Really great intro to astrology via your birth chart. Comprehensive and warm explanations of sun/moon/rising signs and how houses and aspects work. Possibly not mega useful if you are already very familiar with astrology/your chart but definitely worth a read as Chani is a great writer. ( )

This book, unfortunately, falls into the popular trope of mainstream astrology of requiring knowledge of birth location and time from the reader in order to engage, thus making the book inaccessible to many marginalized people who don't have access to this information. Disappointing. ( )

This book is a good introduction to how astrologers construct natal charts, with a focus on sun signs, moon signs, and ascendants. The large font and wide margins—usually pet peeves of mine—here keep the amount of information on the page manageable. Nicholas also presents a piece of information once and moves on instead of belaboring her point by rephrasing it several ways, which I find aids in retention. The descriptions are clear and consistent across multiple sections (which is not always the case with these sorts of books).

There are some downsides: Nicholas often uses “it” instead of “they” for the third person singular, the affirmations and reflection questions repeat frequently across entries, and the appendices needlessly repeat information from the first chapter without adding anything—probably in service of padding out the page count. Nicholas also defaults to yes/no questions for many of the reflections, which seems ill-advised for someone whose livelihood depends in large part on getting people to identify with the statements or suppositions she’s making about them. Imagine:

Nicholas: Do people tell you that you intimidated them when you first met?
Client: No.
Nicholas: …

I think that astrology’s recent popularity has at least something to do with the fact that you need a person’s birth date, time, and location to create their natal chart—three pieces of information advertisers would love you to freely hand over so that they can combine them with all the other information they’ve gleaned from your social media, cellphone data, and online surfing and shopping habits. To that end, I would recommend not using Nicholas’s website to pull your chart—there are other sites that offer this service while using fewer trackers and don’t require you to input your email address either.

Really valuable information and reflection questions. I’ve read through other astrology books, but I really liked how she broke down the signs and planets in a beneficial way for me. ( )