Wow. This book was so divorced from the film. Completely different universes.

If you have been avoiding this book thinking it was horror, like I did, stop. Right now. It's not even close to horror. The entire book is brilliantly benign.

Seriously, they are nothing alike at all. If you like witches give this a try. ( )

A family of siblings with unusual gifts grow up and their gifts help and hurt them. Not my style of subject, but Hoffman is a good writer. ( )

Note: The movie is a mere skim off the top of this book, with a heaping tablespoon of whimsy, and a hefty dose of Hollywood glopped on towards the end. You'll recognize things from the movie in this book - but they're really not the same animal. I enjoyed both. I liked this book, I'm glad I read it, but I did not love it enough to relegate it to the shelf of things I cherish and reread over and over again. 3 1/2 stars. ( )

Did not finish; too silly & going nowhere. ( )

I was really excited to read this book because this is one of my favorite movies. Unfortunately this was one of those rare instances where the movie was actually better than the book. I found that there really wasn't anything in the book that wasn't covered in the movie, and the things that were different seemed better in the movie.
I had a hard time with the way the author described the men falling in love with these women so easily, it just seemed kind of add the way people were falling all over them at times.
Overall, the story isn't bad, it's just not worth reading if you've already seen the film. ( )