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Summary: This little book is a gem!!
Review: I have read Alice Hoffman before but somehow I managed to skip over this one. The way she writes captures the image of whatever is happening in the story or with the characters. I found myself back tracking just to hear the magical way she had with her verse and words,whether it was the night or the heat or what the heart was saying, I felt it. Don't let anything keep you from this one. When an author can take an ordinary story and weave this kind of spell it is special. I wanted to read it slowly to savor it, but I didn't I read it quickly indulging myself. As I neared the ending late at night I purposely put it down to save myself a small treat for the morning. It's a keeper too I won't be letting this one go!
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Summary: A story of life's ups and downs
Review: First of all, this author does a tremendous job of putting a book together that's very hard to set down. It's very quick read giving the reader a feeling of reading a girl's journal and developing into a story as the girl, Gretel, grows up. The relationships between Gretel and her mother and her cousin and her bestfriend,Jill, are the center of this book.
This is a story of real life. There's the brother who has everything going for him, including a chance to go to Harvard. Gretel watches the strength that her mother shows in the open but hears her mother's emotional pain at night. Gretel is brought up around strong women and knows how to survive and be a strong woman herself.
I enjoyed this book tremendously and will recommend it to anyone looking for a very good book to read.
Gretel and the people in her life are very relateable. She endures loosing family members, money struggles, resentful teen years.
Upon finishing this book there is a moral to the story. Money and social position don't always equal happiness and love.
Do pick this book up and read it. It's a very quickstory with a lot to say.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but Could Be Great
Review: I really liked this book, but after reading it, I wanted more. If Alice Hoffman had elaborated more, and went more in depth with her characters, this would have an amazing book. As it is, it's still worth a read. I was particularly intrigued by Gretel's relationship with Sonny. As a teenage girl who likes "Bad boys", I could really relate.
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Summary: Local Girls give a typical Chick book conclusion
Review: This book is a nice little read if you are looking for something comforting. Hoffman's book could have easily been rewritten with the title 'Everything will eventually be all right'. A nice little coming of age book, this portrays the story of a young woman as she matures. She conquers many things, such as her parent's divorce, her brothers decline from genius to FoodStar Employee, her best friend's unplanned pregnancy and her mother's untimely death. But, surprise surprise, she comes through it with flying colors and attains everything she had wanted with just a few setbacks. So if you are looking for a nice quaint book, check into this one. It runs the line of a lot of Oprah books, except this one ends well.
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Summary: Wonderful!
Review: So many things happen in young Gretel Samuelson's life, her parents get a divorce, her mother gets cancer, her brother gives up Harvard to work at a Foodstar, and so much more... But through it all, ALice HOffman has a way of making you feel things so much. You laugh out loud-- or you actually begin to cry. I give this book 5 stars simply because of it's ability to emotionally move me. It wasn't a terribly sad book, although it did have it's depressing moments. All in all, this was a wonderful book, and I would highly reccomend it to anyone who asks.
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Summary: thin book holds lots of pain
Review: Gretel Samuelson is coming to terms with her parents' separation, her best friend turning gorgeous over the course of one summer, her brother throwing himself into a downward spiral all at once. There is so much teenage angst and grief in these pages, which in the hands of other authors may turn out to be so depressing that you find it painful to keep turning the pages. However, Alice Hoffman's prose is so blissfully sweet and magical, her characters so warm and individual I ended up wishing that the story was twice as long.
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Summary: HOFFMAN'S RICH PROSE IS LEAVENED WITH GLISTENING WIT
Review: In rich prose leavened with glistening wit and rueful perspicacity Alice Hoffman brings us her 12th novel, Local Girls. Skillfully interweaving a series of related vignettes, offered by alternating narrators, the author divines the hearts and minds of a family plagued by loss yet sustained by love. The Local Girls for whom we come to care are Gretel Samuelson, her mother, Franny, her mother's cousin, Margot, "who got a divorce last summer and changed the color of her hair to give herself an emotional lift," and Gretel's best friend, Jill. Franny is also divorced, miserably so, spending her nights on a quilt beside her daughter's bed. Home is Franconia, the suburb in which they were "doomed to live." It is here that 12-year-old Gretel and Jill sneak out at night to exact vengeance upon those who have offended them - they write with pieces of coal on a tattle-tale shopkeeper's garage door, pour rancid buttermilk into a strict teacher's garbage cans, and spread paint on the prized car of a father who groped them when they babysat. But despite the rewards of retaliation, as Gretel relates, it was a bad summer. Her brother Jason, handsome, ingratiating, and winner of every science award, is headed for Harvard and a brilliant career. But he changed. In Gretel's words, he "appeared to have undergone a lobotomy." He'd "gotten himself a job at the Food Star, in the deli department, and something had shifted. He was starting to seem comfortable in the deli." He also grew comfortable with drugs, eventually stealing to support his heroin habit. "What was happening to our family, anyway?" Gretel asks. Her mother becomes ill; her father remarries. Her home is a shambles; the kitchen gives her the shivers as Margot and Franny are beginning a catering business. "They had both recovered from cancer scares, failed marriages, and lost hope; in their opinion, dirt could wait. That was also the summer Jill became cynical: "Before that, before all the sickness and heat, she was the sweetest girl you'd ever met. But lately she saw the dark underside of everything...........Everything was bad news in Jill's opinion. Everything was a game you couldn't win." So it would seem, for Jill discovers she is pregnant by Eddie, "the boy that everyone wanted, but not for keeps." "Gorgeous and stupid," he is described as one who hadn't been told the earth was round and thought Abraham Lincoln was a brand of toothpaste. When her mother again falls ill, Gretel "couldn't help but think that the world was a crueler place than anyone had ever dared to suggest. You might even find yourself believing that fair itself was a meaningless concept, one which would only deceive you, in the end." Lives spliced with comedy and tragedy are the heart of Local Girls. It is a tribute to the power of family, and the strength of redeeming love. Once again, Alice Hoffman has proven herself to be an outstanding chronicler of life's pitfalls and joys.
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Summary: Glimpses of girls, young and not-so-young.....
Review: Alice Hoffman is often described as magical, and with good reason. Her prose wraps around your mind and won't let go till it soaks in completely. You will be emerged in the lives of Jill and Gretel. Seemingly ordinary events are presented in their true form: startling moments of clarity, confusion, and/or change. Gretel is likeable, not always easily understood, and a good narrative voice. This isn't a novel, but a series of connected short stories which give you only the necessary pieces of the puzzle in order to understand the picture. ((Some things only the character should know.)) You should be able to finish a story and put the book down, but you won't want to. You'll be waiting to find out what else happens in these girls lives, you'll be searching for happiness, and will find it in unexpected places. Many will not find this Hoffman's best work, but it is a worthwhile addition to any bookshelf.
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Summary: Enjoyable, but not my favorite Hoffman novel
Review: I thought that Local Girls would have made a great book of short stories. Each chapter held its own enjoyable treasures. But as a whole, the novel did not fare as well. The characters were not developed enough for me to connect with them, and it made it difficult to enjoy the book. I'd recommend Hoffman's Turtle Moon and definitely Here on Earth as alternatives.
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Summary: Quick easy read
Review: I saw this book one afternoon and decided to buy it without reading the description of the book. Very rarely do I do that! In this case I came across a winner. The vignettes of Gretel and the fall of her family were fabulous and very relatable to almost everyone. I think we have all wondered if we will find true love, and have felt that alot of the problems in our lives could be traced to men! I appreciate it when an author who knows when to end a book and leave me wondering just a bit as to what happened (happily ever after?). I have found that sometimes when I am reading an author will write too much and I will loose interest. In closing this is one of the best books I have read in a long long time!
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