Customer Reviews

Local Girls

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book of interconnected short stories is a wonderful look at how sensuous and graceful a story can be. Instead of cramming everything she can into each of the short stories that make up this book, Alice Hoffman lets the tales unfold on their own time. It might take three stories to understand the motivation of one character, but it's worth the time it takes to get there.

I don't think this book was intended to read as a novel, so I am mystified at comments of supposed missing depth. Hoffman's book is a connected series of stories in which the reader is free to fill in the gaps. I give her credit for experimenting with this form.

I would like to preface my comments by explaining that the three stars are only because I hold Ms. Hoffman to such high standards, but I did find this book truly wonderful. Local girls is a collection of stories that travel through Gretel Samuelson's adolescence involving her beautiful, best friend, Jill, her self-destructive yet intelligent brother, Jason, her vibrant aunt, Margot, and her cancer-ridden, abandoned mother, Frances. What I love about Hoffman is that she doesn't feel the need to glorify her characters, instead she allows their imperfections to crawl through us and realize the beauty that exists anyway. Her language is breathtaking as usual, and she continues to incorporate the wonders and hardships of desire that we experience every day. The stories are either told to us by Gretel, or narrated by Hoffman. It is a lovely book and yet there is not enough of it. I would have preffered a novel rather than a collection. I needed more substance to illustrate the development that took place between stories, because there appeared to be significant chunks of the characters that I never got to see. I was very unsatisfied with Jason's character in particular. The book reflected the strength of women, but Jason was a significant part of the story line, and so much was left unsaid. I do recommend this book though, as well as other Hoffmans' namely: Practical Magic (don't see the movie), Here On Earth, Second Nature, and Seventh Heaven. She is a magical, sexy, illuminating writer.

It is always a pleasure to read a good book. Alice Hoffman is a literary "witch" who weaves a little magic into each of her novels. Although this is not one of her best novels (try TURTLE MOON or HERE ON EARTH)---it's really a little too short to explore any of the character's psyche or motivations---Ms. Hoffman has given the reader another pager turner full of glorious prose. She makes ordinary life extraordinary in each of her novels, and she has fast become my favorite author.

Alice Hoffman proves (yet again) what a wonderful storyteller she is. Her novels are so full of power, plot, setting, movement and all the truly wonderful things that make a great book. "Local Girls" is a selection of closely woven short stories about four main characters. The stories are told threw the eyes of young Gretel who you just dearly love. You almost feel cheated that this is a full force novel. The characters that Hoffman created certainly have the power to have carried it. I found myself wanting more and more from each of them. I wanted to see the full arch of the story. But, it certainly didn't distract from how much I enjoyed this selection of stories. I found the struggle of older brother's rise and fall from success especially heartbreaking and readable.

With each book Alice Hoffman shows her talent for any subject matter. I find her very talented and very entertaining. I love her stuff.

Like another reviewer, I had somehow missed this book of Alice Hoffman's. What an unexpected treat when I found it!

This collection of related stories with alternating narrators was wonderful and forced me to use my imagination to figure out what went on between the stories and think about the details that Hoffman had left out. I would have loved to have read more about this family, but perhaps the author intended to leave us wondering.

The strong women in this book overshadow the weak men in every way. Gretel's father, her brother, and Sonny offer no support to the women in the book. Gretel endures and triumphs, mostly on her own....a perfect example of that saying "what does not kill you will make you strong"..

Like all of Hoffman's books, this was an emotionally moving story but with a few touches (fewer than usual) of her magical realism. And, as usual, the language is PURE magic!

The abrupt changes in point-of-view from the 1st person to the 3rd person for no apparent reason was rather disconcerting. And the unfolding of events as a series of short stories gave it a clipped and superficial feel. Yet in spite of these "issues", Alice Hoffman beautifully tells the sad, coming-of-age story of a young lady and her torn apart family. And in a way, it was nice to use my own imagination and creativity to mentally fill in the details as the story flowed quickly along. As a Long Islander, I think the book is authentic to this area and timeframe.

First of all, this author does a tremendous job of putting a book together that's very hard to set down. It's very quick read giving the reader a feeling of reading a girl's journal and developing into a story as the girl, Gretel, grows up. The relationships between Gretel and her mother and her cousin and her bestfriend,Jill, are the center of this book.
This is a story of real life. There's the brother who has everything going for him, including a chance to go to Harvard. Gretel watches the strength that her mother shows in the open but hears her mother's emotional pain at night. Gretel is brought up around strong women and knows how to survive and be a strong woman herself.
I enjoyed this book tremendously and will recommend it to anyone looking for a very good book to read.
Gretel and the people in her life are very relateable. She endures loosing family members, money struggles, resentful teen years.
Upon finishing this book there is a moral to the story. Money and social position don't always equal happiness and love.
Do pick this book up and read it. It's a very quickstory with a lot to say.

At one point a few months ago, I vowed never to read Hoffman again (after reading Here on Earth). I saw this book in the library and decided to give her a second chance. Am I ever glad I did. What a unique set up of a book...it is both a collection of short stories and yet a series of connected chapters all at the same time. I loved Hoffman's writing style and insight into this group of people. It shows what a diversified and deep writer she really is. You will enjoy growing with all of characters in this book.

Hoffman writes so well, so wonderfully, you can't help but read page after page, being swept along by her marvelous craft, by her magical realism. In that sense I wasn't disappointed in this slim novel that actually reads as a collection of short stories revolving around the central characters.

But much of this is ground that Hoffman has covered elsewhere. I've already read about the amazing flowers in Practical Magic. I've read about the dangerously seductive boyfriends. And I had trouble with the age of the main character. It seemed awfully fluid from chapter to chapter.

Despite all that, this is still a good Hoffman read. It might not have moved me as much as her previous books nor necessarily covered new territory but it was entertaining and highly readable all the same.

I have read Practical Magic, Here on Earth and Property Of, but by far this one captures the essence of an emerging and growing youth beyond what even we can describe it to be for ourselves! I finished the book in under 20 hours, which included sleeping! Hoffman weaves a spell that entraps your mind and keeps you reading in till the book is done and you are wishing it would never end!