Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Tale of Two Nearly Identical Books, Or Cozy Witch Com Books By The Numbers

The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak Magic by Breanne Randall

Witch of Wild Things by Raquel Vazquez Gilliand

by 1 Comment

I started with one of these books because I just needed a cozy witchy book with some small town and some herbs and some love story that ends in HEA or maybe not, maybe the romance is the B Plot, maybe they just bat eyelashes and it ends with hope. Then I ditched that book 50% of the way in because, Dear Reader, it was upsetting and whatever the opposite of charming is. I had the other on deck and, based solely on the cover and a quick […]

“Trouble is just like love, after all; it comes in unannounced and takes over before you’ve had a chance to reconsider, or even to think.”

Pratical Magic by Alice Hoffman

by Leave a Comment

In one word: Lasting Cannonball Read Bingo: Holiday This is at least my fourth time reading Practical Magic; at this point in my life, I consider both it and Alice Hoffman old friends.  We may not talk a lot anymore, but we can always pick up right where we left off. Re-reading it is like taking a mini-holiday as it has become a cozy comfort read, and its magical elements make it perfect for a Halloween-y October book club selection, which is what got me […]

“I never even believed in happiness. I didn’t think it existed. Now look at me. I’m ready to believe in just about anything.”

Practical Magic (Practical Magic, #1) by Alice Hoffman

by 3 Comments

Somehow I made it thirty-three years without seeing the movie Practical Magic or reading the book it’s based on. I corrected the movie-watching on Netflix several years back, but I never thought about reading the book until Book of the Month put out this edition as an add-on the month they selected the prequel to be featured. I actually read the prequel first, and I really liked it! And it was clearly written after the popularity of the movie had sort of overshadowed the book, […]

That magical unicorn, a successful prequel! (From someone who’s never read the other books.)

Magic Lessons (Practical Magic, #0.1) by Alice Hoffman

by 2 Comments

Don’t let your preconceptions keep you from reading this one if it sounds like something you might be interested in. I thought, because I saw the movie adaptation of Practical Magic one time a couple years back, that I knew how Maria Owens’s story would end, because her story is the entire reason that first book exists. That’s how prequels work! The curse she put on her own family as she was killed for being a witch in Salem: that anyone who loved an Owens […]

less practical, more magical

The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman

by Leave a Comment

Twenty two years after the publication of Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman fired up the ol’ Owens Family Cauldron to brew up (I apologize for NOTHING) the story of “The Aunts”. Before Jet and Franny were kooky caregivers with cupboards full of teeth and dove hearts, they were kids squirming under the overbearing but uninvolved eyes of their midcentury modern parents. Necessarily, when re-approaching a well-defined but of-its-time creation, one must get a little creative with facts and figures. Practical Magic was already a bit screwy with time, […]

Wonderful, Lyrical, Practical Magic

by Leave a Comment

I saw the movie Practical Magic with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman quite a few years ago. It’s one of those movies that I wanted to be better than it was — it seemed to have so much potential, but it just didn’t work, even with the wonderful Aidan Quinn as Bullock’s love interest. I have been in the mood lately, Halloween coming up I guess, to read some witch-related books, so even though I didn’t love the movie I had heard good things about […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo