This has been on my bookshelf for years and perhaps I should have just left it there. For two-thirds of the book, I couldn't see where the book is going. At times, it felt like a travelogue with its extensive descriptions of Canada, Egypt, and China. There's also something about Nature I didn't understand. The book made more sense later, or at least I found some reason for reading the book when the witches shared their fears of aging and sickness, and Alexandra found some family warmth. Minus the witchcraft, it's just about three lonely women. ( )

After reading the Witches earlier this year, had to do the sequel too...it's 30+ years since the trio afflicted rival Jenny with terminal cancer, and rode off into the sunset, each with a new man.
But while Updike's books are full of sex and sin, he always introduces a note of "God will not be mocked" ...and here the three all find themselves widows, and, eventually, return to Eastwick for the summer.
There are sundry faces from the past; and the witches - no longer (quite) the playful minxes of yesteryear, but troubled with old lady complaints - find that their crimes still exact punishment.
Did it finish a tad up in the air? It was still a darn good read and John Updike remains unquestionably my favourite author. ( )

I read Witches after ripping through the Rabbit Angstrom books at the age of 16 or so. Rabbit, Run was assigned reading in one of my high school classes. These books are so preoccupied with sexual liberation and power; about people choking on the yoke of gender roles. Did anybody else read them at that age? The Rabbit books shifted the ground under my feet. Maybe it’s better to read them before reaching marriage, kids and full-blown, irreversible adulthood. Or maybe not? Updike’s language is so ripe, so honestly horny (and yes: chauvinistic, misogynistic, etc.). Nothing much has changed twenty-odd years later except the preoccupation this time is with death rather than sex. ( )

Its prose hypnotic, as it harkens back to John Updike's poetic roots, "The Widows of Eastwick" is a bewitching and satisfactory follow-up to the 1984 classic. ( )

Um ... a little disappointed here. Updike's writing is beautiful, but I forced myself to finish this book. It didn't absorb me in the way Witches did, which of course, is always the risk and usually the case with sequels. The best approach to this book is to read it as a standalone work, and not with an eye to its predecessor. ( )