The Tarot Reader's Daughter [Paperback]

Rosa has moved with her family, begrudgingly from the city to the country and whilst helping her mum unpack stumbles across a pack of well-worn Tarot cards inside a pouch with her mothers name embroidered on it. Her mother freaks out when she sees Rosa with them which sparks Rosa to dig into her mothers past......

This is a young adult book and an easy read. Rosa is likeable as the protagonist and while she does have her typical teenage moments of "I hate everyone and everything" kinda dealies there are few and she spends time in this book being self reflective enough not to be annoying.

What this book's main lesson or realisation is for the reader is that parents are people and they were young and probably did the same amount of naughty, stupid and sometimes dangerous things that you did. Just like how some parents think that their child is a little angel and they never would touch drugs or be having sex before marriage..... RIGHT..... (I am not saying this is in the book or that all teenagers are like that, just that some people tend to have blinkers and put people on pedestals). Rosa wants to know more about her mothers past and because her mother and father don't wish to talk about it she finds other means of getting the information. Another lesson that some people should learn. TALK TO YOUR CHILDREN!

Helen did well with her understanding of the Tarot card meanings and I especially like the fact that the relationships in the book where not all fairytale fluff.

Some of the things I found annoying as a Tarot Reader and teacher in the book were:
The Death card in this novel brought a lot of fear to everyone who picked it. Anyone who has worked with the tarot enough knows that Death is a card of release, transition, transformation and new beginnings and rarely ever means a physical death. There has got to be a whole lot of other supporting cards and information before this is even something I would consider.

There is also a lot of fear in regards to the Tarot and the natural ability that the family has. Rosa and her mother obviously have a great talent for reading the cards and helping people but one bad experience in her mother's case and the fear from that in Rosas case make them all think that they are evil and should not be tampered with. The cards are an object and therefore can't really be evil... I just would have thought that maybe, just maybe we were past that kind of stuff.

The main character Rosa did take a lot of time going through the "I hate him" but "I like him" with Andy and the penny finally dropped that she liked him. I guess that is teenage girls for you. I can remember having some very intense feelings for a certain Backstreet Boy when I was a teen .....so I guess this kind of thing is quiet normal.

I am still a little confused about the authors relationship to the Tarot, she was able to give enough information for it to sound like she knows them or at least has done enough research but then backs it up with a very medieval view of them. The cards did carry the story well so I guess she was successful in that way.