This book suffers from a lack of focus and could do with some tighter editing. Since the author goes through the basic introductory material, the book would seem to be meant for beginning astrology students. But I think those same beginners will be confused when Tompkins presents material out of order. She talks about planets being dignified or in fall before she explains what the planetary dignities are, refers to midpoints before explaining what midpoints are, and so on. She also attempts to cover more astrological topics than I think an introductory text can successfully manage. Tompkins herself says that the centaurs and the asteroids are "non-essential bodies," but she includes them anyway, not in much depth. Indeed, she slips in introductory material on homeopathy which seemed to me like it should be in another book altogether.

The other aspect to Tompkins' writing that I found annoying was her fascination with mundane astrological correspondences. She writes about them at some length, and while that could be useful in a horary astrology book, in a book on natal astrology, it's astrological trivia. The correspondences were presented more as stuff that had caught her interest than in any systematic way that might help beginners work with them. At times, the author tosses out blanket statements that just set my teeth on edge, especially when they touched on racial issues.

Parts of the book worked particularly well. Tompkins starts out strong with good descriptions of the elements and modes, especially of elemental lacks. One of her sample chart interpretations ("Amanda") specifically addresses how to synthesize strongly contrasting themes in a chart, which I think is helpful for beginning and more experienced students alike. Overall, however, I think the book is caught in a difficult place: meant for beginners, but at an intermediate student's level of understanding—and there are much better beginning texts out there. ( )