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This book is a piece of fiction and it is the middle book in a series about a specific family of witches in the New England area.

I was first introduced to the characters by the movie by the same name which stars Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman released in 1998. I first saw this movie in 2018 and I found it to be a cozy story about sisters. I expected something similar from the book but the book is very different from its movie adaptation.

The book has numerous differences from the age of Sally’s daughters to Gillian’s storyline. Being that there are such vast differences in the stories, I found that I liked specific things about each of them separately. I enjoy the overall atmosphere of the movie but I enjoy Gillian’s story much better in the book. Below, I am going to get more spoilery. (Granted, all stories have been out for many years at this point, but you have been warned.)

In the book, Sally’s daughters are teenagers instead of the cute little girls in the movie. Sally also does not live with the aunts as an adult. The aunts are in Massachusettes and Sally lives in a small town in New York. Gillian does run off and meet a man in Arizona but he’s not from Eastern Europe, he is an American drug dealer named Jimmy Hawkins. In the story, Gillian blames herself for his death because she was giving him witchy herbs to calm him down from hurting her, but it turns out that he got rid of himself with his own bad supply. The whole scene with Sally and Gillian being kidnapped by Jimmy did not happen. Gillian shows up at Sally’s house freaked out because she didn’t know what happened to him and they bury him in the yard. The whole spell trying to bring him back also did not happen.

The book has a more serious tone than the movie. The book also does not have overt spell craft done by Sally or Gillian. The aunts show up at the end and brew a potion but otherwise, Sally is not a practician of the craft as she is in the movie. In the book, she is a teacher, versus the movie version, who is a potion maker and sells her hair care products and soaps.

Overall, I do prefer the atmosphere of the movie but I wish that more of Gillian’s happy story from the book was added to the movie. I also prefer the personality of Sally in the movie than her dry book personality.