I've always really like Alice Hoffman (with the exception of The Story Sisters). To me, her writing is textural and beautiful and warm. Kind of like biting into a perfectly ripened peach. Her characters and their stories are interesting, quirky, and slightly supernatural. The Third Angel did not disappoint in this respect. The interwoven stories of the main characters are engaging. The portraits of life and love were poignant.
I didn't feel like the main metaphors strung together very well, though. There is the Third Angel, the angel who walks amongst us. The other two angels are the Angels of Life and Death. They require no explanation. The Third Angel is an angel who appears to need our help, but in helping him we are helping ourselves. An interesting concept, but then it is also mixed in with this blue heron. The blue heron, and really the color blue in general, is laced throughout the stories to coincide with love and the choices love forces us to make. Everyone just does the best they know how, and sometimes in love people get hurt. Don't get me wrong, both the imagerial themes were lovely and moving, but both were dominant which I thought made it seem like doing too much.
And then one of the characters meets who I inferred was a young John Lennon on a train. I thought that seemed trite in an otherwise gorgeously imagined book.
Rating: 6
Want to buy: The Red Garden
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