The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman
In chronological story order, this is the second book of the “Practical Magic” series.
I jumped right on into it after I finished “Magic Lessons” just a few days ago…I may finish listening to this series before January is even over! 😱
Nothing like some escapism in the form of books about magic to get my 2022 started off RIGHT, yall.
I’m gonna keep this ball ROLLING.
Here was what this book what was about:
“Find your magic.
For the Owens family, love is a curse that began in 1620, when Maria Owens was charged with witchery for loving the wrong man.
Hundreds of years later, in New York City at the cusp of the sixties, when the whole world is about to change, Susanna Owens knows that her three children are dangerously unique. Difficult Franny, with skin as pale as milk and blood red hair, shy and beautiful Jet, who can read other people’s thoughts, and charismatic Vincent, who began looking for trouble on the day he could walk.
From the start Susanna sets down rules for her children: No walking in the moonlight, no red shoes, no wearing black, no cats, no crows, no candles, no books about magic. And most importantly, never, ever, fall in love. But when her children visit their Aunt Isabelle, in the small Massachusetts town where the Owens family has been blamed for everything that has ever gone wrong, they uncover family secrets and begin to understand the truth of who they are. Yet, the children cannot escape love even if they try, just as they cannot escape the pains of the human heart. The two beautiful sisters will grow up to be the memorable aunts in Practical Magic, while Vincent, their beloved brother, will leave an unexpected legacy.
Alice Hoffman delivers “fairy-tale promise with real-life struggle” (The New York Times Book Review) in a story how the only remedy for being human is to be true to yourself. Thrilling and exquisite, real and fantastical, The Rules of Magic is “irresistible…the kind of book you race through, then pause at the last forty pages, savoring your final moments with the characters” (USA TODAY, 4/4 stars).”
I usually get my official summaries from Amazon descriptions, as yall well know. I don’t generally include any types of other reviews besides my own on here….but that last paragraph I had to leave in because I just LOVE the description of “fairy tale promise with real life struggle.”
YES.
Absolute PERFECTION of a description of this book.
This book is the continuation of the Owens family generation and begins in the late 1950s.
Jet, Frannie and Vincent Owens are who we get to know in this book….surprisingly enough, a warlock joins the bloodline of what has been only been witches up to this point.
Their parents do not tell them of their bloodline legacy BUT they discover this fact out on their own while visiting their eccentric aunt Isabelle over the summer.
This story is about the three siblings coming of age and also about them coming into their own powers. (which kinda IS what coming of age is about for ANY of us–magical or not– isn’t it??? 🤣)
The whole story you watch them learn, grow and develop….and they hit pretty standard ‘regular’ milestones like navigating school situations, figuring out their personality strengths and weaknesses, having first crushes, and rebelling against parents.
But they also have to deal with milestones that are FAR from ‘regular’….like identifying what specific powers they individually possess and learning how to use those in ways that do not harm others (the first ‘rule’ of magic they are told is actually DO NO HARM).
They all are on their own journey with what pulls them towards light or dark magic….they each decide which side to lean into at different points in the road….and then they have to figure out how to cope with tragic circumstances , even ones that they cause themselves.
Again, this book is about love and it’s many many layers and meanings, just like the first one.
And for the Owens family, one of the meanings of being IN love is that they are cursed.
The heartbreak and loss they all experience over and over again EVERY SINGLE TIME they begin to fall in love with someone is just outrageous.
So here is something that GOT ON MY DAMN NERVES….
If this entire famdamily has had all these crazy magical powers for GENERATIONS and can do ALL KINDS OF POWERFUL THINGS…
WHY CAN’T THEY FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO MAGIC TO END THEIR FRIGGIN’ CURSE?????
I mean, that piece of the story drove me CRAZY.
If you all super magical and shit, seems to me that you’d be able to break a DANG CURSE.
It drove me BATTY while reading.
Also, another thing I did NOT like about this story was one very small and very brief event that happens when one of the characters is only 14 years old. They have a sexual relationship with a MUCH older, married neighbor…I was NOT A FAN of this situation, which was basically child abuse masqueraded as just an “inappropriate relationship.”
This happened quite early in the book and was not graphic at all, things were just alluded to and really was just a brief mention.
But I thought it was completely unnecessary and added NOTHING to the character development or plotline. Like WHY was it even there???
It could have been totally left out and the story would remain 10000 percent unchanged.
My friend Alicia (the one who recommended this series to me) warned me about this when I started reading and we both agree that this little part was NOT COOL and NOT NEEDED.
Those two annoying pieces of the story were things I was not crazy about with this book.
Other than those minor things, I did enjoy reading this. I think I liked Magic Lessons better, but I still am a fan so far of the series.
This story really digs into the concept of what can be passed down thru families from generation to generation…thru blood and genetics as well as thru environment and emotions. Which Magic Lessons did too, just in a different way.
All 3 of the siblings were complex characters…I went thru moments of strong dislike for each of them at different times…. only to make a complete 180 another chapter and have that dislike morph into intense affection for them.
(This is a sign of characters well written, in my opinion.)
The ending was a perfect set up for the story continuation in “Practical Magic”…which I mentioned before that I know NOTHING about…and I am excited to move on to see what happens next.
I do wonder how I’d feel about these books if I read them in the way they were written…with “Practical Magic” being the very first. Would I have paid attention to certain characters more? Would different details stand out to me? Would I have been more/less engrossed in the storyline?
Probably so…but I think I’d probably still have the same level of enjoyment for the story as a whole.
I’m super intrigued to see what this next piece of the Owens story is….I’m sure I’ll be obsessed with listening and be able to tell yall my thoughts and feelings on it in the next week or so 🤣
Yall know how I do….