The LaZelle family of southern California has a secret: they can do magic. Real magic. As a teenager, a LaZelle undergoes "the Transition"--a severe illness that will either kill him or leave him with magical powers. If he's lucky, he gains a talent like shape-changing or wish-granting. If he's unlucky, he never experiences Transition. If he's especially unlucky, he undergoes Transition late, which increases his chances of dying. And if he survives, he will bear the burden of a dark, dangerous magic: the ability to cast only curses. And curse he must, for when a LaZelle doesn't use his magic, it kills him.

In Nina Kiriki Hoffman's A Fistful of Sky, Gypsum LaZelle is unique among her brothers and sisters: she has not undergone Transition. She resigns herself to a mundane, magic-bereft existence as a college student. Then one weekend, when her family leaves her home alone, she becomes gravely ill... --Cynthia Ward


From Publishers Weekly
Stoker winner Hoffman attains a new level of maturity and complexity with this coming-of-age contemporary fantasy. Unlike her charismatic, beautiful mother and her four remarkable siblings, Gypsum, the middle daughter of the magical LaZelle family of Southern California, is a misfit who hasn't "transitioned" during adolescence into her special gifts and powers. Instead, she takes after her perfectly normal father. Intelligent, resourceful and caring, Gyp deals with her lack of magic by growing into a self-effacing, low-profile but still greatly beloved member of the family. Then suddenly at age 20, Gyp attains her gift, the "unkind" power of curses. Gyp's struggles to deal with her newfound dark power are emotional, frightening and hilarious. By the story's end we've had to confront, just as the LaZelles do, that even members of the most wonderful, loving, close-knit families in the world can innocently inflict considerable damage on each other. While making the story both humorous and enlightening, Hoffman never allows the reader to forget this is also a scary situation for her group of exceptionally well-developed characters. The lyrical writing flows at a perfect pace and is as engaging as the characters. With its themes of family, magic, love and healing, the novel may appeal more to women and adolescents than men, while its ending may be a bit too touchy-feely New Age for some. But the sense of wonder, lack of cynicism and sheer craft compare to vintage Ray Bradbury.awards.Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
The LaZelles are remarkable in one all-important way: when the children become young adults, they "transition" into magical versions of themselves. Once in a while, one doesn't transition until much later, which rarely bodes well for the late bloomer. Now out of high school, Gypsum is the apparent late-bloomer of her generation. Her father, nonmagical because LaZelles must marry out of their clan, her tutoring job at the local city college, and, more often than not, food are her consolations. But one weekend when the rest of the family is visiting her eldest sister, Gyp falls very sick--and wakes up with the oddest feeling. Discovering the extent and disturbing side effects of her power makes for some very effective confrontations with formerly pitying family members and for chilling moments when she proves able to draw personalities out of inanimate objects, including even the stones she walks upon. The plot moves gently along, and the book's real attractions arise from its portrait of family dynamics and its sympathetic heroine. Roberta Johnson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Locus
Challenging and wonderfully entertaining. This is Hoffman in top form.


Chronicle
An absolute joy to read.


Publishers Weekly
Compare[s] to vintage Ray Bradbury.


Book Description
Gypsum LaZelle is the middle child in a gifted family of witches and warlocks. But unlike her siblings, she has no gift to call her own. Until she wakes from a fever--and discovers that she possesses a strange and frightening power.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
What would you do if you could actually curse someone? Turn them into a statue or accelerate their aging or make them just disappear? Nineteen-year-old Gypsum LaZelle has that power -- or problem, depending on how you look at it. A young woman in a family of spellcasters, Gyp has just Transitioned, and she doesn't know how to control her new, frightening abilities. The power inside her is so strong that unless she curses someone or something several times a day, the build-up of dark energy will make her sick and eventually kill her like it did her great-aunt.

The novel is not only about Gyp's struggle to control her cursing ability (which leads to some incredibly hilarious situations!) but also her search for her place in her large family as well as in the outside world.

Although A Fistful of Sky is a lighthearted, spooky fantasy comparable to Ray Bradbury's From the Dust Returned, it is moreover a loving coming-of-age tale about a young woman's relationship with her family. As a huge fan of Nina Kiriki Hoffman's work, I cannot recommend this book enough -- a bewitching read for all ages. Paul Goat Allen

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Gypsum LaZelle had nearly given up. She'd already watched her two older siblings experience the transition - the sudden, debilitating process that turned them from ordinary children into mages, gifted spellcasters like their beautiful mother. Perhaps she was a late bloomer, she thought - until her younger siblings came into their powers as well. Now, at twenty, Gypsum fears that she must accept her fate: a mundane life without magic." She can live with being ordinary, an outsider. After all, someone in the family had to take after her father...But one day, alone at home with her family away, Gypsum falls terribly ill. And when the symptoms pass, something has changed. Something she's dreamed of for such a long time - and suddenly isn't ready for at all.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Stoker winner Hoffman attains a new level of maturity and complexity with this coming-of-age contemporary fantasy. Unlike her charismatic, beautiful mother and her four remarkable siblings, Gypsum, the middle daughter of the magical LaZelle family of Southern California, is a misfit who hasn't "transitioned" during adolescence into her special gifts and powers. Instead, she takes after her perfectly normal father. Intelligent, resourceful and caring, Gyp deals with her lack of magic by growing into a self-effacing, low-profile but still greatly beloved member of the family. Then suddenly at age 20, Gyp attains her gift, the "unkind" power of curses. Gyp's struggles to deal with her newfound dark power are emotional, frightening and hilarious. By the story's end we've had to confront, just as the LaZelles do, that even members of the most wonderful, loving, close-knit families in the world can innocently inflict considerable damage on each other. While making the story both humorous and enlightening, Hoffman never allows the reader to forget this is also a scary situation for her group of exceptionally well-developed characters. The lyrical writing flows at a perfect pace and is as engaging as the characters. With its themes of family, magic, love and healing, the novel may appeal more to women and adolescents than men, while its ending may be a bit too touchy-feely New Age for some. But the sense of wonder, lack of cynicism and sheer craft compare to vintage Ray Bradbury. (Nov. 5) FYI: Hoffman has been a finalist for World Fantasy and Nebula awards. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

VOYA - Lisa Martincik