This book talks about creating our own magic by daring to live a life that prioritizes self-care, pleasure, and wellness. The author talks about how posting on her blog helped her out and to realize you don’t have to be perfect to be happy. What an eye opener!!

It talks about taking away the toxic things in your life and creating room for the good and healthy things. You shouldn’t feel guilty about taking care of yourself. The chapter about self-care couldn’t have come at a better time in my personal life!

The author stresses to listen to your inner voice always. We take that for granted a lot of the time in our lives. The author says that routine is soothing which I never thought about it like this before. Great book!

I have read a lot of magick books over the years and this one is very unique.

The think the title doesn't really link to what is actually in the book. From the title, I expected more info about pagans and the history. That's not what I got.
The book focusses more on the self care element, with a few magickal things thrown in.

As I said before, the book is unlike anything I have read before in this genre, however a lot of the advice is pretty basic and straight forward (you might even say obvious) and doesn't always link to pagan or magickal living in my opinion.

The book is interesting, but I don't think it does 'what it says on the tin'

I expected this book to have more to it. It has some decent ideas, sweet writings, and easy-to-follow advice. However, it is fairly simple and nothing feels unique to the book. If you are really into these kinds of books or want a reference book that can sit on your side table and you rarely read it, this will do the trick. If you want to sit down and read a book for a couple of hours and learn from it, this will not accomplish that desire.

This is an excellent book to learn from. It is filled with common sense and ways that are gentle and rewarding I have found. One of the statements the author made was look for wisdom in the ordinary! To me that speaks volumes and this work shows it, Daily my life can seem dreary or mundane but once I started reading this I began looking for the magical in my life, Yes , I found it! Practically Pagan is written in an engaging style that reads easily and also lends itself to remembering the activities I found. Excellent and groundbreaking material that is making my life better.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an e-arc of this book.

This book delivered exactly what the title promised: an alternative guide to magical living. For those getting started with paganism, witchcraft, and magical living, it can be hard to determine where to start. I remember finding everything too overwhelming and feeling inclined to turn away when things got too complicated.

The author, Maria DeBlassie, shares some of her experiences with paganism, and they invite readers to engage in introspection while working on a spiritual routine that works for them. If the world of pagan spiritualism has ever seemed inaccessible to you before, this is the best book to start with. It is not packed with info-dumps, and it allows you to take your time with the craft. I highly recommend it!

This book is, above all, a call to slow down and enjoy the simple things in life. Much of the book is autobiographical with the author using her own experiences to illustrate how we can often find ourselves taking on too much work to impress others or in an attempt to be someone we aren't.

As someone who is active in academia, the parts where she discusses the pressure to be constantly "busy" and how it becomes a kind of competition really spoke to me. I also remember I job I had a few years ago at which the competition became so out of control that I had coworkers bragging about having slept only four hours in the parking lot between shifts. I frequently didn't have a break for 10-12 hours. It wasn't legal and it wasn't healthy.

With that said, my main complaint is that the writing is quite repetitive. The same ideas, phrases, and entire sentences are used over and over and it became a bit boring. I also feel that more time could have been spent on specific advice or strategies the reader could employ and less time could have been spent on retelling the same anecdote.

Practically pagan an alternative guide to magical living by Maria DeBlassie is a good book for the witch who is interested in introspection and learning to make everyday a magical experience and everyday tasks rituals. There are a lot of self reflection questions and ideas in this book to help the reader know what they should be asking themselves.

Coming out of Covid I'm in a cycle of change and this book stood out to me from the publisher offerings. While I was happy to receive the copy it wasn't actually what I was after personally, though I'm sure it will be a nice read for others. There is a lot of repetition (which the author acknowledges with several instances of 'like I said earlier') and some passages are repeated pretty much verbatim ('especially for women of color and other minorities, whose time and labor are too often exploited without adequate compensation') which made me feel like taking out my proofreading pen rather than take notes of advice. All of the guidance I also found maybe a bit too practical, veering into basic, though we all can use a little reminding to smell the roses now and then.

What a great book! I cannot wait to assign it to my students. I appreciate the author's inclusion of social justice issues along with magical perspectives. Beautifully written as well.

I received a copy of this book to review from Netgalley and the publisher. My review and opinions are completely my own. 

I believe this book will appeal to anyone just starting out on their spiritual journey or anyone who is already well versed but is looking for basic review or maintenance/motivation.

Some concepts discussed were mindfulness, looking for magic in everyday living, the importance of healthy, self fulfilling self care, among others. I loved how the author went beyond the typical "easy" self-care and pointed out how self-care is also about enriching yourself, such as cutting down on processed sugar and ensuring there are no toxic relationships in your life. Self-care isn't always easy, but important. It goes beyond bubble baths and relaxation techniques. The author also adds in personal stories.

I appreciated how the author discusses how her culture and journey affects her practice with magic. I appreciated this as a reminder that everyone's perceptions will be different based on our own experiences. She also touched briefly on culture appropriation, which is something that I feel like isn't shown enough. In fact, I would have loved to read more about this.

On a side note that didn't really affect the quality of the book, is the formatting looked off on my Kindle Paperwhite. Sometimes words at the beginning and start of a new paragraphs had extra spaces, like an extra two or three. I didn't diminish the flow of the book nor did I feel like it detracted from the material. For all I know it was just on my Kindle. 

I also felt like at times the topics got a little repetitive. 

Overall, I give it four stars. It's pretty quick and easy read, and useful for any collection. It provides a thorough and in-depth look at everyday magic and how we can ensure we see it in our day-to-day life.

When I decided to read this book I didn't expect for it to give me cause to reflect, but it did. I very much enjoyed learning about the author Maria DeBlassie, she gave me many points throughout the book to pause, think and reflect. I finish reading this book with a new perspective, the magic of the every day, from traffic jams giving us a reason to slow down, to washing providing time to reflect in an almost meditative way, I feel I've learned to live a little slower, tune into what is going on around me a little more and pick up on the natural cues all around me. Thank you!