Our Tarot: A Guidebook and Deck Featuring Notable Women in History is a gorgeous tarot deck accompanied by a thorough book. My first impression was that this deck is pretty but maybe not very user-friendly. However, the more I use it, the more I realize how well it is organized, how well the book complements the cards and makes readings easier, and how beautifully each card is constructed. As a bonus, the book contains full-page images of each card, so I can see both the compact, framed image on the card and a larger version in the book that makes it easier to spot all the details (in the book).

This deck consists of 78 cards, each depicting a different historically significant woman. The women of the major arcana (the first 22 cards, which represent big ideas and moments) are women whom the author feels represent especially iconic women, known for heroism or for representing an idea. These cards tend to be clever and a bit on the nose. For instance, “The Tower” is represented by Anne Boleyn, “The Chariot” is Harriet Tubman, and “The Lovers” features Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr.

The minor arcana are split into Cups, Wands, Swords, and Pentacles. Since Cups usually represents emotion and intuition, the women in this suit are activists, poets, and “deep thinkers.” The women of Wands (fiery energy) are warriors, dancers, leaders, and actors. Since Pentacles represent money and the material world, these women are businesswomen and scientists.

The suit of Swords represents divisiveness and intellect so here we find “philosophers, politicians, and divisive personalities.” Knowing that this is how the women are placed in the deck makes readings a lot more organized. Although the imagery is lacking in traditional signifiers of the suits, each card is clearly labeled with the woman’s name as well as the name of the card. This is a relief since otherwise I’d be completely lost given the unusual imagery.

The art of all 78 cards consists of photographs or other images of the women set in collage backgrounds and overlays. The exception to this is Khadijah (Nine of Pentacles) which contains no image of Khadijah in deference to her religious beliefs against figurative representation.The deck and book come in a lovely, large storage box.

Do not, under any circumstances, drop this box on your bare foot.

The accompanying text is a full book, not just a booklet. It has a detailed profile of all the women and contains suggestions as to what the cards might be telling you or asking you to consider, as well as keywords about the meanings of each cards. This amount of detail makes readings much easier as frankly, the lives of these women are so overwhelming that I wasn’t sure how to interpret them in a reading.

I’m especially delighted by the fact that there are a lot of women in here that I’ve either never heard of at all or don’t know much about. Yes, all the usual kickass women suspects are here (not all of them wholly admirable, as the author explains in the introduction, but all undeniably kickass), but so are a lot of women who are much less well known.

Many of the women featured are lesbian or bisexual and many experimented with gender identity and expression, including Marsha P. Johnson (Six of Swords) who is currently usually described as a trans woman but who used many different terms to describe herself during her life. The book is wonderfully racially and globally inclusive, although I would have liked to have seen more disability inclusion. Helen Keller (Two of Swords) and Anne Sullivan (Temperance) can’t carry the entire disabled community on their own – what about Virginia Hall or Judith Heumann, for instance? Regardless, it’s exhilarating to flip through the deck and see so many women represented through time, race, ethnicity, class, and geography. It’s a truly rich feeling.

I’ve done several readings with this deck. If you are interested in this for tarot practice, I don’t recommend it for a first deck, because the imagery and the interpretations are so unique. However, this is a lovely deck for anyone who has had a little bit of practice with a more standard Rider-Waite-Smith deck and is ready to branch out. It was much more user-friendly than I expected and I was able to get good quality readings for my neighbor, my daughter, and myself, especially by using the book for guidance. I’ve been doing daily draws with it and each day so far the cards have been relevant and informative.

This would make a lovely gift for anyone interested in art and in women’s history, not just for people interested in tarot. I am enjoying spending more time with this deck and the amazing women it describes!