The Probable Future

Rating:
Summary: Contemporary Magical Realism and Great Character Development
Review: I am fascinated with how well Hoffman composes magical realism. She is so adept at her deep character development that she is able to add some of the mysterious to them. This book is about a family of women who all wake up on their thirteenth birthday with a "gift." Stella, the teenager in this novel, wakes to find she can see how people are going to die. Well, this gets her father in trouble and eventually they all have to move back to their hometown. Parts of the novel were extremely predictable (hence the 4/5 rating), but I enjoyed the rest for how characters thought of each other and how they developed such tightly-woven friendships. And I enjoyed that the book was about a multitude of characters, not just the three living Sparrow women.

Rating:
Summary: Contemporary Magical Realism and Great Character Development
Review: I am fascinated with how well Hoffman composes magical realism. She is so adept at her deep character development that she is able to add some of the mysterious to them. This book is about a family of women who all wake up on their thirteenth birthday with a "gift." Stella, the teenager in this novel, wakes to find she can see how people are going to die. Well, this gets her father in trouble and eventually they all have to move back to their hometown. Parts of the novel were extremely predictable (hence the 4/5 rating), but I enjoyed the rest for how characters thought of each other and how they developed such tightly-woven friendships. And I enjoyed that the book was about a multitude of characters, not just the three living Sparrow women.

Rating:
Summary: mother-daughter relationships
Review: i thought this book was a lovely look at mother-daughter relationships and their complexities. i found the book to be satisfying and elegantly written. there were whimsical bits and somewhat cheesey bits, but in general i thought it was a very good story and a really well-done examination of the intricacies of relationships betweens mothers and daughters.

unfortunately, this book hasn;t gotten very good ratings... which i think is a shame, because it's certainy worth a read. i'm glad i bought it.

Rating:
Summary: Such a good story idea, such a bad book
Review: If you read a summary of Alice Hoffman's latest book, you too will probably be suckered into thinking this will turn out to be a great book. Sadly, Hoffman is a poor writer to begin with, and then seems unable to focus her storyline. Is this a book about a family of interesting women all blessed with a gift? Is this a story about a murderer who secretly slits his ex-girlfriend's neck? Is it a love story about an old doctor and an old, reclusive gardener? Is it a story about a taxi driver who can't decide whether to stay in small town Unity or move to Florida? Ms. Hoffman doesn't know, as she demonstrates when she gives "voice" to each and every insignificant character she can think of.

This is a great story idea, but Hoffman's writing is just plain cheesy, and some of her attempts at magical realism are sadly pathetic (i.e., even in the land of magical realism, nobody smells like water lillies). If you must pick it up, at least use the library so you won't waste your own money.

Rating:
Summary: Story as food for the spirit
Review: The Sparrow family have lived in Unity almost since the town has existed, in an old house that's been added on to so many times it's assumed the shape of a wedding cake. The residents of Unity know it as Cake House, and its inhabitants present a mystery the townspeople don't want to solve, or even have much to do with, in spite of the sacrifices the Sparrow women have made to the community through the past two centuries-or perhaps because of them.

Each Sparrow woman develops a unique gift at the age of thirteen, and these gifts aren't necessarily blessings. Elinor Sparrow can tell when someone is lying. Her daughter Jenny can enter others' dreams. Jenny's daughter Stella, in her turn, wakens on her thirteenth birthday with the ability to see how some people will die. Her gift lands Stella's father, Will Avery, in jail when he's wrongly accused of murder after trying to warn the authorities about one of his daughter's premonitions.

This is not a story of how the murder is solved. In fact, that becomes a minor detail. It's a story about a family, a town, and how a much older mystery is brought to rest, of how the Sparrow women first came to live in Unity, the part they've played in its history, and where they're headed. It isn't packed with action, either. The reader enters the life of each character as one would enter the life of a new friend, easing one's way in and beginning to see the world through the other's eyes. The patient reader is rewarded by the full richness of Alice Hoffman's writing. In the world of novelists, Hoffman is the equivalent of the dedicated cook who spends an entire day preparing a meal with love, creating everything from scratch, and possibly by magic. Other cooks open cans and stir up store-bought mixes, some toss everything into the microwave oven. They feed our stomachs, while the gifted cook-and author-feeds our souls.

Rating:
Summary: An enjoyable lazy-afternoon read
Review: The Sparrows are a family of women who've lived in a small Massachusetts town since colonial times, their lives enlivened by a magical gift (different for each of them) that first manifests itself on their thirteenth birthdays. As is often the case with magic, the term "gift" is applied here fairly loosely. In the present day, Elinor always knows a lie, her daughter Jenny experiences other people's dreams, and granddaughter Stella, just turned thirteen, has developed the ability to see how people will die. The relationship-wrecking potential of the first two gifts is of course blindingly obvious, and the third would be a heavy burden for anyone to bear-especially a thirteen-year-old who's not speaking to the mother who's screwing up their relationship by trying to avoid all of her mother's mistakes.
These are well-drawn characters who often inspire, simultaneously, the desire to give them tea and crackers and the desire to knock their heads together. Jenny is completely justified and utterly wrong-headed in her resentment of her mother; so is Stella. Jenny is absolutely correct in having concluded, after having it pounded into her head repeatedly, that Stella's father, Will Avery, is a lying, cheating (...)who can be relied on only to let everyone down. Stella is also right in believing him to be a loving, devoted parent who actually listens to her, which her mother does not.
There is a plot in here, involving Stella's gift of seeing deaths accidentally landing Will in jail, charged with murder, but the plot is not the point. The focus of this book is the engaging, and ultimately optimistic, story of the tangled relationships of the Sparrow women and their friends and relations.
An enjoyable lazy-afternoon read.


Rating:
Summary: Great beach reading but thats about it.
Review: This book was a simple and fast read. I think its perfect for the beach or a vacation when you dont want to tackle anything too challenging. The story is about generations of women (but focuses on the most recent 3 generations) who inheret a gift on their 13th birthday (ie cant feel pain, can see how people will die, tell when someone is lying). I enjoyed the book for what it was but it didnt pull any emotion from me or make itself all that memorable to me. The book was written at a medium pace so it didnt bore me. I enjoyed the premiss of the book and the authors stories of the previous generations, but I feel like it lacked that something special to set it apart. I dont think its a waste of time to read but I also dont think you should make it your number one book to get!

Rating:
Summary: Great beach reading but thats about it.
Review: This book was a simple and fast read. I think its perfect for the beach or a vacation when you dont want to tackle anything too challenging. The story is about generations of women (but focuses on the most recent 3 generations) who inheret a gift on their 13th birthday (ie cant feel pain, can see how people will die, tell when someone is lying). I enjoyed the book for what it was but it didnt pull any emotion from me or make itself all that memorable to me. The book was written at a medium pace so it didnt bore me. I enjoyed the premiss of the book and the authors stories of the previous generations, but I feel like it lacked that something special to set it apart. I dont think its a waste of time to read but I also dont think you should make it your number one book get!

Rating:
Summary: A cozy read
Review: With the exception of a few abrupt segues, I enjoyed this book immensely. The female characters are rich and diverse. The story line has just enough mystery and magic to hook the reader, yet remain believable. I liked the way Hoffman wove the historical events of a small town and its treatment of a woman with the current happenings to her descendents. This is a morality story, it's a love story, it's a story of mother-daughter relationships, it's a story of the rites of passage from adolescence to adulthood, it's a story of small town politics and fear, and finally it's a story about the loneliness and courage it takes to be different and trust in your probable future.