Constance Stellas takes the complicated concept of the study of astrology and makes it digestable for those new to the craft. How to Be an Astrologer covers the basics you see in a lot of intro to astrology books: signs, transits and houses, but also looks at how to make predictions through charts, compatibility and a number of more obscure uses for astrology. Although this book was approachable I still found in a challenge to read and there was so much information. This would definitely be a book to refer back to and study overtime. Astrology is a craft that often takes years to master and having that mindset when reading this book would help to not get discouraged if you don't understand everything right away.
Overall a great tool for learning about astrology!

How to Be an Astrologer is filled to the brim with information. It's actually slightly overwhelming, although I'd say that would be due to how comprehensive the information is. Visuals would have been a great help, as this is text heavy. Despite these small qualms, I LOVE THIS BOOK. If you're serious about astrology, even if you're a beginner, this is an awesome book to pick up and supplement your bookshelf with. Read it, study, and study some more. The energies of the universe are complex and beautiful.

I'll break this down by chapter for organizational purposes and ease of reading.

CHAPTER 1 - COSMIC INGREDIENTS
- How to identify your sun, moon, and ascendant (or "rising") sign.
- The Planets and "lights" and what they signify, their ties to Greek mythology, benefic and malefic attributes, as well as masculine and feminine attributes.
- The twelve Zodiacal Signs and their accompanying elements, the ruling planets, seasonal representation, the triplicities, and the quadruplicities.
- The twelve Houses, following the Aries wheel of the year, and grouping houses by elements.
- The personal planets, and what they all specifically represent in your chart, as well as planetary powers. The author gives tips on how to organize this information in your chart.

CHAPTER 2 - HOW YOUR PLANETS WORK TOGETHER
- There is math involved, and the importance of correctly measuring in degrees is pressed upon. Honestly, without a visual this went over my head. However, the author goes into depth, like space-deep, explaining how this all works.
- The Major Aspects: the Conjunction, Trine, Square, Opposition, Sextile, and Quincunx or Inconjunct.
- The Uncommon Aspects: the Quintile, Semisquare, Semisextile.
- Aspect Formations: the T-square, Grand Trine, Grand Cross, Mystic Rectangle, and Yod.

CHAPTER 3 - YOUR PERSONAL PLANETS AND THEIR DAILY MOTIONS
- Tracking planetary motions, like the sun and moon, or any other personal planets in your chart.
- The Moon Phases: New Moon, Full Moon, Waning Moon, Dark of the Moon, Void-of-Course Moon (v/c), as well as the moon's motion through the houses.
- Transits and Retrogrades, and how to track them through planets such as Mercury, Venus, and Mars.

CHAPTER 4 - THE BIG PICTURE
- Life's big questions which are divined through the transpersonal planets, Jupiter and Saturn, and the outer planets Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. This is a huge, detailed section.
- Pluto's Generational Mark and how it affects each Zodiac, as well as the dynamics of familial relationships between parents and children.

CHAPTER 5 - PREDICTIONS
- How to analyze and intuit predictions from a chart. Death is often a popular topic. It's also recommended to draw up different types of progressions and compare them with each other and the Natal chart.
- Progressing the Chart with secondary progressions and solar arc progressions.
- Solar Arc Direction, which is another method of progression.
- The Progressed Moon tells you how emotionally prepared you are to take action when an event happens. Again, there is math.
- The Saturn Wheel, similar to the Progressed Moon, only this indicates the structure of life.
- Planets Changing Directions, Solar Returns, Lunar Returns, Eclipses. How to determine what they mean, and techniques to organize the information in your chart.

CHAPTER 6 - ASSESSING COMPATIBILITY BETWEEN CHARTS
- The synastry between individuals, which is probably the most popular interest that most people have involving astrology.
- The Elements in Chart Comparisons, Sun and Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Aspects Between Charts, the Conjunction, the Ascendant and Descendant.
- Drawing up charts for different types of relationships, and compositing them: friendship, parents and children, coworkers and bosses, marriage.

CHAPTER 7 - THE HIDDEN CHART
- Understanding Karma and your Purpose in Life.
- The Moon's Nodes and Planetary Retrogrades through the Zodiacs.
- Aspects of Karmic Indicators, and Karmic Assistance.
- Past Lives and Lives to Come.
- Soul Mates, and astrological twins.

CHAPTER 8 - REFINING YOUR ASTROLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE
- Critical Degrees, Fixed Stars, Arabic Parts, Decanates, House Systems, Cusps of a Sign, and additional branches of astrology.
- The Asteroids: Ceres, Pallas Athena, Vesta, Juno, and Chiron.
- Medical Astrology, the synastry in medical astrology, and information regarding the houses that represent health.
- Mundane Astrology which focuses on national events.
- Feng Shui Astrology basically personalizes Feng Shui with each Zodiac.

CHAPTER 9 - ANALYSIS OF A CHART
- Elements, Planets in Critical Degrees, Aspects, Energy Dynamics, Nodes, and other points of interest.
- How to determine if you are reading your chart accurately.

CHAPTER 10 - HOW TO THINK LIKE AN ASTROLOGER
- Planning with astrology in mind, by looking up your chart regularly and interweaving it in your daily decision making, especially the more important a decision is. Useful for social engagements, travel, education, business dealings, major life decisions, and health.
- Methods for drawing up your chart to pinpoint auspicious times.

Other information included in the back:
- Step-by-Step Analysis of a Natal Chart that walks you through drawing up a chart.
- Blank chart that you can either write directly on, or scan and print copies of.
- 8 Example charts that are used for demonstration purposes.
- Resources that include spiritual therapists, a Bibliography, and index.

This is a very thorough book on a challenging subject. I was pleasantly surprised how much sophisticated information Ms Stellas was able to cram into a single book ("Part of Fortune"?) and how well she manages to explain it. Not only does she set out the basic components of the chart but she deals in-depth with interpretation. A brief aside, Ms Stellas believes in reincarnation and some of her interpretations are aimed at reading karma from former lives, this does not detract from the general content and if you do not share this world view those parts can be easily assimilated into other forms. It is aimed at beginners but it will also give old hands a run for their money.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to access a proof copy of this book.

An approachable volume for aspiring astrologers. I'm not personally a follower of astrology, but I appreciated the author's dispassionate, neutral tone in describing the ins and outs of the field. So often astrology books are filled with flowery language and subjective conclusions, but this helped me understand the reasons behind various aspects of astrology. I fully expect this to be stolen from our public library almost immediately (which only happens to the *good* astrology books).

Really fascinating. I have always been captivated by the cosmos and absolutely love learning anything and everything about the power they hold. Love the information in this book, love the simplistic layout and teeny picture icons as well. It is a lot to take in but I don't mind having to reread it!

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with this review copy!

Okay so, there was a time where I was just extremely interested in astrology, and whether I believed in it or not, I wanted to know how people came to creating horoscopes. I saw this copy passing by on my Netgalley, and I thought: oh well, what do I have to lose?

So I started it, and I thought it was interesting, but a lot more complicated than I thought it would be. I didn't understand everything, but that's probably because I'm not the smartest, but maybe this is a book that you can only understand if you already have a basic knowledge about astrology, so it might not be suitable for complete beginners, like yours truly.

I liked the charts and drawings, and how the book uses references to other academic, and not academic pieces of texts, so that I could potentially look for more information, which I probably won't. I realized this is probably not my field of interest. I did like reading about it, but I would have liked it to be a bit more idk basic? understandable for beginners? But maybe that is honestly just me.

Points to the cover, which is super nice and colorful. It would still be a book I would pick up, just because the colors look cute! Anyways, recommended if you are interested in the topic and you feel like you wanted to know a bit more about it.

To me an introduction to different topics in astrology. To me, it is not in-depth because of the topics discussed by the author.

I requested this book because of the wonderful cover and the title. The book was pretty good. Each and every small item in astrology is explained really well. The constellations, tables and charts are drawn pretty well. The only flaw that I felt in this book was that it was like a textbook that only people who are really engrossed in astrology could understand. And also I would have liked it even more if the constellations, charts and tables were given alongside the explanation. Overall, it was a very nice book that every astrologer or budding astrologer should have.
I thank Netgalley and the publisher for giving me this opportunity.