Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I decided to buy this product after watching a video chat with Rachel and her friend Cree Summer. It was during this chat that the two of them got very, very defensive about the quality of the cards that are included in the product. Cree went off on a seemingly untriggered tangent about how you have to "break in" the cards with use in order to make them pliable and nicer, and then Rachel got very defensive and referenced reviewers saying the cards were cheaply made. She essentially said that 1.It isn't her fault because she didn't choose the materials used to manufacture the cards, and B. you would pay this price point ($30) for comparable decks of cards *ONLY but this also gets you the included book. Ergo she felt it wasn't fair to complain. I realized she was referring specifically to a review posted here on Amazon but I had already ordered my copy and I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. I wish I hadn't. The cards are indeed printed as cheaply as possible. You know those decks of tarot cards you see in cheap, generic gift sets at the front of Barnes & Noble for $12? That's the quality of these cards. Flimsy, almost like cheap, thin cardboard. Just one or two shuffles and they already lose their tautness and form, but not in a pleasant way. I cannot imagine you could do more than fifty decent reads with this deck before they show significant wear, and if you intend to keep them as a collectible rather than a for-use deck, that's probably better in terms of life. What bothers me is that Rachel seems to think she can be removed from the quality of a product that bears her name. Miss True, j'adore, but you can't put your name on a product and then act like you aren't responsible for the quality. That is a crock of nonsense. And yes, this set comes with both the cards and with your book, but I think I would have rather bought the paperback book inside for $12 and not had the cards, despite the beauty of the artwork. As for the book itself...well. The insights into the cards are somewhat subjective. Rachel's view on tarot seems to have a lot to do with abandoning their traditional meaning in favor of letting your intuition, combined with the images on the cards, in order to guide your reading. Since tarot is at its core all about intuition, this is fine and well, but the stories inside the book are very thin and not particularly well written. So if you're a practitioner of traditional tarot, being told to look beyond the prescribed meaning for each card is a fun, but somewhat misguided, approach to the art. Especially when each card is then associated with a brief story from Rachel's life, thus making them personal to her. A good example is the story of how she got a role in "The Craft", which boils down to essentially: "I moved to Los Angeles, got one job, then couldn't get jobs because white thin girls were what was being cast. Then a friend referred me to the script for "The Craft", and I got that job." Literally, that's the story. I guess what I'm getting at is that if you're looking for more in-depth, fleshed out anecdotes from Rachel True's life, you will be out of luck. As much as I hate to say it, one feels like perhaps the entire reason Rachel's book is bundled with these cards is because she doesn't actually have that much to say, and her celebrity is spread thinly enough that simply one or the other wouldn't appeal to wide enough an audience to be a success. Bottom line: if you're looking for a high quality tarot deck, or an extremely in-depth and interesting book to read, you won't find either in this set.