Review: The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman

The Rules of Magic

by Alice Hoffman

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Pages: 384

Format: eARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  For the Owens family, love is a curse that began in 1620, when Maria Owens was charged with witchery for loving the wrong man.

Hundreds of years later, in New York City at the cusp of the sixties, when the whole world is about to change, Susanna Owens knows that her three children are dangerously unique. Difficult Franny, with skin as pale as milk and blood red hair, shy and beautiful Jet, who can read other people’s thoughts, and charismatic Vincent, who began looking for trouble on the day he could walk.

From the start Susanna sets down rules for her children: No walking in the moonlight, no red shoes, no wearing black, no cats, no crows, no candles, no books about magic. And most importantly, never, ever, fall in love. But when her children visit their Aunt Isabelle, in the small Massachusetts town where the Owens family has been blamed for everything that has ever gone wrong, they uncover family secrets and begin to understand the truth of who they are. Back in New York City each begins a risky journey as they try to escape the family curse.

The Owens children cannot escape love even if they try, just as they cannot escape the pains of the human heart. 

Kritters Thoughts:  A little out of my comfort zone, the Owens family current generation highlighted in this book is made up of three siblings who are each trying to figure out who they are.  With magic abilities running through their blood, trying to figure oneself out may be a little harder.  AND then throw in a curse!

I don't tend to read books with magic, but when I saw a release date of 10/10 and I am trying to push myself out of my comfort zone again and again, I decided to try this one out.  It had the right amount of magic where the characters were still human, but they all had great abilities where they could see the future or see things in other people, but at the end of the day the weren't floating around which made me enjoy this more than most books with fantasy and magic.

I loved at the heart of the story was family.  I love a good family drama, so with the foundation of the book being a family dealing with pain and tragedy and maybe a dash of a family curse.  I was so glad to read a book with magic with a male in the family with abilities.  I don't read a lot of books with magic and witches, but I still feel like every time witches are mentioned it is a female connotation, so I enjoyed some male witch action.  

I have only read one other Alice Hoffman book and I two-starred that one, so I may need a suggestion or two of where to go from here with Alice Hoffman.


Rating: enjoyable, but didn't leave me wanting more

Ebook 2017 Challenge: 49 out of 50


Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Simon and Schuster.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.