Jaya Saxena (1)Rezensionen

Unique blend of personal and informative essays around crystals.

I received this book for free from the publisher (Quirk Books) in exchange for an honest review.

So first off, I just want to mention that this is not a guidebook on crystals. If you are looking for a guidebook about different crystals and their properties, then I would suggest picking up another book.

This book was an excellent collection of personal essays that connects the properties of certain crystals to the author’s own experiences. The author weaves the history and properties of the crystals into the essays very well. Sometimes with essays like these, they can become too textbook like when describing factual information. Here, it all felt very natural and not forced. The author has a very effortless and conversational writing style which makes reading the essays a breeze.

My favorite essays were the ones on Pearl, Pyrite, Carnelian, and Obsidian. I liked that there were similar themes in some of the essays. For example, she discusses her mixed race heritage in a few of them. It made the collection cohesive.

I also liked the brief mentions of tarot cards and astrology. Crystals, tarot, and astrology often go hand in hand so I was glad to see the connections.

Design-wise this book is stunning. Quirk Books knows book design so well. There are cute illustrations before each chapter and the edges of every chapter are color coded to correspond to the crystal.

The one thing the book was missing was a short concluding chapter. It had an introduction, but a concluding chapter with some final thoughts would have tied it all together neatly.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and recommend it if you like personal essays. Even if you have absolutely no interest in crystals, the essays are still relatable and thought provoking.½

There's a reason these recipes were lost. Most were overly fancy and did not sound appetizing. There were a few I'd like to try but only a very small number. Pretty cover though.

it was ok!! readable and beautifully designed and illustrated.

but it was way more like a self-help book than a witch's guide. it was like "here's a witchy way of dealing w something if you're having a bad fight with a friend".

there were some spells, but i wasn't interested in them. i thought it would be more like how to run a coven or ... the subtitle just gave me a different impression than the contents? idk.

i enjoyed the witch's history sections, so i'm gonna go look up more witch history.

such a shame, bc the illustrations were so cute!

Excellent book

If you are expecting a manual of Wicca or spell-casting, this book will not be what you're looking for. Saxena and Zimmerman are writing about witches in the sense of unruly and disobedient women who defy cultural expectations through positive energy, self love, and speaking up for themselves. They do recommend rituals, spells, and even divination, but with the explicit caution that no one actually has to believe in magic in order to perform these. These are more psychological tricks to soothe or empower similar to many of our rituals; these may seem outwardly silly but are powerful through repetition and intentional acts. Saxena and Zimmerman have a charming and often funny style of writing and are inclusive and celebratory of diversity. This book is helpful for any woman, or even man, who feels pressure from society to act or look in a certain way and may need a little bit more help in learning how to break free of those expectations.

I received this book for free from the publisher (Quirk Books) in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve been wanting to read this book for the longest time. I’ve been very interested in witches and witchcraft since I read the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and watched the Craft and the Love Witch (I really recommend this movie if you haven’t already seen it).

Please be advised that this book doesn’t feature “real” witchcraft that Wiccans would use, so if you are looking for that, then I would suggest looking elsewhere. Like most of the books Quirk Books publishes, this is more fun than it is serious. Instead this book takes the spirit of witchcraft and combines them with the ideas of feminism and turns it into a self help book.

From the self help point of view, I found all the chapters to be really empowering and useful. I could definitely see people actually doing some of these rituals. The rituals/spells were all about your mind and how you view situations.

One of my favorite things about this book were the historical sidebars about witches. I always love learning little historical tidbits.

The only thing I didn’t like was that there wasn’t a concluding chapter. I have a thing about nonfiction books and conclusions. I hate it when they just end, without any sort of wrap up. I would have loved to have seen some final words from the authors.

Overall, if you are looking for a fun and different self help book, or want to dabble in witchcraft without going full on Wiccan, then definitely check this book out.½

I'm a bit older than the target audience for this book (actually, quite a bit older) (all right, a lot older), but the note in the description about exorcising a toxic friendship was made the decision to request it. I was curious. I've always had an interest in how people integrate spirituality of whatever flavor into their lives – and I ended up being deeply impressed by this book. It's not a deep and in-depth guide to how to practice wicca, not a hardcore spellbook or grimoire or whathaveyou, as such; the prevailing opinion I've always encountered is that it's flat-out dangerous to mess around with something like that on your own, especially when very young and inexperienced. (I mean, it's the sort of thing which, even if you don't believe in any of it, still – a bit of common sense never hurts. Never go jogging wearing earphones that render you deaf to your surroundings (especially if you're a woman alone), be aware of your surroundings, never ever play with a Ouija board, and never mess around with spells when you don't know what you're doing. The demon you prevent from entering this dimension may be your own.

What this actually is is a positive, warm, funny guide to how to handle situations that are bound to come up in everyone's life. For example, that note that got my attention about toxic friends? I've got two, people I work with who used to be friends who knifed me when I wasn't looking, and whom I can't avoid. Will the section on what to do about it make it all better? Nope. But it serves as proof that I'm not alone – I'm not the only one who is going through something like this. And it does serve as a pretty good guideline of how to manage the way I think about it.

I'm not entirely thrilled with the light tone with which demons are discussed, but maybe I've been listening to too many funky podcasts lately. And nothing in here seems at all dangerous - quite the opposite.

In a lot of ways this is more therapy or counsel than Magick. Well, maybe it comes to the same thing, in the end.

The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.

Wonderful book about old restaurants that lasted for decades only to succumb to defeat in the early 21st century. It brought back memories of the extravagance of Chicago's Pump Room, and the Ashkenaz Deli. Lots of recipes to preserve for myself.