The Book of Magic: Are Pure Vibes Enough?

Practical Magic was probably my biggest book surprise of last year. For one thing, I wasn't wild about the movie the one time I saw it (I am considering a rewatch) and for another, cute-witchy-romantasy isn't my brand of fantasy.

But somehow, the book sucked me in with its magical-realism Americana and fairytale twists. I liked it enough that I was willing to pick up the other books in the series... which brings us to The Book of Magic [Alice Hoffman]. 

The Book of Magic is a direct sequel to the events of Practical Magic, taking place several years later. Elderly Aunt Jet receives her 'death beetle' notice, and brings the family together for her final days. In her last hours she discovers the way to break the family curse, and leaves it for her sister to find - only for it to fall into the wrong hands. 

The sisters have managed to live with the family curse - which kills any man they fall in love with - but are both unhappy. Sally's children, now adults, have been sheltered from magic and don't even know the risk. When the younger daughter's boyfriend is left in a coma, she sets off to England, ready to break the curse at any cost.

For me this book nosed-dived at the half-way point, moving from enchanting to faintly ridiculous the moment the action shifted from America to England. It's well researched, but seeing an American attempt to apply magical realism to modern Essex is faintly hilarious. The idea of the place best known for The Only Way is Essex being a mystic land of fens, cunning women and woodland is very funny when the fens are mostly gone, it's 'folk' are mostly people who moved from London after WW2 bombs wiped out their homes, and its general reputation is for women being sick outside nightclubs.

Admittedly this wasn't helped by the audiobook version. It turns out that Jennifer Ehle - one of the greatest Lizzie Bennets of all time - can't do any of the English accents. It absolutely boggles the mind - she won Colin Firth for crying out loud, yet here she is going full Dick Van Dyke.

Now I'd overlook the inherent silliness of turning modern-Essex into Ye Olde England World (where everyone eats eel pie caught fresh from the fens, even though the majority of people in Essex would eat their own shoes before eating an eel) if the plot had remained as strong, but instead we are treated to a 'missing granddaughter' storyline. This might have been tense if they weren't all in the same village for the majority of the time, didn't have someone magically skilled at finding things with them, and if the missing granddaughter didn't keep phoning family members up to check in on her comatose boyfriend. There are literally five family members searching one village - a decent walk-around would have found her. 

Kylie the Granddaughter is also the least sympathetic character by a long way. Her boyfriend's accident is awful, especially since it's happened due to her mother's lies, but the majority of the plot could have been tied up by her having one [1] proper conversation with her family. It also hinges on her finding a letter from her recently deceased Great Aunt - addressed to her other Great Aunt - and opening and reading it herself. Who does that? 

Despite this, this is a series that exists on pure vibes, and when it gets them right, it really does feel magical. You believe that baking an apple pie can return a missing loved one, and that butter patties might melt when the people at the table are in love. It makes you want to live in a world where love feels as natural and inevitable as the weather, a good bar of soap washes away evil, and classic books are as powerful as spells. For a little while my inner Granny Weatherwax - the antithesis to this type of fairytale magic - was quietened. I was enchanted.

(And then her voice piped up to wonder if people from Boston didn't feel the same way about the American sections of this book as I did about the Essex ones.)

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