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It’s time for another round of Books I Didn’t Pick, and we’ll be taking a step into a world of witchcraft with Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman. Watching the movie Practical Magic has become a Halloween tradition for my sister and me. It’s a really fun movie, and we both like the strong bond between the two main characters, who are also sisters. My own sister gifted me Magic Lessons, the first book chronologically (but not the first written) in the Practical Magic series.
I think I need to add a disclaimer here: I haven’t read the other books in the series, so my interpretation of things may not be accurate to the series as a whole. But as long as you’re not looking for deep lore analysis, pour yourself a cup of Courage Tea and get comfy.
Magic Lessons is the story of Maria Owens, powerful witch and matriarch of the Owens family. Centuries ago, Maria was scorned by a man, and cast a powerful curse: any man that loved an Owens woman was doomed to die. But who was Maria Owens outside of her curse? Who was the man who spurned Maria? And what happened to Maria after she was nearly hanged as a witch?
The writing is beautiful. It goes into great depths to describe the details of life in the 1600s, and at times it feels downright cozy. Hoffman has done an incredible amount of research on the time period, and it shows. However, that research at times also gets in the way of the storytelling. The pages are full of history lessons, some relevant to the story, some not. Too much of this history is also given to the reader divorced from the story itself. For example, in the first chapter, the omniscient narrator tells the reader that 90% of women in Maria’s time were illiterate. The book gives us this actual percentage, rather than weaving it into the rest of the narrative. Several chapters start with the history of an area, but don’t add much to the story otherwise. The only “research dump” like this that was really relevant to the story was information about the Salem witch trials, though the characters had left Salem years ago by that point.
While the writing is lovely, the book can be achingly slow. This was because, in part, I had very few characters to cheer for. I liked Maria’s foster mother, Hannah, and Maria’s love interest, Samuel. However, Maria was a hard sell for me. Maria starts as a perfect, precocious child who becomes a talented and powerful witch. The first three chapters dedicate a lot of time telling the re about how cool and special Maria is. I understood why, as Hoffman needs to establish Maria’s talents and skills, but it got tiresome quickly. I reached my breaking point in chapter three after Maria helps two of her friends deal with abusive husbands. Both of her friends go on to name their first daughters Maria “so that they said that name a hundred times a day with love and devotion.”
The novel also uses real historical figures as characters, most notably John Hathorne, a magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and prominent judge in the Salem Witch Trials. In real life, Hathorne would ultimately sentence 19 innocent people to death for the crime of witchcraft. Presenting fictionalized versions of real people can be a delicate thing. Hathorne is given nuance, especially when he and Maria first meet early in the book. I liked that he was shown to be repressed by Puritan society. At that point in time, we typically think of women being repressed, not men. I appreciated seeing how such a strict religious society affected men as well.
If you were looking for subtlety in the characters, you’ll be disappointed. The omniscient narrator tells you every aspect of their outer and inner lives, without leaving room for interpretation. While Maria and Hathorne have layers, they’re not gradually peeled back as the story progresses. Too often, we learn the characters’ thoughts and feelings through the narration, rather than their words and actions. When this happens, I feel like I’m reading a detailed outline of a story, but not really experiencing it alongside the characters. And, because I could rarely connect with the characters, Magic Lessons committed the greatest sin that any novel can commit.
I was bored.
Since I didn’t feel invested in the characters, I needed a strong plot to make the book more interesting to read. As I mentioned before, though, the plot is very slow-paced. It was kind of like going fishing: the scenery was pretty, nothing would happen for a long time, and then you’d get a few minutes of frantic action. After the halfway mark, the plot became circular, with the main conflicts repeating themselves twice over. The climax was fantastic, but for the most part, getting there was a slog.
The novel suffers from prequelitis as well. Maria lays her curse because she has to, since it’s an important part of the books in the rest of the series. But the timing of it was terrible, because she fell in love just before the curse was laid. Towards the end of the book, Maria buys a house and sets up a trust so it will always remain in the family. That would be nice, except she buys the house in Salem. The place where she was scorned, nearly killed, and full of people who want to kill her loved ones. So why does she want to buy a house in Salem? Because the other books in the series take place in Salem.1 Things happen because they have to, not because they make sense for the characters or the plot.
Obviously this wasn’t a great book for me. So it might surprise you to read that I’ve actually recommended it to a few other people. Well, to people who loved Where the Crawdads Sing. Much like Crawdads, the beautiful writing is what makes Magic Lessons shine.
I’ve seen mostly positive reviews for Magic Lessons, which often cite the prose, the mother-daughter relationship, and Hoffman’s depiction of women as some of the strongest points in the book. I honestly don’t think that Magic Lessons is a bad book, so much as it is a bad book for me. It’s “no thoughts, just vibes,” and that’s not really the kind of story I go for. If that’s something you enjoy, and you like historical fiction (especially with a touch of magic), check this one out. I recommend reading on a rainy Sunday afternoon with a cup of tea.
Because I enjoy doing this, I have my chapter-by-chapter review below. I tried to not get too spoilery in the main review, but everything in the chapter breakdown is a big spoiler party.
- Chapter 1: I like Hannah and the last scene was very good, but so much of this chapter feels like a research dump.
- Chapter 2: I don’t really like omniscient narrators, but it’s not driving me crazy, even if it means there’s not a lot of dialogue.
- Chapter 3: The book has started getting better, since it’s no longer all about how special Maria is.
- Chapter 4: I’m really curious how the book will handle Hathorne going forward. I think it’s interesting that the author depicts Hathorne as repressed by Puritan society, not just repressed women.
- Chapter 5: Faith continues the Owens tradition of “precocious child wise beyond her years.”
- Chapter 6: Shit finally got real. Also, why are all but two men in the book utter scum? Martha’s husband could have been kind and died, and it wouldn’t quell her desire for a daughter of her own.
- Chapter 7: This is a problem with prequels: Maria lays the curse because she has to, because it’s dealt with in the later books. But she lays the curse after she realizes she’s in love with Sam, so now the whole chapter is about how she can’t be with him, and it’s frustrating as all hell.
- Chapter 8: The first two pages of this chapter are just history lessons that have nothing to do with Faith. Faith is a lot like her mom, which goes back to her being the “perfect child” trope. Also, Hathorne – real guy who sent real innocent people to their real deaths – has been given much more sympathy than the fictional Martha.
- Chapter 9: Another frustrating chapter of Sam wanting to be with Maria, and her telling him no, then they sleep together anyway.
- Chapter 10: Maria’s story is just more of the same; Faith’s the one I’m invested in now.
- Chapter 11: …is Hoffman implying that Katherine Parr was not only a witch, but an evil one? Curious to see where the story will go now, as the biggest plot line so far has been wrapped up and there’s still 100 pages left.
- Chapter 12: So much of this book has been about Maria looking for Faith, but we barely see them together once they’re reunited. Talk about a lot of buildup with little emotional payoff.
- Chapter 13: I don’t like Faith, but I am 100% here for her seeking revenge on Hathorne. However, this circular plot is getting even more circular. We’ve had the will they-won’t they with Sam and Maria three times now, and now Faith and her mother are separated again.
- Chapter 14: This is fine. At least the plot’s moving forward, and of course Maria is just the best writer ever. The Fall Out of Love Tea is a bit manipulative, though, if you ask me.
- Chapter 15: Of course it’s Faith that ensures Hathorne will be remembered as a bad man, not just society in general thinking that killing innocent people is bad.
- Chapter 16: Maria’s house is perfect, just like Maria. The epilogue still doesn’t tell us why Maria chose to settle in Salem, but it tells us every herb in her pantry and the outfit she wore when she sat for a portrait. Why.
- The Salem thing bugged me so much I had to stop reading for a couple days. No, it’s never explained why Maria settled in Salem. ↩︎
Overlooked Books 