but this was not as good as I hoped or expected. In the middle, the book wandered aimlessly. I was wondering, "What's the point?" The last quarter of the book was much better, as the story line actually picks up a bit. I haven't seen the movie, either, and now I don't think I will. ( )

The Owens sisters, orphaned as girls, were raised by their eccentric aunts in a ramshackle house in Massachusetts and were shunned and scorned and feared by their peers, while the aunts greeted at the back door various townswomen seeking cures for heartbreak, unwanted pregnancies, and other hazards of being a woman and dealing with love. One sister left at 18 and never looked back. The other waited until her heart was crushed by widowhood until she took her own two daughters and fled looking for a more normal existence for them and for herself. But magic in one’s blood isn’t something you can escape, and despite a vow made as children, love and all its messes catch up to all Owens women eventually.

Magical realism is hit or miss in the extreme for me. If a book falls into that genre, I either throw it across the room in disgust or absolutely adore it. This one I loved. Such strong and strongly written women are found here, and their stories are a perfect blend of everyday and extraordinary. And I love that it’s a story filled with women and their relationships with one another, and although people of the male persuasion are key parts of the plot, they are certainly not in starring roles. They’re the celery of the recipe: background supporters but in no way a distraction from the main flavor of the tale. ( )

This was a nearly perfect book. I have loved the film a long time (ever since before it was released, thanks to the old Victoria Magazine's photo shoot of that yummy magical kitchen). And have watched it multiple times.

Since my friends warned that the book was not the same, I sort of avoided reading the book. But finally got around to it, and I am so glad.

No, it's not the same as the film, more subtle. But oh -- the writing is pitch perfect and glorious. Magic weaves in and out of every paragraph, and the characters are so much more fully defined.

I LOVED everything about it. Really might be one of my favorite books in years. Thank you, Alice Hoffman! ( )