Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Practical Magic:
1. You might talk about the way Hoffman brings together the ordinary and extraordinary: magic takes place in common, everyday settings—in most of her books, the suburbs. Is she suggesting that mystery and enchantment can be found everywhere?
2. Could you sympathsize with young Sally and Gillian's wish to escape their aunts' strange household and to live a life of normalcy?
3. In Practical Magic characters can never be done with the past, it always catches up. Is free-will in Hoffman's world subservient to destiny?
4. How does Hoffman dissolve the boundaries between the inner and outer realms in this novel? Is she suggesting that human passions, when unleashed, can become monstrous threats?
5. Practical Magic is often funny. Where and how does Hoffman achieve her humor? In other words, talk about the parts that made you laugh.
6. Have you read other novels by Alice Hoffman? If so, how does this one compare? If not, does Practical Magic inspire you to read her other works?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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