There are books that work and books that don’t, but I believe that we all learn from them no matter the result. I always approach a book with an open mind to get whatever is useful from it. That’s what happened when I read The Comfy Cozy Witch’s Guide to Making Magic in Your Everyday Life, by Jennie Blonde. But although the concept is great, pulling me in right away, the execution was not what I expected.
Cover to Jennie Blonde’s “The Comfy Cozy Witch’s Guide to Making Magic in Your Everyday Life” [HarperOne]
- Publisher: HarperOne
- Publication Date: September 3, 2024
- Print Length: 208 pages
- Tags: Self-help, witchcraft, folklore.
Whether you’re a novice curious about witchcraft but aren’t sure where to start, or a seasoned witch interested in deepening your practice, this warm, accessible, and nurturing interactive guide shows you the way. The Comfy Cozy Witch’s Guide to Making Magic in Your Everyday Life combines the practical charm of The Little Book of Hygge with the down to earth wisdom of The Spell Book for New Witches and the practical advice of Grimoire Girl. Drawn from decades of popular podcaster Jennie Blonde’s experience, she shares seven tenets to help you begin and develop your own authentic practice:
- Acceptance: gentle exercises to reflect on our past journeys
- Simplicity: meditations to ground us in the present
- Balance: self-care practices, like candle magic, to replenish our inner selves
- Delight: practices to find joy in community
- Warmth: building a cozy practice space
- Reflection: journal prompts to help us stay centered
- Intuition: learning to listen to ourselves and connect to our guides
This beautifully designed book—filled with spell craft exercises, magical journaling prompts, delicious recipes, and do-it-yourself tips for the home and garden–has everything necessary to develop a witchcraft practice built on magical authenticity, comfort, and self-care.
Starting with the positive, this book helps you develop new associations, practices, and ideas based on what is right for you. There’s obviously not a size-fit-all when it comes to Witchcraft, so it is always a process of creating an approach that fits you and your needs. What makes this a different reading is that it is not about creativity or devotion, but comfort.
The book’s tenets helped me see things from a different point of view, like my own disabilities: accepting that I don’t have the same capacities that others, and how that’s fine; evaluating what is unnecessarily complicated in my craft; finding a balance between the witch and the mortal… and so on. Those are topics that we don’t usually talk about, so it’s great that we are moving the conversation forward.
However, I found the writing style lacking spark and passion. Repetitive and mechanical, it took me out of the reading several times to the point where I had to revisit some passages. I love certain authors because their writing has flavor: it has feeling, emotion, there are personal elements in it. I couldn’t find that here. An example is chapter three’s segment about journaling tools, with an inconsistent style on the bullet points: sometimes the author shared ideas and personal tips, and others seemed like it was a commercial ad.
I also found the formatting inconsistent with what was being asked. For example, the Inner Magic exercise on page 10 mentions a space on the page to list the “nonnegotiables” that we had regarding our practice, but there was no space there at all. I assumed that it was intended to be a journaling exercise, until I reached page 90, which did include space to list elements for your own correspondences. It’s inconsistent whether the book is meant to be used as a workbook or not.
However, the aspect that I had the most problems with was with the lack of a bibliography. It makes it seem like this is a practice the author developed through pure intuition, without any reading, podcasts, videos, or anything else. It could easily be a channeled book of sorts, which would be fine if it were intended to be one.
Perhaps we all can assume that crystal quartz is a healing, protective stone, so no need for any references, but different authors explain tarot cards and runes differently, and animal magic varies depending on the symbolism used. I was left waiting for an explanation on why the owl, for example, represents the divine feminine. There is no mention of where these meanings came from, and even in a short book, that’s a basic expectation.
That said, having a practice that is comfortable, simple, and suited to our needs is paramount. I find it irritating when someone insists that things should be done this way only. Why? We can customize and adapt (without falling into cultural appropriation, of course, which is something that the author makes clear as well.) We are not the same; we have different needs and possibilities. As a book that celebrates those differences and puts them front and center, it is a good starting point.
It was the execution which didn’t work for me as much as I hoped because of the structure, the lack of explanations, and the writing style. Given the success of the author’s podcast, I have no doubt that she knows what she is talking about and what she meant to do. I have a lot of respect for that and addressing something as common as the self-doubt we might feel when we see other witches’ posts on social media, for example. I could relate 100% to that. It was not what was said what frustrated me, but the way it was said.
Thanks to HarperOne for providing a review copy.
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