Booknote: Tarot Elements

Melissa Cynova, Tarot Elements: Five Readings to Reset your Life. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn, 2019. ISBN: 9780738758404.

Genre: nonfiction
Subgenre: Tarot, divination, spirituality, self help
Format: e-book galley
Source: NetGalley

I enjoyed Cynova's previous book, Kitchen Table Tarot (link to my review). If you are expecting something similar to that, be warned this is very different. This is not a book to learn Tarot; nothing wrong with that. This is more a self help book that uses Tarot card readings  to provide the self help. If you enjoy self help books and books that claim to help you fix your life, or part of your life, somehow, then you'll probably like this book. If you are looking for either a book to learn about Tarot or a Tarot reference book, this is not it.

The book is arranged as follows:

• Introduction: "Can you fix my life?" The author introduces the book and briefly explains how she "designed a reading for each element based on its alchemical symbol" (5). 
• Chapter One: ""How element readings work." An overview of the author's elemental reading method. 
• Chapter Two: "How to read Tarot cards." Overview on card reading. This is fairly basic and superficial, but then again, this is not the book's core. 
• Chapters Three to Seven: The elemental readings. A chapter each for earth, air, fire, water, and spirit. 
• Chapter 8: "Additional Spreads for Clarity." These spreads are mainly to clarify the five readings. 
• Chapter 9: "Self-Care." Tips on self-care. Not much new here, it is basic but good general advice. 
• A conclusion, an appendix of Tarot card meanings, a recommended reading list. Not that none of the books on the list are related to Tarot. They are mainly a selection of self help books on topics like uncluttering, natural healing, and in one case "secrets of the heart." 

While I found the idea of using Tarot to address life issues intriguing, and also found intriguing using the elements to organize those readings (for example, earth reading to deal with material matters, money, career, so on), the book just does not totally focus. Each reading chapter features some personal stories from the author, the elemental spread, two sample readings, and an exercise to do with the readings. To be honest, a lot of the books feels a lot like self therapy. The initial story parts at times just read like meandering personal stories; I wondered at times if some or all of that personal drama of her ever had a point. Chapter 3 is a good example; it has close to six pages of just the author's personal drama before we get to the actual spread and reading. At that point I was wondering "yea, so what?" The rest of the book follows a similar pattern.

Overall, this is a book for a specific project of self-help or self-therapy. It just happens to use Tarot for the therapy. If you need or want that sort of self help, and you are already familiar with Tarot, this book could be for you. In that sense, this is like any other self-help book out there.

This is not a good book for learning Tarot or further developing your skills at it. For that, you can get the author's previous book or get any other good Tarot reference book. In the end, the book was just OK.

2 out of 5 stars.

Book qualifies for these 2020 Reading Challenges:

#ArcApocalypse