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arnrockwell's reviews
109 reviews
WTF is Tarot?: ...& How Do I Do It? by Bakara Wintner
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
4.0
As the first tarot book I read, WTF is Tarot is still one of the better books and quite entertaining too. Just a heads up that there is a lot of cursing in this book, particularly the f-bomb, in case you're opposed to that sort of thing.
Bakara Wintner tells her story of how she was introduced to the tarot, and uses stories from her own personal experiences to teach the meaning behind the cards. Every Major Arcana card is accompanied with one of those stories, along with an assortment of keywords. She not only discusses the card meaning, but also how it's used in a reading, which are not the same thing.
These anecdotes are not present when discussing the Minor Arcana, nor are the keywords, which was the one thing that kept this book from being a 5-star. However, each Minor card does have a list of cards that "reinforce" or "oppose" their meanings, which can help when determining what a card means, particularly in the absence of utilizing reversals.
One thing I found unique was how she discusses the court cards. She takes real-life archetypes that people embody and attributes them to the cards, sometimes to comedic effect. A few of them use more modern lingo that someone in their teens or 20s would be more familiar with than myself.
Then of course like any tarot book, there are pages discussing various spreads, but she doesn't go into spreads as much as most books.
What I do appreciate is how she discusses getting started as a tarot reader. Bakara has a whole section dedicated to it. She answers questions about it that most books I've read since hardly touch on, if at all. She is honest and direct in her answers, which I greatly appreciate.
Overall, I think this book is more worth the investment than most other tarot books. If you purchase no other book, choose this one.
Bakara Wintner tells her story of how she was introduced to the tarot, and uses stories from her own personal experiences to teach the meaning behind the cards. Every Major Arcana card is accompanied with one of those stories, along with an assortment of keywords. She not only discusses the card meaning, but also how it's used in a reading, which are not the same thing.
These anecdotes are not present when discussing the Minor Arcana, nor are the keywords, which was the one thing that kept this book from being a 5-star. However, each Minor card does have a list of cards that "reinforce" or "oppose" their meanings, which can help when determining what a card means, particularly in the absence of utilizing reversals.
One thing I found unique was how she discusses the court cards. She takes real-life archetypes that people embody and attributes them to the cards, sometimes to comedic effect. A few of them use more modern lingo that someone in their teens or 20s would be more familiar with than myself.
Then of course like any tarot book, there are pages discussing various spreads, but she doesn't go into spreads as much as most books.
What I do appreciate is how she discusses getting started as a tarot reader. Bakara has a whole section dedicated to it. She answers questions about it that most books I've read since hardly touch on, if at all. She is honest and direct in her answers, which I greatly appreciate.
Overall, I think this book is more worth the investment than most other tarot books. If you purchase no other book, choose this one.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cursing
Forever 51 by Pamela Skjolsvik
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
Let me preface this by saying I went into this book an unbiased as possible. I wasn't fond of the title, the cover, or the premise but I pushed through. Maybe this book would surprise me and turn out to be a favourite.
But no. It's actually one of the worst books I've read so far. Let me explain.
First, I don't read chick lit books (aka women's fiction). I don't like how they are usually written. And this book reads like chick lit. That was an automatic turn-off for me. That's probably because I don't act like a lot of women do, nor do I hang out with many women who do. I don't like talking about a lot of stuff women do. It's so boring, even in real life. No way that shit can keep my interest in a book.
Second, the cover is horrible. It looks cheap, like that author couldn't afford a proper cover artist. Since this is a self-pub book, that is likely to be true. The book cover is a book's single biggest piece of marketing material, and it completely fails on that front.
Third, the humour. It's supposed to be funny, apparently. I found nothing funny about it. I didn't laugh or chuckle at anything. I didn't even crack a smile. I'm sure the humour is perfect for some people, it just wasn't for me.
Fourth, which is probably the biggest one for me, the vampire lore and how it was handled. Now, I'm all for authors doing their own takes on vampires and vampirism. I'm happy when there's something new and different. However, I'm not too fond of how this was handled. Particularly how one can cure themselves of vampirism. All one has to do is [*spoilers*]sincerely apologize to a person for turning them info a vampire (and therefore taking that person's soul).[/*spoilers*] Do that to everyone you've done that to, if possible, and you become a human again.
There's no explanation for why such a thing works. There doesn't always need to be an explanation of such things, but it felt to me like something that needed justification. And there wasn't. To top it off, most of the book is the protagonist running around the US trying to find all those she turned so she can say sorry so she can have her life back. That wasn't interesting to me at all. Even the backstories of those people weren't interesting. It all felt like padding to me.
Now, a lot of this is me being heavily biased because I like a lot of fantasy in my vampire books. And if the fantasy in minimal, it must be done well. And this was not. 1-star is the most I can give.
If you loved this book, I'm glad for you. I wish I could. It just wasn't for me.
But no. It's actually one of the worst books I've read so far. Let me explain.
First, I don't read chick lit books (aka women's fiction). I don't like how they are usually written. And this book reads like chick lit. That was an automatic turn-off for me. That's probably because I don't act like a lot of women do, nor do I hang out with many women who do. I don't like talking about a lot of stuff women do. It's so boring, even in real life. No way that shit can keep my interest in a book.
Second, the cover is horrible. It looks cheap, like that author couldn't afford a proper cover artist. Since this is a self-pub book, that is likely to be true. The book cover is a book's single biggest piece of marketing material, and it completely fails on that front.
Third, the humour. It's supposed to be funny, apparently. I found nothing funny about it. I didn't laugh or chuckle at anything. I didn't even crack a smile. I'm sure the humour is perfect for some people, it just wasn't for me.
Fourth, which is probably the biggest one for me, the vampire lore and how it was handled. Now, I'm all for authors doing their own takes on vampires and vampirism. I'm happy when there's something new and different. However, I'm not too fond of how this was handled. Particularly how one can cure themselves of vampirism. All one has to do is [*spoilers*]sincerely apologize to a person for turning them info a vampire (and therefore taking that person's soul).[/*spoilers*] Do that to everyone you've done that to, if possible, and you become a human again.
There's no explanation for why such a thing works. There doesn't always need to be an explanation of such things, but it felt to me like something that needed justification. And there wasn't. To top it off, most of the book is the protagonist running around the US trying to find all those she turned so she can say sorry so she can have her life back. That wasn't interesting to me at all. Even the backstories of those people weren't interesting. It all felt like padding to me.
Now, a lot of this is me being heavily biased because I like a lot of fantasy in my vampire books. And if the fantasy in minimal, it must be done well. And this was not. 1-star is the most I can give.
If you loved this book, I'm glad for you. I wish I could. It just wasn't for me.