Barnes & NobleInitiated: Memoir of a Witch by Amanda Yates Garcia

Beautiful Memoir

This is the first memoir by a witch I’ve read, and it has me craving *more*. I want to read about all my witch sisters, how they came to the craft, the initiations big and small they’ve lived through. Amanda Yates Garcia weaves a beautiful narrative, at times intensely heavy in subject matter, but always well written, provocative, and in a lot of ways reassuring. It’s not the easiest path, being a witch. And we’re far from perfect, in how we traverse it. I loved reading about this particular path and what being a witch evolved from for her. I did have to put the book down a couple times in the beginning, because the subject matter was heavier than I was prepared for. Sometimes you’re not in the mood to read about the patriarchy or the kyriarchy, and that’s okay. I always came back when I was better prepared, and am very glad to have read this book. I hope more people read it who wonder what can lead to witchcraft for someone. I wasn’t born to a mother who was a witch herself, the way this author was. But my path sometimes felt similar to hers. It’s a calling that has universal themes, I think, and it’s easy to find the things that overlap. I would recommend this book to any witch, and certainly to any layperson who is curious about the sort of *why* of it all. *Why* a person might be called to witchcraft, or identify as a witch. I think Amanda Yates Garcia does a great job of laying it out in an easy-to-understand way, and one which I hope most witches would find inoffensive.