All Our Hidden Gifts: With Great Power Comes Looking At Your Past, Present, And Future

Tarot stories are fun because they talk about how the cards don’t determine your fate. Instead, they can help you make better decisions about your present. When you toss in real magic into the mix along with research, then you get quite a story.

This story also takes a long hard look at what forgiveness is. It also determines that no one is obligated to forgive you for doing something horrible. That was a super refreshing theme to read, in the wake of the whole “hatred is the cup of poison that only you drink” saying that seems to be everywhere. After all, sometimes the poison is everywhere, waiting to spring in the form of violence. In this case, the violence comes with a dose of magic.

Trigger warnings: this book has mentions of weaponized homophobia, a bit of violence, and cult behavior.

All Our Hidden Gifts By Caroline O’Donoghue

Maeve is many things — a former friend to her “weird” classmate Lily, a hater of Italian verbs, and a decent cleaning person when she’s assigned to tidy up a closet as part of an in-school suspension. She disparagingly calls it the Chokey, after the iron maiden punishment in Matilda. After she nearly gets locked in the Chokey, Maeve finds an old deck of Tarot cards…