Practical Magic

I had read the final three books ([b:The Rules of Magic 34037113 The Rules of Magic (Practical Magic, #0.2) Alice Hoffman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1492802012l/34037113.SX50.jpg 55038896], [b:Magic Lessons 50892349 Magic Lessons (Practical Magic, #0.1) Alice Hoffman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1593355938l/50892349.SX50.jpg 75786942], and [b:The Book of Magic 56898179 The Book of Magic (Practical Magic, #2) Alice Hoffman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1631120142l/56898179.SX50.jpg 88976021]) in the “magic” series by [a:Alice Hoffman 3502 Alice Hoffman https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1590599928p2/3502.jpg], but for some reason, I had seen the movie for [b:Practical Magic 22896 Practical Magic (Practical Magic, #1) Alice Hoffman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1629464836l/22896.SY75.jpg 4030671], but hadn't read the book. So glad I finally did.As always, the book was so much better, and it made the other books in the series make sense. When you skip reading PRACTICAL MAGIC and only see the movie, you wonder where all these people/characters came from to populate the rest of the series.I loved this book! What I like the most are the passages where Hoffman addresses the reader. It's happens in the “you” paragraphs. You don't realize she doing it at first, but she is drawing you into the story when she does. For instance:“That's when Kylie comes down from her bedroom. Her face is pale and her hair is sticking straight up. If Gillian stood before a mirror, that was stretched to present someone younger and taller and more beautiful, she'd be looking at Kylie. When you're thirty-six and you're confronted with this, so very early in the morning, your mouth can suddenly feel parched, your skin can feel prickly and worn out, no matter how much moisturizer you've been using. “Another example is:“The most Sally can do is watch as Kylie's isolation becomes a circle: the lonelier you are, the more you pull away, until humans seem an alien race, with customs and a language you can't begin to understand. This Sally knows better than most. She know it late at night, when Gillian is at Ben Frye's, and the moths tap against the window screens, and she feels so separated from the summer night that those screens might as well be stones.”Hoffman's lyrical prose is like a character in the story. It inspires mystery, surprise, and despair, often multiple times on the same page. Not only do you need to read this book, you need to read everything she's ever written. But I'm hardly impartial. I love Alice Hoffman.