*GREEN ANGEL* by Alice Hoffman

Left on her own when her family dies in a terrible disaster, fifteen-year-old Green is haunted by loss and by the past. Struggling to survive physically and emotionally in a place where nothing seems to grow and ashes are everywhere, Green retreats into the ruined realm of her garden. But in destroying her feelings, she also begins to destroy herself, erasing the girl she'd once been as she inks darkness into her skin. It is only through a series of mysterious encounters that Green can relearn the lessons of love and begin to heal enough to tell her story.

*****Rate a 5/5. Alice Hoffman's prose is so lyrical and beautiful that even when she writes a short book, her words are still powerful. She has the ability to even make pain beautiful. Another great one by my favorite author.

*GREEN WITCH* by Alice Hoffman

Green, whose lyrical narration was the hallmark of Hoffman's survival story Green Angel (2003), returns in an equally spellbinding tale that emphasizes themes of rebirth. A year after Green lost her family in the fiery destruction of an unnamed city, those living in a nearby village struggle to reinvent their lives. Some, rumored witches, choose to isolate themselves. Green, now almost 17, feels compelled to record their losses, but is also determined to discover the fates of two friends: Heather, a former schoolmate, and Diamond, the mute boy who stole her heart. Her quest takes her to an island of prisoners, where she discovers old acquaintances and strangers who have suffered as much as she. Banded together, they have the power to change the course of the future. Hoffman's sparse prose encapsulates the pain of grief and the resiliency of the human spirit, and suggests that love is a stronger force than tyranny. Haunting, philosophical, and filled with poetic imagery (“my beloved city is still in pieces, the buildings like silver stars—some fallen, some rising, some constant in the sky”) this book will leave an indelible mark.

*****Rate this 5/5. There is no better way to spend an afternoon than to read Alice Hoffman's latest book. Her prose is poetry to me and I never tire of it. I love her imagination and her fantasies. I loved this book.

*THE PARTICULAR SADNESS OF LEMON CAKE* by Aimee Bender

The wondrous Aimee Bender conjures the lush and moving story of a girl whose magical gift is really a devastating curse. On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents’ attention, bites into her mother’s homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the cake. She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother—her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother—tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose. The curse her gift has bestowed is the secret knowledge all families keep hidden—her mother’s life outside the home, her father’s detachment, her brother’s clash with the world. Yet as Rose grows up she learns to harness her gift and becomes aware that there are secrets even her taste buds cannot discern. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is a luminous tale about the enormous difficulty of loving someone fully when you know too much about them. It is heartbreaking and funny, wise and sad, and confirms Aimee Bender’s place as “a writer who makes you grateful for the very existence of language


*****Rate this 5/5. I thoroughly loved this book! It was so very sad, but so beautifully written that I hated finished it. Now I am off to the library to see what else I can find by this particular author.