I loved this book, but not everyone will. I feel like it found me; I didn’t seek it out myself. It evokes feelings of longing, regret, anxiety & love, in all it’s myriad forms. It made me think of my youth, my present, my regrets & my deep losses. A real balance of the magic & pain that is life as we live it

Perhaps it is this book's misfortune that I read it while reading two other vivid, passionate books. (One comedy, one tragedy.) They were so full of life and colour and character that Illumination Night definitely suffered in comparison.

The characters in Illumination Night are painted in pastels, and not terribly detailed pastels at that. By the end of the book, with the exception of maybe one character, I couldn't have told you a damned thing about who any of them were or how they got that way. I could tell you some of the things they did over the course of the novel, but not one of them sprang to life on the page.

Except maybe the Giant.

I didn't know why agoraphobia so suddenly struck one character, or why one character was so abruptly suicidal, and then so abruptly not. I couldn't tell you why another character was so angry.

This would be because these issues were never explored, either through internal or external dialogue. They were described, but not examined. The characters simply were. And seemed remarkably static. I'm not sure anyone really changed over the course of the book.

And since the book starts with the eponymous Illumination Night, and there's another one (it's an annual affair) midway through the book, why doesn't it end with one as well? Why lay in the groundwork so obviously if you're not going to use it to tie everything together?

I was, quite frankly, bored. And, as I said, since I was reading this while recovering from having my mind blown by Handling Sin, what might have amused me as a impressionist meditation instead struck me as a lazy narrative.

One of Hoffman's early novels that I had somehow missed, I found Illumination Night to be touching, lyrical and beautifully done. It takes place on Martha's Vineyard and centers on a young couple, their 4-year old son and an elderly neighbor. The catalyst of the plot is the elderly neighbor's 16-year old granddaughter who is assigned to come help the 75-year old lady recover from a bad fall. The granddaughter is a wayward, rebellious girl who develops an obsessive crush on the young husband and father next door. A reclusive "giant" who runs a local produce stand also is involved. Hoffman's description of nature alone are worth the price of any of her books.

Storyline was average paced, some parts kept my attention better than others. Hopped between different points of view from different characters.

I loved it just as much this time. I had forgotten how it ended, so the build-up of tension was again effective. Loved the ending.

Not a "happily ever after for everyone" novel, but believable and real and, to this reader a positive feel.

One of my three all-time favorite Alice Hoffman books. Like most of her books, it's full of magic, desperation and tragic love. The love story between the giant and the girl (I forget her name -- it's been years) is just...incredible. Hoffman's newer books have left me less impressed than her older ones; the older ones had plots and incredible characters, but the newer ones get too lost in dreamy otherworldliness for my tastes. I gotta have something to hold on to, you know what I mean? Illumination Night delivers. (So do Turtle Moon and Fortune's Daughter. My three fave Hoffman novels.)

Alice Hoffman is one of my favorite authors. Illumination Night is one of her less known books,but it does not disappoint the reader.

The story takes place on Martha Vineyard with a young couple that chose to live there permanently. The young couple lived happily with their young son, Simon, till the next door neighbor's granddaughter came to live with her. Jody was there to help take care of her grandmother,but she was also there because her mother was afraid she was heading for trouble.

The book takes a look into a young marriage trying to make it work, a young girl growing up, a young boy learning about death and a giant that comes to play a part in all their lives.

3 stars. "I liked it."
It was okay, a good by the pool or beach read.

This will be the most glowing review of a 2-star book I've ever written. I wanted to enjoy this book but found myself hoping the author would do better. I put it down more than once, but was fond enough of a few characters that I skimmed across the fluff to find the bright spots. I couldn't quit it. Like warm light peeking around an open porch door on a late summer night, I was drawn in, hoping for comfort and home. I didn't really find it but I mostly didn't hate it either.

The characters are what kept me in the game. Lonny is an anxiety prone, Bohemian mother with shifting moods of warmth and ice. And panic. She lives on Nantucket with Simon, her dwarfish 4-year old who gives her much to hem and haw over, and Andre her quiet, withdrawn husband who loves deeply but can't show it. They live next door to elderly Elizabeth Renny, who starts our story by pitching herself out of her top floor bedroom window to commune with the birds. Jody is Elizabeth Renny's 16-year old granddaughter shipped from Boston to care for her healing grandmother and to get out of the hair of her overbearing, divorce-shocked ma.

Nantucket gives Jody room to breath under the protection of her stalwart grandmother. But that Jody is a wild one. She sets her sight on hunky, brooding Andre. She obsesses about the life happening next door under her nose and the man who fills her dreams. She befriends Andre, Simon and Vonny and ends up not being true friend to any of them.

There is meat there. Good characters. A setting with texture and charm. Heck, there's even a Giant! But where is the story going, dear Alice? Where is the story going? The narration shifts from Vonny to Andre to Simon (to everyone) without reason. Alice gives us so much detail, while delicate and insightful, it bogs the reader down instead of advancing the characters or story. I read half the book and had no concept of what this book was.

Maybe I should try to shed light on why I finished it. It was the author's insights about longing and loss. It was the juxtaposition of a young gal longing for freedom, a wife obsessed with her choices, and an older woman coming to terms with the end. Alice does something to me. I LOVED The Museum of Extraordinary Things. But this time time she didn't enlighten me - not nearly enough. Instead of being cast in her warm glow, I was just disappointed.

Once again Alice Hoffman paints a gorgeous picture loaded with emotion and passion. I literally have never read an Alice Hoffman novel I didn’t absolutely fall head over heels in love with. Illumination night was absolutely no different than the preceding Alice Hoffman novels in my eyes. This novel almost mirrored the spirit and writing style of John Steinbeck. In some other parallel world I felt like this was a more modern version Of Mice And Men. We are given a book about the entangled and entwined lives of the inhabitants of Martha’s Vineyard. A place where vacationers and locals meet somewhere in the middle, so many stories just weave into each other. If you appreciate a well told painted picture this is the story for you. Dealing with love, life, death, infidelity, and truly everything in between Illumination Night has it. A truly awe inspiring and beautifully told story.

I really wanted to like this book because I love Alice Hoffman. But I couldn't visualize so much of it. The characters weren't really likeable or very fleshed out. No descriptions to help me picture the characters and none were so well defined that I could like them "in spite of".
Besides her youth, what about Jody attracts Andre to her. Vonny sees herself in Jody but why? Is the giant really a giant? (We know he's beautiful but how tall is he?) The only relatable character is the son with his growing pains (physical and emotional). The police chief is the most likable but he's just peripheral to the story. I stuck with it, hoping it would get better. I think whomever edited this book did Alice Hoffman a disservice because there were several sentences I had to reread to get the context right because of missing punctuation. I still love Alice Hoffman but this early work was a disappointment.

I don't suppose many authors get to be good authors without writing a lot of crap. This is better than the first 4, not as good as the 5th but it tried. It just had too much unrelated stuff going on ... tried to tell too many stories and none of them very well at all. An old woman, a rebellious teen, a boy who would always be smaller than his peers, another boy who would always be dramatically larger ... a married couple struggling to make ends meet and figure their lives out, agoraphobia, adultery ... so many things. I kept looking for a link, something to tie them together. Even the title seemed to have little or nothing to relate it to the book.

There were a things that put me off this book. All men are not drawn to teenage girls or have such little impulse control that they simply can't resist her siren call ... and those who are, have issues. What Andre's are, we don't know. What the issues with the marriage are, we don't know.

Simon is a smaller than average boy. Okay. Parents have noticed and are worried. Um. They haven't taken the kid to a pediatrician regularly. They track growth and they would be able to answer questions or recommend testing.

Eddie is a larger than average boy whose mother didn't want him because he was so large. That's tragic and reprehensible. Add to that a population that makes a joke of him, calling him a giant, and there's no one to stand up to that?

I realize things like this happen. Life doesn't come wrapped up in a pretty bow of happy endings. But stories are a way we make sense of things, learn empathy, compassion, ... perhaps a general understanding of humanity. There is a point to the tale. If I remember correctly, Hoffman learns to do this more skillfully later on in her career. This was only 1987.