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A review by cat_lover_reads
Make Your Own Magic: A Beginner's Guide to Self-Empowering Witchcraft by Amanda Lovelace
1.0
I'll preface these thoughts by saying I love Amanda Lovelace. She is my favorite poet and one of my overall favorite writers. My review is coming from the perspective of someone who has been studying and practicing for over 25 years. Also, I do not use Tarot cards at all so I skipped most of that section.
This book was a huge disappointment. The book is definitely for beginners; like 'you've maybe read the witchcraft Wikipedia page and nothing else' level beginner. This read like WitchTok and Wattpad had kid who wrote a book.
I work in higher education so I'll use that as an example - most witchcraft 101 books are a first or second semester freshman class for your major - good in-depth introduction to the field to see if you want to pursue this subject further. This book was the brochure you get at the summer campus tour when you get five minutes to talk to an advisor.
Sections that should have been multiple pages long were three paragraphs. A lot of information was told over and over again just in slightly different ways. And I really want to cut apart the entire first section and rearrange it so it flows much better than it does - who puts correspondences before ethics and history? Finally, this book would have been 20 pages shorter if you took out all the 'well, this is just my personal opinion. don't take my word for it, you do you' statements. Yes, witchcraft is a very subjective spiritual practice but stand behind your own beliefs and practices or I start to wonder why I should care. The lack of confidence was discouraging.
Some of the spells at the end were cute and I did like reading some of the new poetry scattered throughout, but overall I'm glad I got this book from the library - there are better beginner books to spend your money on.
This book was a huge disappointment. The book is definitely for beginners; like 'you've maybe read the witchcraft Wikipedia page and nothing else' level beginner. This read like WitchTok and Wattpad had kid who wrote a book.
I work in higher education so I'll use that as an example - most witchcraft 101 books are a first or second semester freshman class for your major - good in-depth introduction to the field to see if you want to pursue this subject further. This book was the brochure you get at the summer campus tour when you get five minutes to talk to an advisor.
Sections that should have been multiple pages long were three paragraphs. A lot of information was told over and over again just in slightly different ways. And I really want to cut apart the entire first section and rearrange it so it flows much better than it does - who puts correspondences before ethics and history? Finally, this book would have been 20 pages shorter if you took out all the 'well, this is just my personal opinion. don't take my word for it, you do you' statements. Yes, witchcraft is a very subjective spiritual practice but stand behind your own beliefs and practices or I start to wonder why I should care. The lack of confidence was discouraging.
Some of the spells at the end were cute and I did like reading some of the new poetry scattered throughout, but overall I'm glad I got this book from the library - there are better beginner books to spend your money on.