This week we are discussing Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman, pg. 1-114.
Spoiler Warning!!! This post is full of spoilers for Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman.
Trigger/Content Warning!!! This book has scenes and discussion of such themes as: sexual assault, domestic abuse, and animal death
Discussion:
Michaela: Hello friends! This month we are reading another spooky fall vibed book because we just can’t get enough of fall. We are reading Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman. So far this book has definitely given off a weird and spooky vibe for me. Something about the world of this book, I’m just always expecting something bad to happen.
Jacilyn: The best word I can think of to describe how this book makes me feel so far is… uneasy, because like Michaela, I am constantly expecting the next tragedy to happen. The aunts are foreboding characters in their own right, capable of their special kind of magic that appears to focus entirely on matters of love. One thing that isn’t clear to me yet is whether this is the only kind of magic that the aunts are capable of, or if it’s just what the local women know them for and they’ve made a business out of it. Everything from the lack of names (for readers, anyways) to their apparent disregard of Gillian and Sally as children paints them almost like the witches of fairytales in my head. The aunts certainly don’t do anything to dissuade the rumors and superstitions that surround the Owens women, adult and child alike.
Michaela: Love doesn’t seem to be the only magic they do because they also tried to find magical solutions to Michael’s death before it happened. So I’m thinking that they’re just known for their magic involving love, maybe it’s their specialty. I find it very strange that they have yet to be named but they are also never really seen talking individually. Everything the narrator or characters say about them is something like “the aunts said this” or “the aunts did this”. They’re always represented as one entity. I get a very Macbeth witch or the Fates kind of vibe from them. I think the aunts must be leaning into the Owens family's perceived image a little too much, they do nothing to change it until Sally and Michael are together. The aunts clearly love the girls but I think they heavily rely on the Owens women’s histories which affects the way they show their love and support. It’s a very interesting family dynamic to read about.
Gillian and Sally’s relationship with each other is also very interesting. They are so different from each other and as they got older it really felt like they wouldn’t actually like one another if they weren’t sisters and had a past together. Which isn’t unheard of, of course. It seems like an extreme difference.
Jacilyn: I’m very interested in the dynamic of the family as a whole, and I’m sure there’s information there that would make us go “ahhh, that’s why they’re like that.” Really, it’s a good way to catch the attention of readers and make them want more information. It seems to me that the aunts love the girls in a way they didn’t love Sally and Gillian, and honestly there could be many reasons behind that.
After Gillian and Sally’s parents died, it seems like Sally did all the raising herself. She did everything, all the cleaning, the shopping, the cooking, and keeping an eye on Gillian. All they had were each other as children, through the bullying and trauma they experienced. I think they reacted to the trauma in opposite ways, but both of their lives have been ruled by the impacts of love nonetheless - even though one of the mo st prevalent traumas of their childhood seems to be witnessing what such a strong desire for love did to the girl from the drugstore. That situation was a classic example of the exact and dubious nature of magic.
Michaela: I wonder if the aunts feel closer to Antonia and Kylie because they seem to possess more magical ability than Sally and Gillian. Or at least they aren’t afraid of their magical abilities in the same way as Sally and Gillian, who always pretended (and still do) that nothing magical was happening. Everything is very mysterious right now and it's really hooked me. So far I really enjoy the writing. The author is giving us just enough information that I need to keep reading because I need to figure these people out.
I think the aunts are suffering from the same affliction many many grandparents suffer from. It’s the this grandchild isn’t solely my responsibility so therefore I can spoil them and love them more deeply because ultimately it’s not my fault if they end up screwed up. So many people are strict parents until they have grandkids and then all of a sudden they’re super forgiving and loose about everything. Which is actually the most normal thing the aunts have done throughout this book so far. I’m sure it also doesn’t help that Sally and Gillian were basically just thrown at the aunts who were not prepared. I’m assuming the aunts never wanted kids but they definitely cared for Sally and Gillian. Sally even mentions that they would sit up with them all night when they were sick as kids and stuff. I think the aunts love the sisters but I think they feel closer to the two younger girls for these various reasons.
The drugstore girl story was really intense magic and gave a good insight on how magic works in this world. Magic comes with a price in many stories and this one doesn’t shy away from that. I think the drugstore girl’s story was so extreme because she wished for things to happen too quickly and the momentum of it was too much. Like a magical explosion that caused waves that she couldn't swim out of. How I’m understanding the aunts' love magic is that they cast a simple spell or do a ritual to get one thing to happen that the customer requests, but then from there the responsibility lies with that customer. So the drugstore girl wished for the man to love her but then she hated how he was showing his love so then magic backfired on her and it kept getting worse and worse for her. Maybe magic in this world has a personality and requires respect. I’m super interested in this magic system, if you couldn’t tell.
Jacilyn: It seems to me that the spell the drugstore girl was given was implemented very literally. Whether that was at the behest of the aunts or the magic itself, though…. I’m not sure. The language of the spell is “there’ll be no way for him to rest nor sleep, until he comes to me to speak.” This particular part of the spell seems to have gone to the extreme, because Mr. Halliwell literally followed the drugstore girl around everywhere, in such an unusual and unnatural way (even if he was naturally obsessive and stalk-ey) once they were married. Perhaps the magic gave more weight to that sentence of the spell, and less to the final sentence that says “only when he loves me best will he find peace, and with peace, rest.”
Gillian and Sally promise each other and themselves that they’ll never let love affect them the way these women who came seeking their aunts did, but both of them seem to be cursed in love in their own ways. Gillian, and Antonia later on, both have this almost unnatural pull on men, who fall in love with them before they can even blink, it seems. This leads Gillian to a lifestyle of constant flux - new relationships, new locations, unreliable and irresponsible. Then there’s Sally, who is almost the opposite. She falls madly in love with a wonderful man who even the aunts love, builds a beautiful life with him, all for him to die tragically, resulting in a long depression where she withdraws from basically everyone. Ironically, this is the one instance where Gillian actually is reliable. She called Sally consistently the entire year.
I wonder if Antonia and Kylie would have had a different relationship with the aunts if Sally hadn’t basically abandoned them during her depression. All they had at that point were the aunts, in the midst of dealing with the horrible loss of their father as well. I think they would have been closer to the aunts than Sally and Gillian no matter what, but their relationship with Sally was very negatively impacted after their father’s death.
Michaela: I think Sally’s depression response to Michael’s death really pushed the girls away from her and towards the aunts. I agree, I think Antonia and Kylie would have been close with the aunts no matter what but they basically lost both their father and their mother just in two different ways. So the girls relied on the aunts to fill both voids.
I don’t support how Sally just decided to rip the kids away from the aunts. It clearly affected them badly. Moving sucks no matter what but Sally did it so suddenly and without explanation to the kids, who deserved an explanation. Kids may not be the ones making the decisions but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be part of it. I feel very strongly about children understanding why things like moves are happening and their feelings should be respected. I feel like Sally really did not respect the girls feelings or even comfort them. I was pretty disappointed in Sally during this part of the book.
I’m glad that Sally is happier in this new town, new house, new job stuff. Kylie and Antonia also seem to be okay but not necessarily happy. The kids only really get along and are fully happy when they're at the aunts. I can’t tell if this is a magical thing or just a family thing.
Jacilyn: I think things would be a lot smoother between the girls and Sally if she would just communicate with them. Why she wanted to get away from the aunts, why she reacted the way she did when their father died (an apology would be good here too…. As far as we know, she never addressed her depression with the girls at all). And, perhaps more than anything, her reaction to Gillian dying Kylie’s hair. Gillian just shows up all of a sudden, the aunt that the girls had never met, and takes Kylie under her wing - Kylie, the daughter who was considered the “plain” one. Of course she’s going to see Gillian as someone to look up to. She’s been living in Antonia’s shadow literally her whole life, and Gillian is so much like Antonia.
I think it’s time to talk about the elephant in the room. Or, I guess, the body in the garden. I’m honestly surprised at how Sally reacted to Gillian showing up with a dead body. Just buries him underneath her lilacs like nothing ever happened!? There’s some sort of magic happening here, and I think both Gillian and Sally are trying their best to pretend that it’s not. These lilacs are growing like crazy, being fertilized by the body decaying in the soil below, and I think the sincere love that Gillian had for this awful man has something to do with it.
Michaela: Sally’s reaction to Kylie’s hair pissed me off honestly. It’s hair first of all and it’s Kylie’s hair second of all. She was happy and felt nice, yet no one could feel happy for her not even her best friend. That whole scene was absolutely ridiculous, but very realistic unfortunately. I remember trying to convince my mom to let me dye my hair. It was a whole damn process where we had to go to the salon together for her to approve the color I chose before even scheduling an appointment, then after getting back home from just looking at colors we had to go back and choose a different color because it was just “too different”. Absolute bullshitery. Let the kid express herself, she felt so confident and beautiful. Sally just dumped 30 years of jealousy for Gillian onto Kylie and it was completely unfair. I do think Gillian overstepped here, she should have checked with Sally first. But it's still just dyed hair, they’re all acting like she set fire to the house. Like damn, get over it. And when Sally basically said “after all I’ve done for you” in response to Kylie’s hair. NO. We don’t do that here, kids don’t owe their parents anything. The parent chose to have a kid therefore the kid is their responsibility. That child did not choose to exist, you chose for them, they owe you nothing. I feel very strongly about this kind of stuff, friends.
That reaction to a hair dye job versus the reaction to Gillian's LITERAL DEAD BODY in her car. Makes absolutely no sense. I definitely feel like magic has been trying to bring Sally and Gillian back together and is now calling out to them with the lilacs. Clearly Kylie has some magical abilities with auras which is really cool. When she saw Jimmy in the back yard I was so taken aback. Her ability just came right out of nowhere, maybe turning 13 is the magic age in this world. But even when Sally would take the girls back to the aunts during summer she said she knew it was time to leave when the girls stood in the backyard and the garden came alive basically. So the girls both have some sort of magic in them or magic is drawn to them. Magic is deeply connected to this family in all generations.
Jacilyn: I think Sally’s reaction was part jealousy, but mostly fear that Kylie would end up living the life Gillian had up to that point. At one point she mentions something about Gillian taking Kylie’s innocence away. I wish she would, again, just express those fears to Kylie, Gillian, AND Antonia. I think they all need to sit down together and have a good group therapy session and talk some shit out. I do agree that Sally’s reaction was way too much, and not cool towards Kylie at all. She doesn’t deserve to be in trouble - if anyone does, it’s Gillian because she did this knowing the impact it was going to have. She knows how Sally is.
I hadn’t thought about magic trying to bring Gillian and Sally back together but I think you hit the nail on the head there. They’re trying to bring them together, and bring them towards the magic once more. They can’t keep hiding from it, especially with Kylie seeing auras. It’s interesting to me that with Kylie’s hair dyed and cut, it seems like her and Antonia suddenly switched roles. I can’t imagine that is going to play out very well, but I’m wondering if we’ll start seeing some more magical proclivities from Antonia now as well. Like you mentioned before, they both seemed to interact and vibe with the magic surrounding the aunts.
With Kylie having seen the body (spiritual aura, perhaps?) of Jimmy in the garden, I think it’s fair to expect shit to hit the fan soon. Excuse the pun, but this secret couldn’t stay buried for long. We’ll see you next time!
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