Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful!
Review: As a great fan of Alice Hoffman I've read all her books many times, with a special love for Practical Magic. The books written after Practical Magic have lacked something, though I can't point out excactly what. The Probable Future however captures everything I love about Hoffman's writing - the everyday magic, the love between the characters and the beautiful description of the surroundings and Unity. Like JK Rowling (author of Harry Potter) I find the magic described in her books so natural that you don't even consider it to be supernatural. I really loved it - and cried at the end.
Rating: 
Summary: familiar, but still beautiful
Review: As someone who has read all of Alice Hoffman's books, I feel that her latest seems a little formulaic when compared with some of the others (especially _Practical Magic_). It is a story of three women of the magical, bewitching Sparrow family: the men they are and are not supposed to be with, townspeople who don't understand and therefore fear them, and the tricky relationships within their own family. Since the story line seemed so familiar it took a little while for the book to snare me, however, the ending is beautiful and made it all worthwhile.
Rating: 
Summary: Blah, blah, blah...
Review: Being a fan of the author, I couldn't wait to get my hands on her latest offering. What a disappointment! I agree with the reviewer who noted that there wasn't a character in the book worth caring about. I guess I felt some sympathy for Jenny Sparrow what with the horror of a daughter she had. Seems to me the author couldn't make up her mind which way she was going with this one - a mixture of "Here on Earth" and "Practical Magic" but not nearly as good as either one!
Rating:
Summary: I could feel spring fever coming, dirt under my fingernails
Review: Her books are lovely descriptions, textures really, of places, environments, especially the seasons and the plants. If you saw the movie or read Practical Magic then you know how amazing the house and gardens were, how you could almost feel the mugginess of the sunroom or the earth as they were digging in the garden (or sneeze at the thought of all their greenery and flowers). This recent book focuses on March, that month of seasonal uncertainty and rapid weather and personality changes, ie. spring fever. I was captured by it. I highly recommend it as good reading for the spring season, or anytime. I love her blending of the stories lines of family, love, relationships between women and a touch of magic.
Rating:
Summary: More like 10 stars
Review: I absolutely loved this book, and literally couldn't put it down, and I can't say that about many books I've read. I loved the idea of a magic family, and the feud that keeps them apart for so long. The house in the book is described very real, and I found myself wishing I could explore it all day. This book has so much going on in it, but everything fits the story very well. I loved this book, and really look forward to The Ice Queen in April.
Rating:
Summary: One of her best works ever
Review: I am a huge Alice Hoffman fan so with fair warning that my review is biased --- the writing for this book was so good, I actually cried when i finished it, not because the story ending was sad but because it was such a good book and it was over.
Alice Hoffman, where ever you are, thank you so much. I wish that I could express myself as well as you in thanking you for the blood sweat and tears that I presume went along with completing another great work. Alice's writing stirs up the feelings and memories of youth, dreamy romance, & serenity....like the feeling you get walking in the woods alone on a beautiful summer day and coming upon a doe with her baby by her side, or some other small wonder. Alice Hoffman's writing just pulls you into another plane. And the hint of magic that she sprinkles into her stories just makes them even more delicious. In summary, I loved this book. It was as good or better than Turtle Moon or Practical Magic, two of my other favorites. I eagerly await Ms. Hoffman's next endeavor.
Rating: 
Summary: Oh, Please! I should have stopped at 100 pages!!
Review: I chose this book based on the premise of generations of women with special "talents". I was deeply disappointed in the development of this story. Alice Hoffman spent more time describing the scent of lake water, types of rain and each character's hair than she spent on the plot. Or were those things the plot?When the opportunity arose, very near the end, to add some intrigue to the story it lasted less than two pages. There was tremendous possibility, which was ignored in order to pursue the inane and weak love triangle. I found Hoffman's repetitive descriptive style to be greatly annoying. How many times does she have to say the girl's shoulder was hurt at birth, or that the horse bolted on this path? And enough about the sound of the "peepers"! This was the first, and most likely last Alice Hoffman book I have read. What is everyone raving about???
Rating:
Summary: Parody of Alice Hoffman
Review: I don't believe she wrote it! It is more believable to me that some college freshman in a creative writing class penned this dreary, repetitive tale peopled with unlikeable characters. At one point she describes a grouping of rocks where people go to make out. They get those rocks so a-sizzlin' that mosquitoes burst into flames upon landing on the rocks. I laughed myself silly - apparently human backsides are impervious to this mosquito-killing heat. I would strongly recommend you skip this particular book. Re-read Turtle Moon instead.
Rating:
Summary: Who edited this book?
Review: I enjoyed the book overall, but found glaring editorial errors that kept catching me offguard and decreasing my flow. For example, when Juliette arrives from Boston, she still finds her friend "soaking wet", though the surgery took eleven hours! In another place the word "due" was used where it should have been "do". I'm a writer, too, and perhaps these things bother me more than the average reader.
Rating:
Summary: Sooo Redundant
Review: I have been waiting for this book since the Blue Diary, and I am sad to say I was disappointed. I have read every one of Alice Hoffman's books and I have to say this is one of my least favorites. Like somebody else mentioned there is so much redundancy in this book. Every other page talks about the same thing, about the rain and smell and peach trees. and like somebody else mentioned there was no one particular character that I really felt close to. I think instead describing the same things over and over she could have elaborated more on the relationships between the characters. But just the fact that I could finish it says something.
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