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Summary: More like an outline of a good story than a book.
Review: Local Girls could be a meaningful story with plenty of quality characters and events, but the author is so brief and jumps from one event to the next in "outline form". I wish the author would have gotten more into the feelings of each girl as the events occurred. When the book was over I felt like I had read the book jacket and still needed the heart of the story.
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Summary: Writing Beyond Compare
Review: Alice Hoffman has the ability to create an atmosphere unlike most other writers. In this collection of related stories, she creates a cast of characters one knows immediately. This book will be one of the best for this year easily.
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Summary: A Warm, Wise, Wry , But Sad Look at the Vagaries of Love
Review: A series of episodic short stories tell of the teenage years of Gretchen Samuelson, whose mother has been left by her father for a younger woman. Gretchen is surrounded by a host of fascinating characters - Margot, her mother's cousin who has similarly been dumped by her husband, her brother Jason, her best friend Jill. Against the tableau of suburban Long Island, Gretchen learns about the pain of love. These linked short stories shift between Gretchen at 12, at 14, at 17 and between the first person voice and the third person voice. (The first person seems to work best for me and makes me feel closest to the characters.) But as always Hoffman creates magic with her words and can make me cry or laugh, often at the same time.
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Summary: Another Hoffman Great
Review: ALice Hoffman has done it again. Her characters, their surroundings, their hopes, desires, downfalls, even the state of the weather and her description of the seasons, makes me feel like I'm there, seeing what they see, feeling what they feel. The only downfall to this book is that it is short, I read it too fast (I couldn't put it down) and now there's the long wait until her next book. My advice: read slowly, savor her words.
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Summary: A great beach read!
Review: It is always a pleasure to read a good book. Alice Hoffman is a literary "witch" who weaves a little magic into each of her novels. Although this is not one of her best novels (try TURTLE MOON or HERE ON EARTH)---it's really a little too short to explore any of the character's psyche or motivations---Ms. Hoffman has given the reader another pager turner full of glorious prose. She makes ordinary life extraordinary in each of her novels, and she has fast become my favorite author.
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Summary: A new Alice Hoffman fan
Review: This is one of those warm, sad but funny tales centered around a growing girl from Long Island, New York. Gretel watches the women around her and their tragic and humourous relationships with men. The reader is transfixed as Gretel struggles to learn who she is.
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Summary: A reminder of my childhood
Review: Although Local Girls started and ended a good book the book is vague about a lot of topics! Throughout the story, strength is demonstrated by overcoming painful situations in life. Alice Hoffman leaves a lot to the imagination of the reader although the plot was good it lacked clarity and details. The author changes narrators often and although it can throw you off it can give you a different perspective to the feelings of the characters in the book!
Rating: 
Summary: Depressing Read
Review: I had been meaning to try an Alice Hoffman book for a long time. I'd heard so many great things about her writing, and the premises of her novels sound like my cup of tea. I don't think I made the right choice to sample her work with LOCAL GIRLS. Had I known this was really a book of short stories, I definitely would have passed it by. I'm not a fan of the short story format. I missed the flow of a novel and the richness of detail that is just not there in a short story. It was obvious that these stories were meant to stand on their own. Each new "chapter" re-explained details of earlier chapters as though I hadn't just read them. I found this quite annoying.My poor choice, however, has not dissuaded me from trying another of Hoffman's works. All that I had heard about her writing is true. Her style is warm and her characterization gorgeous. Even though these were short stories, I could still empathize with Gretel and her family. I would have enjoyed a true novel about these people much more, though.
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