Thank you to Fox Chapel Publishing and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a bit of a disappointment. Not only was it really top-heavy with evangelical Christian content and orientation, but the lettering which was at the center of the book was not calligraphy, but adding bits to lettering, to make it *look* like calligraphy. The styles the author showed all looked very similar, and I found none of them particularly attractive, nor did I find the instructions given particularly helpful.

I'm sure this book will be just the right thing for some, for me it wasn't right at all.

Pretty basic stuff. Wasn't quite what I was hoping for to learn the fancy lettering everyone is doing now. Some tips I'll try but overall it was a meh read.

Thanks to Fox Chapel Publishing the ARC!
I was very impressed by this book. If I had to recommend one for a beginner, it would definitely be it.

It does have some projects (one a plate for one). In the end, does give space to practice. A few different fonts are shown and are divided into upper and lower case. tools and how to do it in this book. Nice for those who want some font ideas.

Yes! This was great. I loved learning from this book and it really helped solidify the fact that I just want to do this creative hobby more. 5/5 stars

I'm really into calligraphy and lettering so when I saw this book in NetGalley I decided to request it. This book focuses on teaching you how to use faux calligraphy. The author teaches you different alphabets/styles of letters to practice. And showcases some projects you can do using this type of calligraphy. Overall it was a good book, I was expecting more variety in the styles of lettering she showed.

I received this book free of charge from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I feel like there were large chunks missing in this books. It gave a quick overview of what faux lettering is, said let’s practice and then skipped to projects. But it never actually talked about how to create the letters.

Really needs some editing or expanding on ideas. Felt more like a rough outline of a book idea.

Really liked this lettering guide. I am always looking for new, creative ways to make my journals pretty. Easy to use and a great resource.

This book was very helpful! I do a lot of of hand letter signs on windows at work and I am always looking for books to help me keep things professional looking, fresh and interesting. I loved all the letter practicing pages with diagrams and the tracing pages were very helpful!

I am an avid hobbyist in mixed media, and I'd love to add hand lettering. Even though I have extensive knowledge about typography, I am terrible at calligraphy, and that's where this book comes in! With simple exercises, the author taught me how to create great-looking fonts with, what she calls, faux calligraphy. To be honest, I don't mind that I now write my sentences not in a proper way; they look a lot better, and if I can do it, anyone can. The only critique I have: The five fonts used in the exercises are all very similar. More diverse types would have made it a much more valuable book.

A great and informative quick read about hand lettering without learning traditional calligraphy. The author offers great direction in how to do the lettering as well as some really crafty and creative uses for your new found lettering skills, such as gift plates.
I did find the religious content a little misplaced in a book about hand lettering, but overall enjoyed learning some new skills relatively quickly with actionable tasks throughout the book.

No matter how good (or bad!) at calligraphy you are, everyone can learn something new from this book. Written with clear, concise descriptions, this book demystifies lettering and calligraphy. Some lettering books read like a textbook — you have to already know quite a bit before being able to understand. But the vocabulary and style of writing feel as if a friend is explaining the steps to you. Aside from the quality descriptions, the pictures are beautifully done.

I have always been interested in lettering, so was excited to see this book was available for review! It is indeed helpful for beginners, and I found the overview in the beginning to be particularly helpful. There were some formatting issues with the electronic version, and I also was not expecting there to be so much religious context.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I’m a relative beginner when it comes to brush lettering. I’ve been experimenting over the past few months to find what pens and styles I like the most. I found that this guide was alright for beginners. I feel like it was missing a few things (more focus on base line, waistline etc... instead of a quick mention during bouncy style lettering). I also found that the practice quotes were too focused on bible quotes which doesn’t appeal to me. Overall a decent guide to start, but there are more comprehensive ones.

I liked this book, especially the practicing sheets, but I think there are some flaws... As the title mention, this is a book for faux calligraphy, drawing letters and then filling in the downstrokes. I always wanted to know how this works because a lot of times you have no idea where you need to thicken it, on which side, but this is never really specified. There are 5 alphabet examples and while they are cute, they are very similar in style. There is enough room for practicing, which I really like, but I didn’t feel like I really learned anything... the examples in the back are great though, and very handy to imitate for beginners. What also bothered me, this book is very Christian, there are Bible verses, quotes and even a bit on Bible journalling. I feel like this should have been specified on the cover.

I received an e-arc from netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Lettering is something I am not naturally skilled at, and with the huge trend of artistic bullet journaling (which I've jumped on the bandwagon on), I'm always on the lookout for simple lettering to learn.

I really liked the graphics and clean look and layout of the pages. I thought the book did a great job of explaining how to create faux calligraphy, and tips such as hiding transitions to make your work more natural.

While I would never write in a book like this, I thought the template pages were well laid out and let you practice a variety of techniques, including writing letters from scratch and adding the body. The pages are clean and would be great for tracing with other paper - which is a method I do use!

The five fonts were cute and had options to practice both upper and lower case lettering. Even better there was word practice so you could practice transitioning between letters correctly.

My favourite sections were 'trace & try' and 'trace and frame', which mean you can create your own framed art straight from the book! A clever addition that I've never seen in a lettering book before.

This year I decided to try lettering again! I studied some calligraphy in my high school graphics class. Cool book with to the point lessons. Pick it up if you’re even a little curious about this art form.

It's a cute book that teaches you how to write those cute letters! Also very cool that it has the practise sheets so you can draw the letters yourself! Even though it is a rather small book I would think about purchasing it as it will help beginners and the letters are very beautiful!!

"Letting for Absolute Beginners" is a fun, easy way to "cheat" your way through brush lettering. It gives lots of detailed instructions, plenty of practice exercises, and even step-by-step crafts you can do. You don't need calligraphy pens or special paper to learn how to do this simple brush lettering. I'm a librarian who runs crafts and maker programs and this would be a great guide to teaching others and creating programs! I highly recommend! Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

I hope this is just a rough outline of a book and that more content will be added later.
It took me 15 minutes to read this manual on how to hand letter. It is definitely incomplete.

All I learned was to first use a pencil to "draw" some letters. go back and thicken up some lines to make "faux calligraphy", and finally erase the pencil with a big pink eraser "you probably remember from school."

The author says she gets asked in class whether to thicken the inside or outside of a letter and her response pretty much "it depends" There are supposed to be three examples to explain this concept but that is not included in the ARC.

There was mention of a word practice section but it is not in this ARC.

There are no hints on how to make thickening the lines look "smooth".

I was very frustrated reading this book because I didn't learn anything and I really wanted to.

If this ARC gets updated with examples and samples, please include me on the distribution list and I'll be happy to revise my rating