Ruth Sepaul Sepaul itibaren Innsbruck, Avusturya itibaren Innsbruck, Avusturya

Mary McCarthy lost both of her parents to influenza within a week of each other as they were traveling to Minnesota to begin a new life. She was shipped off at age 6 to live with her draconian aunt and uncle. At 11, she was finally "saved" by wealthy grandparents in Seattle. Fantastic, beautifully written memoir with sharp characterizations and told with rapier-sharp wit.

I read Practical Magic in the same weekend as Here on Earth. I read Practical Magic first and I think I was a little taken aback by it because I've seen the movie at least 5 times so the stark differences in the book were kind of jarring to the mental picture I had already formed. I was definitely sucked into the beautiful writing and format of the novel. It's much darker than the movie, which was to be expected, and it was slightly less magical, and the magic that was in it was much more subtly done than that in the movie. In the movie there's lots of mystic, magic, and make believe but there are only mild undertones of the supernatural but it the subtlety made it that much more believable. I enjoyed the book, but on a different level than the movie, but still say it's worth a read.

I'm copying this piece directly from an Amazon reviewer because it expresses how I feel so well: "My energy was drained by this book, and I have never been so glad to reach the end of a story. It was an epic, it was engrossing - but it wasn't much fun." I admit I scanned the last 10% of the book because the end is predictable and I can't take it anymore. This is like one of those epic movies that you walk out of thinking you lost 4 hours of your life for a movie that could easily have been only 1.5. This book would have been much better had it been half as long. I'm not against long books in general, but you better give me something that keeps me going throughout.