I still prefer Foxfire, by Joyce Carol Oates, a much better book dealing with girl gangs. However, Alice Hoffman didn't do a bad job portraying why some girls gravitate towards gangs. The sense of belonging and importance that they obtained when they officially became The Property was something that they probably had not experienced ever before. The nameless protagonist, who is also the narrator, is a very mature 17 year old who is simply looking to connect with someone. The object of her affection is McKay, the leader of the gang. McKay is the epitome of the bad boy, and we all know how attractive a bad boy can be to a teenager. McKay is mysterious, powerful, and a junkie. Sure, this book contains some graphic violence, drugs, sex, the works. This is what the novel is about. Don't expect to find a fairy tale, please!

The silver lining in this novel is that the protagonist eventually comes of age. The process is very painful, but I loved the hopeful ending.

This book is in my honest opinion much better than Here on Earth.

This was a semi-good book. It just seemed the main character in was a little obsessed and aggravating. She was so klingy and annoying and it annoyed me slightly to see such a pathetic girl such as herself. But all in all the story and the plot were ok.

The only books I've read by Alice Hoffman are 'Property Of' and 'Practical Magic'. I hope they never make a movie of 'Property Of', thereby ruining it. Potential Readers: Try and ignore the naysayers. Why pick apart things you don't like when all the things put together make the novel what Ms. Hoffman intended it to be? True, heroin and gangs suck in real life. Just because you might never have wanted to belong so badly doesn't make the book a bad one. I still have my original copy from 78? 79? and it's coming apart. I'm buying another copy because I want to pass this one on...This is a great book. Dark, yes, depressing at times, yes. But very realistic to falling in love with a guy who doesn't know what love is.

I think this book was really a good book, but it's for people who aren't as strong readers, or younger readers. I received it as a gift for my birthday. On a scale from 1-10 I'd give it an 8. I had my little brother (age 8) read it for his book report (he'll read anything he can get his hands on) and he rated it a 9. This is what he wrote for his plot:

It all started when Hailey found out that Claire was moving. They only had a few more weeks to spend at the Capri Beach Club because that was being torn down also. One day there was a horrid storm and the pool got all yucky and mucky. Hailey jumped into the pool and saw a mermaid. They came up with a plan to talk to the mermaid. Claire found out that the mermaid had swam away to be independent and "stuff." The mermaid was rude, but eventually they became friends. They found out the mermaid's name was Aquamarine. Aquamarine fell in love with Raymond and wanted to go out with him. She wouldn't leave until she did. Hailey read in a book that if mermaids spend more than three days out of salt water they would shrivel up and turn into a pile of green dust. So Hailey and Claire have to try and convince Aquamarine to go back to the ocean. They end up putting Aquamarine in a wheelchair and having her and Raymond go out on a date. When the date is over she is pale and she is starting to turn into dust. They rush her to the ocean where Raymond sees her and finds out the truth-that she is a mermaid. He still loves her though. Claire moves to Florida and one day sees Raymond and Aquamarine swimming in the ocean together. While that is going on, Claire is watching the Capri Beach Club being torn down and replaced by a hotel. They learn to make new friends and face their fears and grow.

It leaves out a few things but it is pretty accurate. It's a good late night read. Enjoy!

Aquamarine is a very good book.It makes the reader want more. It is a very short book. It is about these two best friends Hailey and Claire. They are both twelve years old and lived next door as long as they rember. They went to this club which was called the Capri Beach Club. That would be the last summer there because Claire would soon be moving to Florida.

The club would be torn down to so that was their last time there. One day there was a storm and the club was a mess. There was seaweed and jellyfish in the pool the pool was also fogy. Hailey saw something in the deep water she couldn't see it clearly. Then she saw a tail, and she saw a mermaid. When Aquamarine surfaced Her voice was a cool and fresh as bubbles rising from the ocean. Her hair was pail and silvery and her nails were shimmering blue and she had webbing in between each finger like webbing that u would find on a duck. Aquamarine has a crush on Raymond the guy those woks at the snack bar. The girls found that any mermaid out of the sea for seven days she would die and turn in to dust. She that she wouldn't go until she got to meet Raymond. So one day the girls had a plan. Claire had a wheel chair and Hailey had old clothes that might fit Aquamarine. They took Aquamarine to dinner with Raymond. The next day they had a party for the club because they were going to tare it down the next day. Aquamarine was getting pail and dusty so they had to take her back into the ocean or poof she would be gone forever. They let her go and they were very sad because they don't know when they will see her again. Then Claire would be moving to and they wouldn't be able to see each other for a while.

This "tail" of friendship feels of young, "summer-camp" bittersweetness. Main characters Hailey and Claire, 12-year-old best friends, are spending their last summer together at the beach, commiserating and dreading the fact that Claire will be moving at summer's end. A particularly violent summer storm deposits Aquamarine, a fiesty mermaid, into the path of the girls. Aquamarine, though not your stereotypical damsel-in-distress, is in dire need of help. Hailey and Claire, drawing strength from each other, devise a plan to save her. As they work together for the sake of another, Hailey and Claire gradually come to terms with the inevitable.

As a parent, teacher, and school library media specialist, I think middle school girls will delight in this story, especially those younger than twelve years of age. The physical aspects of the book set the tone even before you turn a page -- the sparkling ocean-hue of the dust jacket and the beautiful cover art of shimmering water, pool-like tiles, under-sea bubbles, water-filtered sunlight, and the ethereal mermaid.

I have read a number of Alice Hoffman's books and consider her work "high quality brain candy" - easy to digest but more thought provoking and interesting than a lot of the bestseller junk. Angels Landing was a quick read, but disappointing. I thought the characters, particularly Finn, were contrived and predictable. They all felt like caricatures. On the other hand, I can't be too hard on the book ... I did read it through in an afternoon.

Although this was not my favorite novel by Alice Hoffman, it had the well-realized characters and description of place which always makes me unable to tear myself away from the stories and really care for the people in them. I did note one error in your synopsis which states that Natalie feels neglected by her husband and takes up with her patient. The character, Carter Sugarland, is her long time boyfriend, not husband, who will never make a commitment to Natalie. The synopsis makes it sound as though Natalie left her husband. This sort of review misrepresents the book and leads me to believe the writer of the synopsis did not read the book.

One must hope that there are better writers in the over seventy-five Masters programs listed as participants at the back of this volume. The stories selected are almost universally dull with characters that while real, lack nuance. The prose in most of the stories is functional, but never lyrical, and there is not one original idea in the lot. Even the titles, excepting "A Few Fish and Anonymous Spaniards," are completely lacking in imagination. If this is the best our universities have to offer, then the outlook is truly dismal. The blame thus belongs to Ms. Hoffman, a writer of some imagination and skill, but apparently a terrible reader based on this volume and her effort as editor of The Best American Short Stories 1994, the weakest of the series in decades. Hoffman apparently finds interest in stories that are closer to sketches and offer few delights of language or plot. It is as if Ms. Hoffman endeavored to find future stars that were sure to glimmer none too brightly

Many of these stories are set in the San Francisco Bay Area, so particularly if you are from the area, you'll want to pick this book up. At their best the stories tackle uncomfortable subject matters (heroin addiction amongst the privileged and formerly successful, and child-by-child accidental murder) in clear and concise writing. At their worst the writing is muddled and the themes a mystery (if someone can explain the train story, I'll give you a dollar). Still, if you'd like some light reading by your bed on a week's vacation, this is worth buying.

I've started something. I work at a book store and we always have a bunch of discounted books in the front. One of the books was this one. I picked it up thinking for $2.99 I was getting a glimpse into the short story I have never tackled. Every night I read one story from one of the three (I bought the other two years '98 and '99) and every night I fall asleep feeling completely at peace. I go along on the journey with the characters and my internal conflict is solved as theirs are solved. It's a lovely feeling. I highly recommend this and the other two Scribner's books for the writers, readers, and non-believers who want inspiration, humanity and understanding.

Rarely do I read a book that I find so underdeveloped as this one. The characters drift along without making any kind of decisions about thier lives, except bad ones. The relationships that they have are unrewarding, and unexplainable. Teresa and her brother Silver have an insestual relationship that is impossible to understand. Dina marries King Conners for no apparent reason, King Conners leaves for an unexplainable reason, Dina falls in love with Bergen, and I don't know why. Silver marries Lee- but he hates her- Teresa almost marries Joey and that relationship is a rediculous sham. At the end of the book- I wanted to shake everyone into reality- at least all of the characters that were left. Most of them just quietly disappeared from the pages, except Dina, who died. This was truly a rediculous story, with unlikable characters in search of mysterious men, or was it white horses? Don't waste your time.

I'm glad I read this book even though the life of the main character, Teresa, is so troublesome and painful. Her physical/mental ailment and her family's breakup tear her life apart. She keeps looking for the ideal man (on a white horse), but finds only abusive males, including her own brother. Although some readers may be repulsed, as I was, by the incest in the book, it's a reality many people face. Alice Hoffman is so diverse in her writing. I enjoyed this book more than her Here On Earth. The book does, I think, end on a positive note, and I keep thinking about Teresa's endurance.

Unlike most of the reviews I have read, I found White Horses to be one of Hoffman's most poignant works. I think the incest theme puts a lot of people off this beautiful book. It would have been much better had Silver been a step-brother, because the book isn't about incest at all, but about romantic love. What happened to Teresa happens to many women: what she saw was an illusion, she didn't see Silver the way he really was. She saw only what she wanted to see--a knight on a white horse, a rescuer. I think to fully enjoy this book a person would have to have a romantic heart and a feeling for romantic fantasy. Personally, I liked it better than "The River King" and some of her newer books. Some of the images stick in the mind. The way she incorporated myth and reality worked together in this book. In some of her others it gets in the way. In "The River King" the images of roses, etc got downright sickening. In this book there is just enough hint of the supernatural to add a deeper dimesion. Perhaps this book wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, but it was the first book of hers I read and I continue to think it is still her best.

After truly enjoying Turtle Moon and Seventh Heaven, what a disappointment to read Probable Future. I'd say this book has NO future. It wanders, is choppy and fraught with lengthy descriptions, though the writing style is adequate. The characters are cardboard and the reader can hardly care what happens to them.Additionally, the plot is thoroughly unbelievable.

I just finished this book, and I must say that I really enjoyed it. I love the way that Alice Hoffman weaves a little bit of "everyday magic" into her stories. Even though this story reminded me of "Practical Magic" it still kept me anticipating what would happen next -- Alice Hoffman's characters are always so well drawn they seem like people that you know. If you haven't tried Alice Hoffman before, I urge you to experience her writing, it is beautiful.

I didn't find this anthology as effective in conveying the feel of a place as say, "A Key West Reader". Some of the pieces, however, made it worth the purchase - "Falmouth Whaling Log" by an anonymous sailor, "Nantucket" by Melville and Kurt Vonnegut's "The Hyannis Port Story" were gems.