Illumination Night

Rating:
Summary: Starts off good, then goes downhill
Review: I am a fan of most Alice Hoffman novels, but I was not thrilled with Illumination Night. The beginning of the story is good, but the middle and ending go downhill when dealing with Eddie, the giant. I do not think that a giant should have been written into this story. If Eddie had been a regular guy with a dark side, the story would not have been as bad, but the fact that he was a giant made me feel critical toward the storyline. However, it was not a horribly written book, and it was fairly quick to get through. It intertwines the lives of a wild teenager named Jody, who is caring for her grandmother on Martha's Vineyard, the family next door, and Eddie. I read the 1987 hardcover version.

Rating:
Summary: sad and touching
Review: I liked this book. I like all that I have read from Alice Hoffman. this book is a sad book and takes a twist that I did not expect. She adds a sense of fairy tale to what is a very real life situation. Its a quick read and I recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Looking for love, overcoming fear and isolation
Review: I picked up this book on a summer vacation in Martha's Vineyard and was both charmed and entertained by it. The tradition of Illumination Night and the summer gatherings of Methodist families on the island make a kind of magical, firefly-lit ambiance for this tale of people, young and old, whose lives intersect in unexpected ways.

The most fascinating character for me was the agoraphobic young wife, trapped in her house by fears she can barely articulate. Hoffman's treatment of this characters is so realistic and convincing that after reading the novel I felt for the first time that I not only understood this condition; I had lived it.

While the gentle-giant young man is a bit of a surprise for someone reading Hoffman for the first time, she also makes this character perfectly plausible and sympathetic. You can accept the young girl's falling in love with him because we come to care about him ourselves, while realizing that she has the power to break his heart.

As a writer, Hoffman leaves you with the impression that she feels deeply for her characters, regardless of their weaknesses and shortcomings. And putting down this novel, you can feel in yourself a tender-heartedness for others that most books either don't try to evoke, or try and fail.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliantly vivid
Review: This was the first book I ever read of Alice Hoffman, and I was completely amazed by her talent of writing such vivid and enchanting tales of ordinary people. Illumination night is a somewhat sad tale about destructive and longing love, that is destined to fail from the beginning. I could feel the pain that the young girl felt, knowing that the man she loved could never be hers. This is a story of passage, a young girl grows up and faces reality and her grandmother grows older and faces the fact that death cannot be avoided. After reading this book I got hooked on Hoffman's books. This is still my favorite book, alongside HERE ON EARTH. I really recommend this book if you aren't afraid of getting touched. Tears will fall, but in the end you will feel very whole.