Chelsea Russell's Blog

I thought I knew what to expect when I started reading this book, but boy was I wrong. I’ve seen the movie featuring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman multiple times. It’s actually one of my favorites and I always try to watch it at least once during the month of October.

I know, I know. I shouldn’t expect the movie adaptation to stay true to the book. A girl can hope though, right? Bottom line - the book is crazy different from the movie.

Surprisingly, I don’t think the movie ruined the book for me at all. Sometimes after you’ve read a book and then watch the movie adaptation, you feel cheated because it wasn’t near as good as your imagination. Luckily, this wasn’t the case. In fact, I think the movie version of “Practical Magic” is considerably better than the book.

Don’t get me wrong, I truly enjoyed the book. I just feel as though the movie had a bit more action, whereas the book was more focused on literariness. Who knew literariness could be considered dull? ;p

I adored Alice Hoffman’s writing style. She lights your imagination on fire and then leaves you scrambling for more. In this book she didn’t use chapters, which I found interesting. When I first started reading “Practical Magic” I told myself I’d take a break after the first chapter, but after reading 40 pages I flipped ahead and realized she’d broken her book up into parts. I guess I’ve just gotten used to setting stopping points by chapter and was a little surprised when I couldn’t do that with this book.

I also noticed I was more of an observer than a participant. You’re probably shaking your head and wondering, “What is she babbling on about?” Well, one of the main reasons why I enjoy reading so much is because it allows me to become someone else. I wasn’t really able to do this in “Practical Magic,” but I thought the descriptions were lovely.

I definitely intend on reading more of Hoffman’s books!