Retrieve The In-Betweens: The Spiritualists, Mediums, And Legends Of Camp Etna Designed By Mira Ptacin Document

good of this book is that it positions Spiritualism as a largely womanled religion that has persisted quietly for more than one hundred years, It gives a history of the movement and ties it loosely to historical context,

Theres an argument to made that having a journalist within the story they are reporting demonstrates their subjectivity more clearly, But truthfully, I feel it muddled this book a bit for me as a reader, Was it a book about a womanled movement that has got little credit and attention in the pastish years because of that Was it a book about squabbles within the current movement between new and old members Was it a book about the authors interactions with members at Camp Etna It was all of these things, but as a result it didnt feel entirely cohesive.
I wish the book had been a collection of essays, connected through the subject of Camp Etna, rather than trying to exist as one cohesive story.


Overall, it was interesting and I particularly liked the chapter on Houdini, as I'd never read anything that positioned him as a bit of a mysogynist before, and this being part of his motivation for going after mediums made sense to me.

Well this was vaguely racist, intensely gullible, and not at all the unbiased look at modern spiritualists it purported to be, While I appreciated the the focus on the feminist aspect of spiritualism then as well as now, it discarded the bad to embrace the good, and that gave me the big sad.
While it's okay to admit that all your faves are problematic, it's not okay to pretend like the problems aren't there, I won a copy of this book,

This book was really cool! I didn't know there is a whole camp in Maine for Spiritualists, Mira Ptacin does an awesome job of making me feel like I'm there with her touring the camp and talking to the people who call it home.
The history is interesting and kept me reading till the end,

Side note: Growing up, my mom would read tarot cards and rune stones for my friends and I, It was always fun for us, as we all attended a Christian school, Whilst at Girl Scout camp one time, some girls from another school had a Ouija board and a bunch of my friends were scared of it.
That was about my experience with Spiritualism, Borrowed this because Camp Etna is nearby and I had only heard a few things about it and thought it might be an interesting local read.
It wasn't.
This book is:
: Boring, Part of this is my fault, I hate memoirs, but I especially hate memoirs snuck into books that are supposed to be about some other nonfiction topic but the author either A: doesn't have enough to write about and needs filler or B: thinks their life/perspective is very interesting and that I really wanna read about it rather than about the actual topic of the book.
I probably should have put this book down when, in the first chapter, the author describes leaving her Portland adjacent island home on a ferry to drive up to Etna.
So she wants us to know she lives on peaks without saying she lives on peaks, cool.
The book flips between kind of boring, poorly formatted telling of the history of spirituality and the author's personal experiences at etna, Neither of these was interesting and the switching back and forth made it harder to follow, This is a common way of writing this kind of NF, but it was not executed well in this case at all,
: Poorly written: The author interacts with the current spritualists at etna and has a very colorful and honestly, gross way of describing the people she met.
There were a lot of overly floral details about people's appearances that were just so tedious to read, felt very romance novel which is totally fine in a romance novel and added absolutely nothing to the story.
Also some racist undertones here, Some of that isn't the author's fault, as it seems spiritualism just kinda stole a bunch of stories/religious practices/mythologies/beliefs from other religions, most specifically Native American/First Nations spiritual beliefs.
Since the author decided to tell me a bunch of her opinions about the people she met there, I wouldn't have minded if she had had some reaction to the weird racists shit people said, but whenever that might have come up it was back to neutral observer.

: Just wasn't the story/book I expected, I read the title and the description, and having read many nonfiction books, thought I knew what this was going to be, It just didn't meet my expectations, That's not to say that a book that doesn't follow the formula of its genre is bad, far from it, but a reader has some going into a new book that it is gonna follow through with its proposal, and when it doesn't that's a huge let down.
This book was very superficial, both historically and informationally, I did learn some things about spiritualism, but that's mostly because I knew zero things about it to start, I def learned the PRECISE hair color and texture of all the people the author met at etna, though,
: Is full of cringe, Having a whole spiritualism camp in Maine, that basically hosts a bunch of weird white people to come up and get a whitewashed version of Indigenous spiritualism mixed with all the other weird ghost communication shit they've have smashed into this belief system with no criticism of it from the author made me very uncomfy.
People can do what they want, but don't tell me how much of a crush you had on one of the spiritualism ladies while then not giving me your opinion about how whack all this shit is.


TLDR: Boring, fake feeling garbage, Extremely hard to get through, Such a terrific book! THE INBETWEENS walks the reader through the history of American Spiritualism and mediums which is not the same thing as a psychic through the history of Camp Etna, a place in Maine thats home to spiritualists and mediums which was once a bustling site for the faithful, curious, and skeptical.
miramptacin is both curious and skeptical for reasons that unfold throughout the course of her terrifically engaging and empathetic book, The

blend of history and reporting is so well done I cant wait to see what Mira chooses to study next, Ultimately, though, for me, this was a book about listening to yourself and finding faith thereregardless of whether or not you believe the dead can visit us, with or without religion.
How do you choose to live with the challenges in life More soon, So happy to curl up in bed and read this in one sitting tonight, Rounded up to.I won an Advance Reading Copy of The InBetweens: The Spiritualists, Mediums, and Legends of Camp Etna by Mira Ptacin from Goodreads,

In her book, The InBetweens: The Spiritualists, Mediums,and Legends of Camp Etna, Mira Ptacin presents the history of Spiritualism and Camp Etna through the stories of the people who, in the past as well as the present, practice the faith in its many forms.
The individuals Ptacin interviews at Camp Etna are as diverse as any population, and their stories are interesting, While there are several photographs scattered throughout the book, readers develop a better understanding and are able to envision the camp through the author's descriptions,
The InBetweens is a wonderful resource for true believers and a worthy informative history for the doubters, Ptacin's book will inspire readers to reflect on their believe and to respect those who choose a different path, I found it interesting to read a non fiction book after reading a bunch of fiction books, This author took a look at Camp Etna, a spiritual community that started in the earlys in Maine, I enjoyed all the historical data about the churches, the town, and the people involved in this spirituality movement, It was interesting to note how presidential wives, politicians and others in the USA capital were into psychics and mediums, Houdini became a historical figure during the spiritual movement too, In fact it was interesting to note he was a proselytizer for the new Mothers Day holiday that was established in, This book was written in the form of interviews that took place over many different visits at camp Etna, At times there was too much information about each person that was interviewed, What I also enjoyed were the questions the author left us with,
what if power really was gained by loosening up our beliefs
what if wisdom was attained not by knowing but by being able to sit with the unknown I found each chapter interesting in its historical data and I learned something from each chapter.
I even learned what type of medium I was and how my own set of gifts and abilities are different than others, This book left me with the understanding that:
“Some of us seek out cultures that are likeminded to find what is missing, This can be a lifelong search, But thats what we are all searching for our own tribe” Made it through the sample, but only barely,

The content looked promising since I've always been curious why the number of spiritualist groups exploded in theth century and how they influenced more modern groups.
If this were a true journalistic or research effort, I might have stuck with it, If the writing was better, I might have stuck with it, But this is yet another nonfic where the author writes more about themself than about the topic, It's the "I'm writing a book about me writing a book" trend that I've come to detest, I find the Spiritualist movement and its history endlessly interesting, so it was only a matter of time before I picked this up, Ptacin is clearly searching for something, and I admired the openmindedness she brought to her interactions with the mediums, psychics, and other practitioners of Camp Etna.


That said, the secondtolast chapter, in which Ptacin and her children attend a powwow, was a low point, Repeated references to "Native American culture" as if there were just one and complimentarybutstereotypical descriptions of powwow attendees were jarring in an otherwise sensitive, thoughtful book.
I LOVE THIS BOOK!!!!!

The subject matter is utterly fascinating, but what I find especially strong about this novel is the way it blends the authors experiences with those of the women at Camp Etna.
Ptacins experiences with these women gave me as a reader a way into their lives along with her, I absolutely love the way it reads both as a memoir and as a piece of literary journalism,

Not only that, but the legends of Camp Etna themselves are soooo interesting, I found the characters to be full, multidimensional and relatable, Ditto with the setting. I felt like I was pulled along into Ptacins journey and also immersed in a piece of American history that Im so glad found its way into a book.
And its feminist AF!.