Customer Reviews

Green Witch

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As an Alice Hoffman fan of the first order, I picked Green Witch prepared to add it to my lengthy list of her books which I adore and would recommend hands down. As other reviewers have pointed out, it's pure prose poetry.
What I didn't realize is that it's a sequel. I recommend reading Green Angel first (I will have to do that retroactively.) As a stand alone there is simply too much left unexplained. The five sections - Stone Witch, Sky Witch, Rose Witch, River Witch, and Green Witch, which comprise the slim Green Witch volume feel almost parenthetical to a far greater tale - as, indeed, they are. And though the ending is hopeful, as is true with every Alice Hoffman story, Green Witch has such a tragic overall cast that instead of feeling - oh, "things will be all right despite everything for these characters", I felt almost the opposite - despite their finding one another, coming together, being a "family" - nothing can ever be all right again, and they may survive and love, but they won't really live...
Here's what I think Scholastic should do. (My humble opinion.) Have Ms. Hoffman complete a third book, one that does bring the story full-circle, and has a more upbeat, maybe even a little funny at moments, overall feeling. Call it Green Garden, or Green Spirit... Then package the three as a trilogy.

I loved Green Angel and I was so happy to see the sequel because Green definitely had more to tell...

In the first book Green loses her family in a horrible disaster that occurs when they visit a local city that is set ablaze by terrorist type people called "The Horde". The Horde despise any type of growth and advancement in civilization. In Green Witch we find out more about them and their mission:

"Repent...Don't even try to fight because heaven is on our side."

A chilling similarity to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that parallels the terrorists opinions that we deserved their hate and wrath.

What I love about these two books is that they are about hope and love and that with the help of those around us we can eventually rise above the despair of losing people we love.

Green mourns the life before the fires and can't see that she will ever get over her loss. She tattoos her body with roses and thorns and closes herself off to the rest of world. It is only when she decides to start helping others in need, animals and people alike, that she truly starts to break through her own grief and regret.

In Green Witch Green sets out to find two people disappear from her life...Heather a school mate whose brother asks for Greens help and Diamond, the boy who brought love back into Green's life. There are secrets in both disappearances and Green knows that in order to complete her journey she must find the truth.

Magical, magical writing that you will find yourself re-reading and perhaps writing down certain meaningful and lovely passages that you want to remember...

"Dreams are like air. They never leave you. It takes less than nothing to begin."

Both books are just barely over a hundred pages...they are more about quality than quantity and Greens story will leave a lasting impression. I have never had a student that I recommended the books to return them unread.

In GREEN ANGEL, Green loses her family and herself to an all-encompassing disaster in the city from fundamentalist zealots (kinda like 9/11, but with destruction amplified many times over). After a long and desperate time, she begins to heal with the help of an old neighbor and Diamond, a young man she loves. With her gift for making things grow, she is again Green, not Ash, the name she gave herself when she was most desperate.

In GREEN WITCH, Green now longs only for the other half of her heart: Diamond. In order to find her other half, she seeks out the counsel of four witches: Stone Witch, Sky Witch, Rose Witch, and River Witch. Each one shows her by word and deed what she must do to find Diamond. They help her, but she must also help herself...and others besides Diamond.

Hoffman's poetic prose is greener than Green...verdant, lush, all-encompassing and redolent with the scent and substance of loamy magic. Her imagery combines the tangible with the magical, such as the different kinds of paper Green creates for her stories, depending on the person involved. The Rose Witch's paper is made with rose water "so that the pages are tinged with flecks of crimson." She adds rose petals to it as well. Don't you want this paper? I do.

I almost want to live in Green's world, even though the Horde (the fundamental zealots who want to repress women and learning and individual thought and technology) is an imminent threat. Like Green, Hoffman forges a place of peace and exquisite beauty from the ashes and it's a lovely haven, one I wish to enter again and again.

It is best to read "Green Angel" first however; there is enough flashback thoughts to fill in the necessary original tail to continue the tail in this book. We also get a few thoughts that should have been in the first story. We will revisit with many of Greens old friends.

Now it has been a year sense the disaster and what should have been the end of Green's story is just the beginning. Her mission is to collect people's stories. This includes stories for several so-called witches that were to contribute to her plan to recover her soul mate. That is if he does not turn out to be one of the bad guys.

It is the incidences of the story that makes the book. Being a paper maker, myself I found the references to the types of paper she make to match people's stories very interesting in its self.

This story contains many helpful sayings for those who have experiences a loss regardless of age or gender. I often wonder if she actually wrote it for a particular someone. Moreover, looking closer you can see the reflections of a Joseph Campbell coming of age story. Alice Hoffman would have to have read Campbell as part of any good creative writing class.


The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Bollingen Series)

Even though Green is better off than right after the great disaster and destruction of her world, she still has so much to despair about. She is still alone, without her family and the boy she loves.

In order to find out who she really is, Green heads out to a world she believed she could never before face for the chance to find all the love, answers, freedom, and retribution she has been searching for.

On her journey, Green learns to fight for love no matter how impossible it may seem - and, of course, conquer the fears that stop her from succeeding.

Like the plants in her garden, Hoffman's Green has grown and blossomed into a timeless character that rises from the ashes of despair, never to return. Green is no longer held down but, instead, rises to a heart-clenching victory of love and peace of mind after questioning the world's belief in love, loss, and revival.

In GREEN WITCH, Hoffman once again succeeds in portraying a gravity-defying character who proves she has the strength of millions. I love, love, love this book, which is just as startling as GREEN ANGEL and that surely will bring tears of joy to the eyes for no reason and every reason. The reader learns that love is life; it keeps us alive whether we are aware of it or not. It doesn't stop anything or anyone from reaching aspirations, but brings us toward them faster than light.

Reviewed by: AdrienneBe

Green Witch / 978-0-545-14195-6

A direct sequel to "Green Angel", this novel is that most rare and lovely of sequels - one that makes you appreciate the first all the more. Whereas "Green Angel" explored the deep themes of pain, loss, and rebirth in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy, "Green Witch" explores the growth and renewal that can take place after that rebirth has occurred.

In the same dreamy, magical realism tone employed in the first novel, the titular character Green travels through the world around her, hoping to pick up the pieces. As she learns the stories of the townsfolk, she learns of others like her - strange women who have been burned by the tragedy and who are now whispered to be witches. Green travels to each woman in turn, hoping to learn their stories, and seeking for the people that she lost in the first novel - her friend Heather and her true love Diamond. Along the way, Green meets the animals she healed in "Green Angel", and sees them happy and whole again, thanks to her aid and kindness.

Like "Green Angel", this novel will not appeal to everyone. The book is very short - approximately 130 pages - and the brief sentences and repetitive storytelling will allow quick readers to whip through in an hour or two. The sense of magical realism is still present, with Green having her own version of "Fertile Feet" - flowers and vines grow at a tremendous pace in her vicinity, and each of the 'witches' she meets has her own version of magic to show. Fans of the first novel will expect this, of course, but they may not expect the gentle retcons to the previous book: the tragedy that was hinted at having a man-made cause in the first book has now been upgraded to a full-out terrorist attack by religious extremists known as the "Horde", who intend now to complete what they started. Although "Green Witch" still retains a deeply introspective tone, the introspection has now been turned to people other than Green, outside her cottage, in accordance with the new themes of this novel.

If you liked "Green Angel", even just a little bit, "Green Witch" deserves your attention - if anything, it made me like the first novel even more, and it provides a richly deserved conclusion to the story.

NOTE: This review is based on a free Advance Review Copy of this book provided through Amazon Vine.

~ Ana Mardoll

The voice of Green is spare and traumatized as she struggles to trust and to reach out for the love of a boy who appeared in her garden in the post-apocalyptic world after the Horde burned the city where her family perished. The book is written so that the surroundings are as much of a character as the people. Green's search for Diamond, who left and never returned is as much about her realization of the right to love in a destroyed world as anything else. I loved the lush landscapes, the way she reached out to the elder women. Defeating the Horde was too easy, but since the tone is dreamlike, it doesn't detract.

The book is a well written and entertaining fantasy
about a girl and her recovery from an attack by by the horde
that kills her entire family and burns the city across
the river from her village. Her talents in the garden seem
to be multiplied by her grief. She begins to write the stories of the survivors
who seem to have wild talents like her own.
In her reaching out she finds she meets her best friends
brother who is searching for his sister as she is for the boy she nursed after
the fire. Their efforts combine to bring a resolution
to the conflicts that plague their culture.

Green has survived, even after her family perishes in a vicious attack by the Horde. She becomes sort of a witch, able to have her garden grow overnight. Green sets out to collect the stories she really wants from the Enchanted ones(others call them witches), that each have their own story to tell, much like Green. Green is the keeper of people's stories. She makes her own paper, unique for each person, then she writes down each of their stories. This is Green's story and how she journeyed to find the one who can give your true love desires.

I really enjoyed this sequel to Green Angel. Alice Hoffman crafts another beautiful tale about the young girl known as Green. Now Green has grown up, not in age, but within herself. She has grown to accept the new world that she is in. If you enjoyed Green Angel than this is definitely a book you must pick up. If you haven't read it you should try it. They are both quick, thoughtful, lyrical reads and you should not be disappointed. I loved following Green on her journey to self-realization and a renewed sense of happiness. This was a very encouraging and touching novel that explores what it means to lose someone and find yourself from the piece that are left.

First Line: "This is what I remembered."

Favorite Line: "Before long, Leaf will only have to whisper and the wisteria will bloom."

It's a not-so-futuristic world where civilization has crumbled and books have been destroyed, and one girl is changing everything in her own quiet way. "Green Witch" is a sequel to Alice Hoffman's novella "Green Angel," and it's written in the same quietly poetic style, filled with leaves, stones, doves ashes and glimmering lights. The only downside:a totally implausible clash with the Horde.

After losing her family, Green has devoted herself to two things -- growing plants in her magically flourishing garden, and making paper tinged with celery, spices, ashes, roses and other things. With that paper, she makes books to replace the ones the Horde has burned, and fills them with people's memories and knowledge.

And Green travels to the women called the Enchanted, who are labelled witches by other people -- she wants to learn of their histories and immortalize their stories in her books. But her own story is unfinished, ever since the boy she fell in love with, Diamond, left to find his family. And when she sees a photograph of Diamond riding with the horde, she sets out to learn if he has joined their enemies, or is a prisoner of them.

"Green Witch" is a haiku of a novella -- a delicate prose poem that's saturated in dreamlike imagery and magical realism. Hoffman devotes this brief story to wrapping up Green's personal story, and showing how the world is coping after "that day" -- the story is left open-ended, but it's obvious that Hoffman is tying off all the subplots.

And her writing, while technically prose, drips with poetry from every page. Her prose full of moonlight, paper, leaves, roses and spices, and the story drifts along in a way that makes the months of Green's life feel almost like a dream. The story itself is rather simple and straightforward, but it's tangled up in musings about the power of stories and love, and the hints of what is ahead for humanity as it recovers from "that day."

The one problem? The whole clash between Green and the Horde -- and especially the pat result of it -- stretches plausibility to the point of snapping. So the entire army conveniently groups in one place?

Green's story was left unfinished in "Green Angel," and here she's grown into a full-grown, self-sufficient woman who occupies her own niche in her community. She's also still in love with Diamond, although her doubts about whether he's joined the Horde never really feel convincing. And Hoffman sprinkles the story with other brief, glimmering characters -- Diamond, a trio of tragic "witches," the Finder, and Green's little village.

"Green Witch" is a crystalline little sequel to "Green Angel," and while the climax is pretty unbelievable, its beauty is enough to sweep you away.