3

It was my first acquaintance with the writer Alice Hoffman. I can’t say what exactly made me choose “The Probable Future” as the first book of this author to read. Despite all the advantages of this tangled story of outstanding women with unusual “gifts”, I feel deeply frustrated.

The atmosphere of the book is quite absorbing. With the help of the vivacious description you begin hearing humming bees, smelling faint scents of various spring flowers and feeling all the unexpected turns of love as you’re reading. Although, I would say there is too much description of nature, Unity and the history of the Sparrow family which is slowly killing suspense. Have you ever had such a feeling while you’re reading that something exciting and shocking is going to happen but it never happens? Well, I was experiencing this feeling during my reading. From time to time it gets annoying to read over and over again about this Rebecca Sparrow person whose mystery and charm have vanished completely to the end of the story.

In my view, the very idea of the story lies in the mother-daughter relationship, although, as it seems to me, this line hasn’t been accomplished successfully. This story about the mother-daughter relationship reminds me of such similar books as: “The secret life of bees”, “The lace reader”, “The thirteenth tale”. Honestly, I was expecting to see how Stella and Jenny’s relationship would be changing gradually for better. I was expecting to find more heart-to-heart talks, profound thoughts, sensible solutions and shocking sensations, but I didn’t find anything like these, to my deep disappointment.

To conclude, I would say this book is worth reading due to the amazing language of description. On the other hand, the story seems to be a bit superficial, naive and sometimes boring. Not to my taste, unfortunately.