Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

I picked up this book because the description on the cover made me think of the YA fiction books I was fond of and the movie Practical Magic, which is still one of my favorites.

The novel is set in the fictional town of Bascom, North Carolina, where every family has something particular to its members. The Waverley women, the story's main characters, have a knack for having intuitive, almost psychic, abilities. The Clark women can use their sexual prowess to make nearly anything they want happen. The Hopkins men are only meant to fall in love with older women. Everyone more or less knows what role they will fall into and regardless of newcomers in town regarding these things as superstitions, the locals all have one another's places figured out as well.

The story opens with Syndey Waverely, the younger of the two Waverley sisters fleeing home to Bascom with her daughter Bay to get away from a dangerous man that abused her and kept her under lock and key, only allowing her to leave the house three times a week to take Bay to the park. She's returning to a place she never wanted to be, the same place that her older sister Claire never wanted to leave. Claire at 34 years old is beautiful but on her way to becoming a spinster with no friends or romatic possibilities, a stick in the mud, and a caterer who uses the herbs in her garden to make her famous dishes both delicious and magical. She also has an apple tree in her back yard with apples that will reveal the biggest moment of your life to you if you eat one of them. Her stable, monotonous world is turned inside out when her sister returns home and Tyler, the art professor, moves in next door, daring her to fall in love with him when she's resisted becoming close to others for so long.

This story is loaded with small town gossips, drama that carries over from high school that people should have forgotten years ago, snobbery, and quirky characters. My favorite is James, a lonely old gay grocer whose long time partner leaves him, causing James to move in with a widow named Evenelle that is forever weirding people out because she is always getting the sudden urge to give people specific things, knowing they'll need a mango splitter or a box of Strawberry poptarts for reasons that remain unknown to her but become clear to the doubtful person the gift is given to shortly afterwards.

I couldn't put it down because I had to know if Claire would get the stick out of her arse and take a chance, if Syndey had really escaped this time, why Evanelle had given her strange gifts, to find out who Henry Hopkins' older woman would be. I felt a little disappointed at the end because it seemed to wrap up a little bit too easily. I decided to give Allen a break though, as it's her first novel.

I thought it was a charming book, but it probably will never be any kind of award winner. It was a nice break from the CJ and Literary Criticism textbooks I've been reading, though, that's for sure. The writer lives in Asheville, North Carolina and is working on her next book now, which I am already excited about.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling

The Harry Potter books are extremely plot-driven. While Rowling’s writing is not bad, it is fairly utilitarian. That being said, her generally straightforward prose allows for some of the smoothest (and enjoyable) reading I have ever experienced. But ease of reading is only one of my criteria for determining how much I like a book. For example, Lolita was just a little over 300 pages, but took me nearly three weeks to finish. The writing was dense, with complex allusions and clever turns of phrase. On the other hand, I read The Goblet of Fire (700 some odd pages) in one day. I liked Goblet, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Lolita.

So, I was somewhat surprised when Rowling’s writing caught my attention on more than one occasion in The Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final chapter in the Potter saga. There were many instances where I thought Rowling showed a depth that she had not previously exhibited.

There was a good deal of exposition that had to be done in order for this book to make sense. After all, Rowling had a lot of loose ends to tie up. I don’t want to ruin the series for anyone by giving away too many plot points. I will say that I thought the epilogue was generally unnecessary. Some of what was established in the epilogue would no doubt have already been imagined by the readers. But I liked the book, and the series—The Order of the Phoenix is clearly the worst of the books. That’s all I’ll say. So, if you have any desire to read these books you should do so now, before some moron spoils the series for you by telling you how things end.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling

After The Order of the Phoenix, I was hoping that the next Harry Potter book would be better…much better. The Half-Blood Prince did exactly what Phoenix did not: start off with a bang and maintain that energy throughout. The book opens with the Minister of Magic meeting with the Prime Minister—the Muggle Minister, if you will. This was a great way to begin the book. Rowling is able to quickly let readers know that Voldemort has been wreaking havoc on the non-magic world—as well as the wizarding world—and she is able to do so in an interesting way.

As Harry and company return to Hogwarts, things have changed. The threat that Voldemort poses is much more immediate. The students are constantly getting news of people that have ‘disappeared’, some of them relatives of Hogwarts students. And there is fear that despite all of its defenses, Hogwarts may not be impervious to attacks by Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

In potions class, Harry gets a used textbook with notes, shortcuts, and spells scribbled in the margins by its previous owner, the Half-Blood Prince. (Ladies and gentlemen, we have a title.) These spells appear to be of the prince’s own creation, and some of them involve darker magic than Harry is used to.

With the help of Dumbledore, Harry begins to find out pertinent information about Voldemort’s past. Horcruxes, y’all! Horcruxes. I am glad that I don’t have to wait for a year to read the next one.