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"The prequel to Alice Hoffman's PRACTICAL MAGIC, following the lives of Franny and Jet Owens (and their brother Vincent Owens) long before Sally and Gillian wound up on their doorstep"--Tags
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amberwitch Magical families, rebellious sisters in a magical realism story
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If you read Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic series in chronological order (as any left brained person like me WOULD), this is #2. And I loved every page.
At the start of THE RULES OF MAGIC, it’s the mid 20th century where descendants of seventeenth century Maria Owens and John Hathorne (from MAGIC LESSONS - book #1 in the series) are coming to terms with their familial history, uniqueness, and individual powers. Three siblings (Franny, Jet, and Vincent) are being raised in New York City by parents trying their best to provide a normal upbringing. But these are no ordinary teens.
When given the opportunity, they spend the summer at the centuries-old family homestead in Massachusetts, under the much more relaxed supervision of their show more Aunt Isabelle. She is much more comfortable with the family heritage. And more familiar with the family curse.
This novel follows the three siblings throughout their lives, incorporating the secondary story of their cousin, April, and weaving in a number of actual historical events (Moon Landing, Stonewall Riot, Draft Lottery, Vietnam War, etc.). There’s plenty of action: love and love denied, betrayals and shunning neighbors, illegitimate children and sudden death, and lots of spells, potions and magic.
It’s a truly fun read but also one that is unpredictable and suspenseful, about people you will come to care deeply about. And many authentically human life lessons about love, loyalty, and family. And then there’s this quote from the author’s Introduction to PRACTICAL MAGIC:
“This is a book about magic, but more importantly, it’s an ode to sisterhood and family, and to the power of love.”
I’m now on to PRACTICAL MAGIC (Book #3 in the series). show less
At the start of THE RULES OF MAGIC, it’s the mid 20th century where descendants of seventeenth century Maria Owens and John Hathorne (from MAGIC LESSONS - book #1 in the series) are coming to terms with their familial history, uniqueness, and individual powers. Three siblings (Franny, Jet, and Vincent) are being raised in New York City by parents trying their best to provide a normal upbringing. But these are no ordinary teens.
When given the opportunity, they spend the summer at the centuries-old family homestead in Massachusetts, under the much more relaxed supervision of their show more Aunt Isabelle. She is much more comfortable with the family heritage. And more familiar with the family curse.
This novel follows the three siblings throughout their lives, incorporating the secondary story of their cousin, April, and weaving in a number of actual historical events (Moon Landing, Stonewall Riot, Draft Lottery, Vietnam War, etc.). There’s plenty of action: love and love denied, betrayals and shunning neighbors, illegitimate children and sudden death, and lots of spells, potions and magic.
It’s a truly fun read but also one that is unpredictable and suspenseful, about people you will come to care deeply about. And many authentically human life lessons about love, loyalty, and family. And then there’s this quote from the author’s Introduction to PRACTICAL MAGIC:
“This is a book about magic, but more importantly, it’s an ode to sisterhood and family, and to the power of love.”
I’m now on to PRACTICAL MAGIC (Book #3 in the series). show less
I fear this may be a review that should have involved a thesaurus, so I will apologize in advance for the repetitive use of the word “magic” — but that is what this book is.
It is MAGICAL.
Seems to be a bit redundant, given the title, but I can honestly say this may be my favorite Alice Hoffman book to date.
The Rules of Magic is the prequel to her 1995 novel Practical Magic. You definitely do not have to have read it to enjoy this book (but knowing that it was the prequel, I confess I did get my hands on a copy of Practical Magic to re-read after I read this, because that’s how I roll. Sequentially.)
If you are a fan of magical realism, this book is for you – but this book is So much more than magic and witches (or witches who show more aren’t supposed to practice magic, or wear black, or wear red shoes, or not walk in the moonlight). This is the story of family, and love – and of how you can’t avoid love, no matter how hard you try (because you’ve been told that it will end in disaster). This is a story about family secrets and how they form you. It’s a tale of sacrifice.
It’s gorgeous.
Hoffman’s words flow from the page and wrap around you, gently tugging you into the world she has created. Her writing is lyrical and visual, and her characters are interesting and perplexing and maddening at times.
Magical and beautiful, I was sucked into the lives of the Owens family – Jet, Franny and Vincent. Hoffman has neatly woven their family history into that of the Massachusetts witch trials, and their mother Susanna’s attempts to keep them away from any semblance of magic because of their history fails despite her efforts. Haunting at times, lonely, heartbreaking, and alternately uplifting and hopeful, The Rules of Magic is a book you will want to linger over.
I was provided an advance copy by the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own. show less
It is MAGICAL.
Seems to be a bit redundant, given the title, but I can honestly say this may be my favorite Alice Hoffman book to date.
The Rules of Magic is the prequel to her 1995 novel Practical Magic. You definitely do not have to have read it to enjoy this book (but knowing that it was the prequel, I confess I did get my hands on a copy of Practical Magic to re-read after I read this, because that’s how I roll. Sequentially.)
If you are a fan of magical realism, this book is for you – but this book is So much more than magic and witches (or witches who show more aren’t supposed to practice magic, or wear black, or wear red shoes, or not walk in the moonlight). This is the story of family, and love – and of how you can’t avoid love, no matter how hard you try (because you’ve been told that it will end in disaster). This is a story about family secrets and how they form you. It’s a tale of sacrifice.
It’s gorgeous.
Hoffman’s words flow from the page and wrap around you, gently tugging you into the world she has created. Her writing is lyrical and visual, and her characters are interesting and perplexing and maddening at times.
Magical and beautiful, I was sucked into the lives of the Owens family – Jet, Franny and Vincent. Hoffman has neatly woven their family history into that of the Massachusetts witch trials, and their mother Susanna’s attempts to keep them away from any semblance of magic because of their history fails despite her efforts. Haunting at times, lonely, heartbreaking, and alternately uplifting and hopeful, The Rules of Magic is a book you will want to linger over.
I was provided an advance copy by the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own. show less
The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman
Source: Netgalley
My Rating: 5 HUGE stars
As children, Franny, Jet, and Vincent Owens lived under very strict guidelines, most of which revolved around the denial of the existence of magic. Their mother adamantly refused to acknowledge their questions about their “otherness” and warned her children to stay far, far away from anything even remotely related to magic or love. Of course, the rules and guidelines set forth by their mother only fueled the Owens’s children’s desire to know more.
For Franny, love isn’t going to be a problem as she has decided to dedicate her life to science and the pursuit of facts. She is objective and logical, intelligent and reasonable, and clueless. Though she show more believes her best-friend understands her passion, her dedication to pure objectivity, his passion is in fact divided between Franny and science. For decades, Franny dances around and dances with her best friend, only separating herself from him when the very dire needs of her family arise or being near him causes more pain than one heart should ever have to handle.
For Jet Owens, ignoring love isn’t ever going to be a possibility and when she meets her one true love while visiting her aunt, her life and his are forever changed. In the bloom of youth and love, Jet is prepared to ignore her mother’s dire warnings, defy the odds, and be the first Owens in generations to live with the love of her life. Fate is fickle and sometimes simply cruel, and a tragic moment Jet is reminded of who she is and what she is destined never to have. Of the siblings, Jet is by far the most sensitive and it takes, literally decades for her to once again find herself, forgive, and forge a path that includes a measure of happiness. Where she finds that happiness is perhaps the most surprising for all the Owens children.
Vincent Owens never, not even as a child, had difficulty accepting who and what he is. In fact, Vincent often delights in flaunting his “otherness” and dabbles in areas of magic best left alone. For his troubles, Vincent often finds himself in trouble or on the cusp of trouble. Nearly everything changes for Vincent when he meets his own one true love. For many, finding love is a blessing, but for Vincent, it is a mixed bag and in the end, Vincent will be forced to sacrifice more than he ever could have predicted or expected. In so many ways, Vincent is both the luckiest and the most tragic of the Owens children and his ultimate predicament puts everyone he knows and loves in jeopardy.
The Bottom Line: Alice Hoffman is, without doubt or reservation, one of the contemporary world’s most accomplished authors. I can’t put her books down once I start reading, and, quite frankly really have no desire to do so. In my stupidity and out of some misguided sense of responsibility, I tried putting down The Rules of Magic around two a.m., and when I couldn’t sleep for want of knowing how this story would end, I picked it back up and read until I had my answers. The Rules of Magic is a complicated, complex, artful narrative of a family long believed to be cursed. The three Owens siblings not only struggle with this knowledge, but also with a decided lack of knowledge about their pasts and why their futures are cursed. They struggle as children and eventually as adults with the reality of their world, what they are individually and together, and what that means for their own lives and those who come into their lives. There is very little in the way of happiness in this read, but there are brief moments of pure joy that will have you celebrating. As always, Hoffman’s skill and ability to weave a tale is evident on page one and carries through to the very last page. I absolutely adored this book, its masterful craftsmanship, and really can’t recommend it anymore heartily than I already do. With certainty, The Rules of Magic is a 2017 favorite read! show less
Source: Netgalley
My Rating: 5 HUGE stars
As children, Franny, Jet, and Vincent Owens lived under very strict guidelines, most of which revolved around the denial of the existence of magic. Their mother adamantly refused to acknowledge their questions about their “otherness” and warned her children to stay far, far away from anything even remotely related to magic or love. Of course, the rules and guidelines set forth by their mother only fueled the Owens’s children’s desire to know more.
For Franny, love isn’t going to be a problem as she has decided to dedicate her life to science and the pursuit of facts. She is objective and logical, intelligent and reasonable, and clueless. Though she show more believes her best-friend understands her passion, her dedication to pure objectivity, his passion is in fact divided between Franny and science. For decades, Franny dances around and dances with her best friend, only separating herself from him when the very dire needs of her family arise or being near him causes more pain than one heart should ever have to handle.
For Jet Owens, ignoring love isn’t ever going to be a possibility and when she meets her one true love while visiting her aunt, her life and his are forever changed. In the bloom of youth and love, Jet is prepared to ignore her mother’s dire warnings, defy the odds, and be the first Owens in generations to live with the love of her life. Fate is fickle and sometimes simply cruel, and a tragic moment Jet is reminded of who she is and what she is destined never to have. Of the siblings, Jet is by far the most sensitive and it takes, literally decades for her to once again find herself, forgive, and forge a path that includes a measure of happiness. Where she finds that happiness is perhaps the most surprising for all the Owens children.
Vincent Owens never, not even as a child, had difficulty accepting who and what he is. In fact, Vincent often delights in flaunting his “otherness” and dabbles in areas of magic best left alone. For his troubles, Vincent often finds himself in trouble or on the cusp of trouble. Nearly everything changes for Vincent when he meets his own one true love. For many, finding love is a blessing, but for Vincent, it is a mixed bag and in the end, Vincent will be forced to sacrifice more than he ever could have predicted or expected. In so many ways, Vincent is both the luckiest and the most tragic of the Owens children and his ultimate predicament puts everyone he knows and loves in jeopardy.
The Bottom Line: Alice Hoffman is, without doubt or reservation, one of the contemporary world’s most accomplished authors. I can’t put her books down once I start reading, and, quite frankly really have no desire to do so. In my stupidity and out of some misguided sense of responsibility, I tried putting down The Rules of Magic around two a.m., and when I couldn’t sleep for want of knowing how this story would end, I picked it back up and read until I had my answers. The Rules of Magic is a complicated, complex, artful narrative of a family long believed to be cursed. The three Owens siblings not only struggle with this knowledge, but also with a decided lack of knowledge about their pasts and why their futures are cursed. They struggle as children and eventually as adults with the reality of their world, what they are individually and together, and what that means for their own lives and those who come into their lives. There is very little in the way of happiness in this read, but there are brief moments of pure joy that will have you celebrating. As always, Hoffman’s skill and ability to weave a tale is evident on page one and carries through to the very last page. I absolutely adored this book, its masterful craftsmanship, and really can’t recommend it anymore heartily than I already do. With certainty, The Rules of Magic is a 2017 favorite read! show less
Beginning in the late 1950s, two sisters and their brother live and love throughout various obstacles -- including the fact that they are bloodline witches whose family has had a curse on them for generations.
So, this series is a little wonky because technically this is a prequel, but also it's the second book for readers following the family chronologically. I'm in the latter group so for me, this book picked up from the previous one about their ancestor back in the late 1600s. Clearly, it was a huge jump in the timeline. It was definitely an interesting read that way as there were some discussions about their ancestry as if it were largely unknown (but not to the reader) and there were certainly hints in this book (especially towards show more the end) about the book to follow.
That all being said, I also just enjoyed this book on its face value. Both sisters, but most especially Franny, were engaging characters. (I also got a small hint of Sense and Sensibility about them, but perhaps that's just the Austenite in me.) Vincent's storyline also took interesting and unexpected turns. Hoffman is clearly a very talented writer whose prose is quite beautiful. I am certainly planning on continuing with the series to see what happens next for the Owens family.
For the audiophile, Marin Ireland does an excellent job narrating. The audiobook is completely captivating, with Ireland managing to make every character sound distinctive and therefore all the more real. show less
So, this series is a little wonky because technically this is a prequel, but also it's the second book for readers following the family chronologically. I'm in the latter group so for me, this book picked up from the previous one about their ancestor back in the late 1600s. Clearly, it was a huge jump in the timeline. It was definitely an interesting read that way as there were some discussions about their ancestry as if it were largely unknown (but not to the reader) and there were certainly hints in this book (especially towards show more the end) about the book to follow.
That all being said, I also just enjoyed this book on its face value. Both sisters, but most especially Franny, were engaging characters. (I also got a small hint of Sense and Sensibility about them, but perhaps that's just the Austenite in me.) Vincent's storyline also took interesting and unexpected turns. Hoffman is clearly a very talented writer whose prose is quite beautiful. I am certainly planning on continuing with the series to see what happens next for the Owens family.
For the audiophile, Marin Ireland does an excellent job narrating. The audiobook is completely captivating, with Ireland managing to make every character sound distinctive and therefore all the more real. show less
This is a thorn bush of a book, it's spiky prose often impeding smooth passage through the pages. But I must have become attached to Jet, Franny and even the too charming Vincent to have kept going, at the point of tears almost all the way through. Of all the versions of of the trope of witches not being able to love, this is quite the most touching and real feeling.
I am glad so many people have gotten enjoyment from this book. I just don't happen to be one of them. The unnamed, omniscient narrator is so distant I read through the whole book and still didn't care one bit about these emo kids. They find out they are witches and they do pretty much nothing with that magic? This makes little logical sense and even less considering the rebellion they had already committed to. Much is made out of Vincent being the first and only male born in the Owens bloodline, but that also comes to a big fat nothing. This is especially frustrating when the author has absolutely zero faith in the intelligence of her audience and beats them over the head with the same bits of information over and over and show more over--lavender is for protection! Jet has "lost the sight/her gift"! Hawthorne put the "w" in his name to distance himself from the Hathorne witch hunter family! Some dude designed Central Park (okay obviously that one didn't stick despite it being explained three times, but by then I was too bored to care anyway)! All this information, yet we don't get proper names for some of the flowers these witches are supposed to be so in tune with (e.g. shouldn't those daffodils with the orange centers be called narcissists? Considering how self-absorbed they all are it would be fitting). And why, oh why, does wise old Isabelle let these children ruin their entire lives by letting them wallow in self pity for decades without once piping up and saying, "You're m-f-ing WITCHES, do something and be happy!" But no, these oh so powerful witches let an entire book of preventible things happen TO them as they drift through and affect no change beyond softening up some old man who lost his will to live earlier in the book. All in all, a pretty big yawner and eye-roller for me. show less
This is only the second book by Alice Hoffman that I’ve read, and I am slightly disappointed that I’ve been missing out all these years on her magical stories! In The Rules of Magic we’re once again set back in time, but close enough to our own that the setting is almost familiar - it should be, since we’re getting New York and Massachusetts in the time just before the events of Practical Magic. Truth be told, I haven’t read the book (waiting on a library loan), but I’ve seen the film a few times, so I was in vaguely familiar territory. We’re set to follow the story of the three New York-based Owens children - Franny, Jet, and Vincent - as they grow up to discover by accident that they have magical powers, and then set off show more on their journeys to try to break the family curse which stops them from falling in love. Like Practical Magic, the magic seems to take second place to the quest for love, but Hoffman weaves the story so artfully that we’re caught up in her well-developed characters, the casual and ingrained family magic lore, and driving events to carry the book through to its finale without feeling like the story is just a drawn out romance. I guess it technically is one (a romance, that is), but instead of being a love letter between individuals, we’re presented with a love story to life and living, which is infinitely relatable, and infinitely more meaningful in the scope of the world. After this second success, I’m putting the rest of Hoffman’s novels to the top of my reading list and likely instant purchasing a bunch when my thrift shops reopen! show less
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Author Information
74+ Works 61,270 Members
Alice Hoffman, an American novelist and screenwriter, was born in New York City on March 16, 1952. She earned a B.A. from Adelphi University in 1973 and an M.A. in creative writing from Stanford University in 1975 before publishing her first novel, Property Of, in 1977. Known for blending realism and fantasy in her fiction, she often creates show more richly detailed characters who live on society's margins and places them in extraordinary situations as she did with At Risk, her 1988 novel about the AIDS crisis. Her other works include The Drowning Season, Seventh Heaven, The River King, Blue Diary, The Probable Future, The Ice Queen, and The Dovekeepers. Her book, The Third Angel, won the 2008 New England Booksellers' Award for fiction. Two of her novels, Practical Magic and Aquamarine, were made into films. She has also written numerous screenplays, including adaptations of her own novels and the original screenplay, Independence Day. Her title's The Museum of Exteaordinary Things, The Marriage of Opposites, Seventh Heaven, and The Rules of Magic made The New York Times Best Seller List. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Awards
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Rules of Magic
- Original title
- The Rules of Magic
- Original publication date
- 2017-10
- People/Characters
- Frances "Franny" Owens; Bridget "Jet" Owens; Vincent Owens; Susanna Owens; Dr. Burke-Owens; Isabelle Owens (show all 20); April Owens; Levi Willard; Haylin Walker; Rafael Trouble Correa; Regina Owens; William Grant; Emily Flood; Reverend Willard; Alan Grant; Charlie Merrill; Jonas Hardy; Agnes Durant; Sally Owens; Gillian Owens
- Important places
- New York, New York, USA; Massachusetts, USA; Sag Harbor, New York, USA; Paris, France; Santa Cruz, California, USA
- Important events
- Stonewall Riots; Vietnam War; Monterrey Pop Festival
- Epigraph
- There is no remedy for love but to love more.
---HENRY DAVID THOREAU - First words
- Once upon a time, before the whole world changed, it was possible to run away from home, disguise who you were, and fit into polite society.
- Quotations
- Do as you will, but harm no one.
What you give will be returned to you threefold.
Fall in love whenever you can.
"Let's see what you'll have," their aunt said. "Courage or caution?"
For what you can fix, there are a hundred remedies. For what cannot be cured, not even words will do. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Drink lavender tea when you cannot sleep. Know that the only remedy for love is to love more.
Classifications
- Genres
- General Fiction, Fiction and Literature, Fantasy, Historical Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 813.54 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English 1900-1999 1945-1999
- LCC
- PS3558 .O3447 .R85 — Language and Literature American literature American literature Individual authors 1961-
- BISAC
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- ISBNs
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