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Tag: magical realism

Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel

Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel

I saw the movie based on this book in the early 1990s, when it first came out, and loved it. But for some reason I did not read the book until recently. Like Water for Chocolate was originally published in Spanish in 1989. The title is a Spanish saying that refers to the boiling water used for making hot chocolate. If someone is “like water for chocolate,” their emotions are boiling over—an apt title because this book is about characters…

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The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey

The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey

The Snow Child is inspired by the Russian folk tale of an elderly couple who, unable to have children, used snow to form a girl who then comes to life. This novel takes place in 1920s Alaska instead of Russia, and the “elderly” couple, Mabel and Jack, are about fifty years old. Ten years have passed since Mabel gave birth to a still-born child in Pennsylvania, and her grief, and the loneliness she feels at family gatherings full of children,…

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Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson

Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson

I kept hearing what a great book Life After Life was, but at first I found it confusing because of the sudden shifts in time and place. It took me three tries to settle into this book, and I’m so glad I stuck with it. Life After Life is an unusual, gripping, thought-provoking book. The book begins in 1930 in Germany. A young Englishwoman sits at a café table with Adolf Hitler, before his rise to infamy. She eats a…

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Beloved, by Toni Morrison

Beloved, by Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988, was inspired by the story of escaped slave Margaret Garner, who killed her own child when she and her family were about to be recaptured by slave-hunters. In an interview in the New York Times, Morrison says that while she became fascinated by Garner’s story, she also wanted to be free to create the character herself. ”Now I didn’t do any more research at all about that story. I…

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Eva Moves the Furniture, by Margot Livesey

Eva Moves the Furniture, by Margot Livesey

I first read Eva Moves the Furniture when it came out in 2001. I enjoyed it then, and the characters stayed with me through the years. When I read it again to prepare this review, I enjoyed it even more. The novel begins in Scotland in 1920, with the birth of Eva and with her mother’s death. As a small child living a placid rural life with her elderly father and her aunt, Eva realizes that she has two companions…

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Kindred, by Octavia Butler

Kindred, by Octavia Butler

Octavia Butler is best known as a science fiction writer—one of the few African American women science fiction writers, and the first science fiction writer to receive a “genius” grant from the MacArthur Foundation. However, she has written at least one book which combines historical fiction with time travel. Kindred was a best-seller when it was first published in 1979, and is still taught in schools and colleges today. I can easily understand why. It is an absolutely gripping novel:…

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