This book is so far outside of my comfort zone, it is in a genre I didn’t even know existed. With one of my many job, I am involved with the Historical Congressional Cemetery here in DC, which means I get to participate in their bookclub! As you can imagine, the books are typically about cemeteries, death, or the supernatural, and this one was no exception.
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“Out of the Shadows” is described as a book about women who utilize superstitions in the Victorian Era and after to achieve influence that they would otherwise not have been able to access. I think it would be more accurate to say that it is about women who became famous or infamous in some cases because of their purported psychic ability.
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I guess this would be a good time to say that I think that is all malarkey, so the whole time I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I won’t spoil all of the surprises, but I’ll say it only ended up dropping in one case.
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Anyways, I thought the book was pretty interesting all things considered, but I wish Midorikawa had had a more skeptical tone when discussing the women and focused more on why and how they were unique in comparison to their female peers because of their notoriety.
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So I would say this is a 3/5 stars for me because I didn’t hate it, but I definitely had some criticisms and I would never have finished it if I didn’t have to for bookclub.