Past the Size of Dreaming

Loved it!! I absolutely adore these books, with their quirky magic and lovable characters. There is way more psychology in these books than is usual for fantasy, and I know some people who are put off by it, but I love the way it is integrated in a magical world. I like that even the evil people are not completely evil, and that some of the good people are somewhat questionable. Mostly, I love the talking objects. The car! The house! The road! I like that one of the characters changes sex without it being a problem. I like that there are so many magical women and that they work together. I have to admit, I was sorry that the house was no longer a house in the end. She is cool as a human too, but she was such a nice house... In show more hindsight, the largest issue I have is the reaction of Julio's mother when she finds out what has happened to him. In all fairness, that seemed way too accepting to me. Ah, and maybe with Matt drinking the chocolate milk. That seemed like asking for trouble. But it didn't bother me too much while reading. Now I'm just sorry there is no sequel... show less

Loved it!! I absolutely adore these books, with their quirky magic and lovable characters. There is way more psychology in these books than is usual for fantasy, and I know some people who are put off by it, but I love the way it is integrated in a magical world. I like that even the evil people are not completely evil, and that some of the good people are somewhat questionable. Mostly, I love the talking objects. The car! The house! The road! I like that one of the characters changes sex without it being a problem. I like that there are so many magical women and that they work together. I have to admit, I was sorry that the house was no longer a house in the end. She is cool as a human too, but she was such a nice house... In show more hindsight, the largest issue I have is the reaction of Julio's mother when she finds out what has happened to him. In all fairness, that seemed way too accepting to me. Ah, and maybe with Matt drinking the chocolate milk. That seemed like asking for trouble. But it didn't bother me too much while reading. Now I'm just sorry there is no sequel... show less

And a beautiful conclusion to the story begun in A Red Heart of Memories. I don't think I'd have understood this without reading Red Heart first - Matt and Edmund, and Suki, have begun to change but are still in flux. I think I would be confused about them if I hadn't seen the beginning of the change as well. I was very puzzled about Lia - it's a fascinating aspect of that magic. And Deirdre's angle on things - her longing for magic, and then the way it does come to her but not in a form she expects, is another fascinating structure. The theme for the whole story - all three books, really - is change and growth and freedom, and the many different forms and angles it takes for different people. And the Big Bad turned out to be a side show more issue - important, but definitely not the climax. I think it would be very amusing if he actually understood what was going on...Wonderful, as usual for a Hoffman. show less

Wow. This book is just - wow. I'm glad its over, but I'm very saddened by the ending.

This is very different from A Red Heart of Memories, more urban fantasy with a grand battle against dark forces than wandering witches trying to right their pasts. Edmund, Matt, Suki, Nathan, and House do find their missing friends, Julio and Deirdre, along with a set of twins who were cursed on the same night as Edmund, and demonic enemies who wish to consume their powers.

It was bizarre, sort of like an AU of the previous canon. Julio was kidnapped as a teenager by a mysterious wizard, who changed his form into eternal fire and somehow implanted another conscious being in his body. It was weird enough then, but it's even weirder now, in the present show more day. That left only Deirdre as the "normal" kid in the group, without any kind of magic. It frustrated and saddened her, and made her jealous of her lifelong friends. She ran from Guthrie just as hard and fast as the rest of them, but for different reasons entirely. She is very reluctant to return, even after the House summons her.

I wasn't sure what to make of Terry and Tasha, the twins. I didn't really like them, and as they were entirely new characters in this book, it didn't quite seem to fit. The "enemies" were the same; they felt half-formed and a bit tropey for trope's sake.

The romantic strands of the story were tiny but perfect; Nathan and Suki's first kiss was very sweet.

The end, though, boy, that was hard for me.

This book is so different from A Red Heart of Memories and A Stir of Bones that I have no idea if I'd recommend it. I guess it depends on how you felt about the first two - if you liked them, you probably won't like this; if you didn't, then you probably would. Apparently there are more short stories out there starring Matt, and maybe those help fill in some of her inconsistencies. I can't say I'm rushing out to read any of them; I wasn't really interested in her in the end. show less

"Urban" fantasy, I guess, though mostly rural. The magic systems were rather incoherent: demons, talking sidewalks, spirit guides, elemental magic, witches and old-fashioned cookbook magic. Oh, and the gold bands that were never really explained. The characters were well done, I guess, but I seemed to be missing context. Perhaps they appeared in Red Heart of Memories?It was the magic that bothered me, though. Anything could happen: at any point a character could pull out a new spell or ability, turn a house into a person or a dog, change sexes, fly, whatever the plot required. As a result none of it came to matter very much, there wasn't any wonder, any sense that the magic meant anything. I've seen the charge levelled against fantasy, show more that where anything can happen nothing matters (Elron?), but this was the first time I've seen it played out. I think it's more an effect of incoherency than fantasy-ness. I mean, in a mystery the author could reveal the conspirators at any time, or cripple them, or have them trip over a Plot Coupon; anything can happen that is within the scope of the book. It matters because the writer arranges things so it seems to matter, so things flow from who the characters are rather than how the author manipulates their circumstances, so if something unusual happens, it's significant and surprising, not just 'oh. The author described something unusual.'Fantasy works the same way, its just that the scope of the book is different. And this one was never clearly defined; no way to know what was within the scope of the book. I did keep reading, though. I liked the characters, especially Matt. show less

It started out slow with disjointed stories, and then I figured out that it was a sequel to A Red Heart of Memories, which I actually did read, but can't remember much about. My feeling of lost memory haunted me through much of the reading, but then the story is about a haunted house and the people it's trying to gather together and the memories it feeds them, the magics it bestows. When a flashback is dreamed into the main character, it really gets interesting though the fantasy magic is over the top, it holds together. It feeds the fantasy of having a group of people who can find eachother again, years after the fact. I did like it.

I'd highly recommend this for any fans of Charles de Lint - the combination of earth magic with contemporary young characters reminds me a lot both in theme and feel of a lot of de Lint's writing.

'Past the Size of Dreaming,' the sequel to , 'A Red Heart of Memories' I thought was a more successful work.

In it the characters are more concerned with who they are now, and exploring their powers, growing as people - not being obsessed by the past . The plot - involving a search to discover what they have been gathered to accomplish, in the face of mysterious occult opposition - is more coherent.
The ensemble cast of characters is diverse and interesting, and although not all questions are answered, the magical 'feel' of the book makes it all show more worthwhile. show less