Sarah Addison Allen reminds me of Alice Hoffman; both writers take ordinary-seeming women, put them in amazing (but not unusual) situations, and then they prove themselves to be tougher, stronger, and smarter than they previously thought.
Garden Spells much like
Practical Magic, deals with two sisters, one of which is lost and unstable, and who comes home to get the help from the sister who still lives at home. They learn to be independent and how to love themselves and good men. It's an uplifting and sweet novel.
The other aspect of Allen's writing that is reminiscent of Hoffman (and that I love) is that the reader can never quite tell whether magic is involved in the stories. In
The Sugar Queen the main character Josey is restricted by her demanding mother and bad self-image, and therefore debillitatingly antisocial. However, she slips into a friendship with a sandwich shop owner, Chloe, who is going through a bad breakup and needs a good friend. The question is, does fate bring these two women together, or Josey's mysterious stowaway Della Lee? Clarification on this issue isn't necessary to enjoy this novel, which is bright and happy like
Garden Spells.
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