Very early on the authors used the f-slur and I cringed, but the book was from the 60s and while I might wish we live in a perfect world, I could move past one mistake. HOWEVER.

I read the 2003 re-release. A little updating should have been a given, and yet I found chapter after chapter of misogynistic trash. The final straw that led me to throwing this book in a recycling bin was when gay men were referred to as perverts. I can't believe people ever thought this kind of thing was funny.

I always forget how different Jekyll and Hyde actually is from my memory of it; much more suspense and much less horror. All that existential Victorian dread.

The other two stories didn't work for me, Markheim was a weird kind of religious parable and the Merry Men was a tale about wreckers which I keep running into and doesn't get any more exciting.

I love in a children's book when the parents are real people with histories.

"Legend has it that the library and its collection were burned when Alexandria was besieged by Julius Caesar in 48 BC. Although the library suffered some damage during the battle, its demise was probably gradual and much less dramatic. Most historians agree that the decline of the Great Library of Alexandria was due to what endangers libraries of the present day -- general indifference and bureaucratic neglect."

A fun ephemera book for the library lover with a couple facts that definitely blew my mind.

There was, like, one joke in this entire thing and Adam

Spoiler

didn't show up until p 224 and was never in the same room as Ronan ONCE THE ENTIRE BOOK

. But it tugged at my heartstrings and made me love Declan so I'm trusting Maggie to bring it home in the final installment.

This is just a cliff's notes version of her book Tarot Wisdom (which I do love). I would have liked it more if it felt like a quick reference, but everything she said related only to the RWS deck and half of the information was numerology or Kabbalah, neither of which I'm interested in.

I would love to see her use all of her knowledge and experience to talk about the universality of the cards instead of focusing once again on Smith's art. At the end of the day the RWS deck is a deck full of cis white people and I'd like some more inclusivity.

The only part I liked was the spread ideas.

I absolutely adored this book as a child, but as an adult I cannot fathom why. I do respect how dark this is; it is funny how things you read as a kid go right past you until you're ready for them.