Rating: 
Summary: Not Her Best
Review: I have read just about every Alice Hoffman book that there is, and I have to say that this one was definitley not one of my favorites. I finished the book thinking, what was the point? There is no real story about any one character, just a bunch of stories of each person's lives in the comunity. I kept thinking that she was eventually going to center around Nora Silk, but she really never did. I think if she had done that, then there would have been more of a storyline. Unfortunatley, I would not recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Hoffman Enchants Again
Review: I just finished re-reading this delightful book of Alice Hoffman's. I have had a hard time finding new fiction which interests me lately, so I went back to some old favorites.This story takes place in the late 50s in a community on Long Island, a former potato field where all the houses look so much alike that sometimes women wander around for hours trying to find their houses. Into this cookie-cutter community of stay-at-home mothers with perfect homes arrives Nora Silk, divorced from her magician husband, with two small boys. The house she moves into is reputed to be haunted and is slowly disintegrating. Nora is not welcomed by the other mothers, as they have never known anyone who is divorced and they are suspicious of her (and afraid of what their husbands will do). One look at Nora in her stretch pants and spike heels and you know what the husbands thought! Her son Billy is shunned at school--it does not help that he can read others' thoughts. All Nora wants is to be accepted, grow flowers, and have some friends. But to her credit, she never succumbs to artifice in this quest. Instead of acceptance, Nora is labelled as a witch and Billy fails every subject except penmanship. As for the rest of her life, she "crossed her fingers and waited, she thought good thoughts and experimented with casseroles that contained olive loaf and hoped that would be enough." There is some of Hoffman's magical realiam woven into the story, but so adroitly that the reader hardly realizes it and must go back and re-read the passage. Hoffman's character descriptions are subtle and spare, but draw a complete picture of this neighborhood. Another great book by this author!
Rating: 
Summary: Decent portrayal of suburbia from a feminist perspective.
Review: I was recommended Hoffman by my sister and decided to check out what she is about. A smidge of magic realism mixed with a portrayal of a community and the characters that comprise it. As a man who holds some distaste and disdain for my suburban roots, I enjoyed the pinpricks at the balloon of suburban conformity. I was also genuinely surprised by this book at points, especially in the Ace/Nora axis. I was not fully satisfied with this book, but I feel that any dissatisfaction reflects my own situation more than the authors' failure to achieve her aims. The change agents in this book are women who throw off the shackles of an imprisoning 50s ideal of woman and the children these women have birthed. The men in this book do not grow in the same kind of ways. I may read more Hoffman to develop a greater understanding of her work. I feel that I have read a good book but I may not be the intended audience for it.
Rating:
Summary: I couldn't put this book down!
Review: I've read a few Alice Hoffman books, and she is certainly becoming one of my favorite writers. This book has everything. Nora and her son Billy bring out such raw emotion. Donna Durgin's plight made me want to cry out for her. The mystical, magical, and even voodoo are included. I loved it.
Rating: 
Summary: Involved story . . .
Review: Seventh Heaven is the sixth book I have read by writer, Alice Hoffman. I obviously think she is an interesting storyteller, as well as an excellent writer of words, or else I wouldn't keep reading her novels. Some I like better than others, though I haven't come across a horrible book yet (though Here On Earth is still my least favorite thus far). I noticed one main thing that all of her books have in common, and that's the feeling of wistfulness and despair in her books. Like many of her other works, Seventh Heaven centers around a town -- a community. Nora Silk, who is one of her main characters, but certainly not the only one, moves into this town as the only divorced woman on the block. This book takes place in 1959 where people just stayed married, regardless of whether or not the two people involved are happy in the relationship. Not only is Nora divorced, but she's raising two boys: Billy, an elementary-school aged child, and James, a baby. Billy has problems in school fitting in, and becomes withdrawn to the point where he tries to make himself invisible. Nora is a woman whom the other mothers steer clear from at first. She's a woman who doesn't appear to raise her children in a conventional way. She's also a woman who will take romance regardless of the form when she starts having an affair with a seventeen-year-old neighbor, Ace McCarthy. This story isn't just about Nora being dejected, as well as her kids, by a whole neighborhood, and then later accepted. No, it's also about the neighbors: The McCarthy boys, Ace and Jackie, who can't seem to stay out of trouble. It's about the cop, Joe Hennessy, who lives across the street from Nora with his wife, Ellen, and boy, Stevie, who likes to torture Nora's son, Billy, in school. It's about the Shapiros, Danny and Rickie, and their parents. Danny, a kid who seems smart enough to get into any college he wants, slowly drifts, and his sister, Rickie, who seems to be confused about her own growing pains and morals. It's also about Donna Durgin, who walks out on her young children and husband because her life feels too empty. One cannot forget that this is also a story about Cathy Corrigan, who gets killed in a car accident and seems to haunt some of her peers from the grave. Like many of Alice Hoffman's books, Seventh Heaven leaves you with a weird, unconnected feeling after you're finished with the book. You may feel that way because that is how her characters are portrayed, as if nothing in the end was ever resolved. This book, much like Turtle Moon, and even Fortune's Daughter, leaves you with that very feeling. Seventh Heaven is a very full read, with a very involved storyline, and very humble and real characters. It shows how very unique Alice Hoffman is as a writer.
Rating:
Summary: Good choice for first time Hoffman readers
Review: This is a nice, easy, enjoyable Hoffman read, complete with interesting characters, the surprising twists and turns that their life paths take, and a couple ghost appearances thrown in for good measure. A great look at finding meaning in our lives and relationshiops in the late 50's suburbs.
Rating:
Summary: A turn of the decade novel with typical Hoffman wonder.
Review: This is another fantastic book from the author of 'Practical Magic,' 'Blue Diary,' and 'The Probable Future.' Nora Silk is not the typical woman of 1959 Long Island. She's divorced, has two children, and never seems to care if they get dirty while they play. She wears high heels and black stretch pants, and her nails are always done in bright colours. Her eldest son, Billy, tends to pick stray thoughts out of the minds of people around him, and James, only months-old, eats anything he can find in one chubby cute hand. When they move onto the street where the norm is two parents, two children, and nothing unexpected, Nora Silk is ostracized, Billy is bullied, and it seems that the status quo will always regain its balance.
But the men start to notice Nora's distinct grace with more than a bit of lust, and Nora's comments and advice to the women start to break cracks in the veneer of "we should do what we have always done." Sparks fly, a trace of magic is in the air, and before long, 1959 is going to roll over into the sixties, and Nora Silk's influence will be felt by all.
I adored this book - much as I adored the previously mentioned Hoffman titles I listed above - and had that trademarked Hoffman lump in my throat when the book was drawing to a close. As always, it's the characters - and the level of empathy you feel for all of them - that keep you going, and Hoffman's deft touch with a trace of the supernatural always leaves you charmed. A ghost here, a clairvoyant there, and a tangled thread of folk remedies throughout, there's something magical in how she writes, and how the reader feels while watching her worlds.
'Nathan
Rating:
Summary: What kind of heroine is this?
Review: This is my first experience with Alice Hoffman, and what a disappointment. She has a lovely, easy style. But the characters? It's not that I don't sympathize with divorced, single mothers, lonely teenagers, unfulfilled women, et al. Am I supposed to empathize with or like Nora Silk, who refuses to adequately provide what her obviously emotionally needy and lonely son requires, and who shamelessly capitalizes on her neighbor's offers of assistance while she secretly sleeps with the neighbor's 17-year-old son? Am I supposed to empathize with or like the Saint, who may be genuinely concerned about neighborhood children but largely ignores his own? Or poor little Donna, who would rather run away and be thin than to stay at home and face her challenge of repairing a marriage and raising her children? I understand Hoffman's desire to de-mythologize the '50s suburban experience, but to foist Nora Silk onto her readers as some kind of positive, liberating harbinger of the decade to come is naive and even condescending.
Rating:
Summary: A good first choice
Review: This is the fourth book I've read by Alice Hoffman. I have also read 'At Risk', 'Turtle Moon' and 'Second Nature.' If you haven't read Alice Hoffman before, I highly recommened you start with this one. She tends to write about slightly odd things. Seventh Heaven (and I have no idea why it's called that,) is a story of a small community where every house is the same and everyone is married with children and everybody is happy (or at least pretends to be) and everything is perfect. Then Nora Silk and her two boys move in. Nora is divorced and is raising her children by herself. In all the other families, the man works and the woman stays home but because Nora is on her own, she works. Nora is treated harshly because she's different. Her kids aren't always spotless and they don't get the most nutritious meal but she does the best she can. As time goes on, things change in the community, everything is a little off. Seventh Heaven has some adult material and so I wouldn't recommended it for young teenagers or kids. It has sex and one instance of murder in it.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting characters but skittish storyline
Review: This was my first Alice Hoffman. The book had too many undeveloped characters running through it. I found it hard to believe that is was set in the 1950's. It was as if Alice Hoffman knew a selected few things about life in the 50's and intermingled them throughout the story, ie, references to Elvis music and car models. The story flitted between too many characters in each chapter. Before you realized it, the next paragraph was referring to someone new. Too many metaphors in her writing. The story needed more meat and less people. I generally love character filled novels but this was too much. I have yet to read Turtle Moon. Hopefully, it's better.
|
