I had really looked forward to reading this book because I'm really into symbolism, so when I got it as a gift, I was thrilled. That thrill turned into disappointment in a very short time after starting to read it.
First of all, I found the writing to be surprisingly amateurish. The writing is something one might expect on a website - which this book obviously came directly from - but not in a published book by a reputable publisher. There seemed to be no clear structure, forethought, research or design to the content, to the point that I think they must have just lifted it right off of the authors' website without any editing to make it into a book form at all! In fact, this was directly evidenced in the book where the authors said something to the effect of there was no forethought in how the symbols were combined into sections, and they were writing it on the fly. Again, fine for a website, not for a purchasable book. There were no research references, only what seemed to be opinion stated as fact. I did not find the content particularly insightful, and while there were a few interesting tidbits here and there, what I found useful could have been written in a two page handout.
Additionally, every section (not chapter - every *section*) continually stated "...in this class..." "...in this class..." There are so many problems with this seemingly amateurish structure, I'm not sure where to begin. First of all, if a book is considered to be "a class" then the book itself is 'the class' and the chapters are the lessons. But this was not written as a classroom instruction book in style, it was simply ... a book.
As a college professor for 15 years, I found no clear "lesson plan" here, just, imo, a lot of tidbits about symbols that didn't directly have anything to do with the subject at hand and was never adequately integrated into the concept of the book. An example of this is, at times, the authors explain something and then say, "but that's not in the tarot." Okay, then give me a good reason why you put it in. Don't get me wrong, I can certainly understand an author using an example to explain a concept, but these just seemed to be little historical bits of trivia that were never properly tied in.
Furthermore, there also seemed to be no clear "intro, body and conclusion." The authors just seemed to jump in and out of things, sometimes with information in what was supposedly the summary but had never been properly articulated in previous sections.
Much of the content, however, seemed to be just opinion of what something meant, stated as fact, with no real direct explanation of why they were stating it as fact, and with no room for people to interpret the symbols in their own way. I, in fact, disagreed with many of their conjectures, which is fine for them, but symbols can mean very different things to each individual. Everybody has their own frame of reference. I didn't feel there was room for that in this book. Moreover, much of the content was very analytical without room or guidance for people to use their intuition about the cards. And analyzing the symbology within cards themselves, in truth, were just a small portion of each section.
There were a couple of decent, very basic spreads in the book, and others that just seemed to be there for the sake of making them look like they fit. The overall content, however, was not the in-depth look at the topic that a book should be. These authors even went so far as to make statements such as, "We don't have time to get into that here." Well, that's what books are suppose to be ... an in depth look at a topic. Not so much on a website, however ....
I understand that these people run a very successful website about learning tarot, but having read this book, I would be hard pressed to take any of the classes they offer. I'm happy that people must get something out of their classes, and happy for the authors' success in that endeavor, which is a lofty one, but having read this book, makes me feel that they are much better website designers and marketers than they are teachers or authors. Frankly, if you want in depth discussion on symbols of the tarot, I would suggest "Pictures from the Heart: A Tarot Dictionary."
(As a point of disclosure, I am a professional tarot reader and have read for over 30 years.)
