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hcq's review
2.0
Having already had to clean up a rather hoarded-out house myself, before there was really a term to describe the issue, I confess to a morbid fascination with these sorts of books. I tell myself I'm reading them mainly to learn, so I can better understand what happened, but it’s like messing with a scab, or a loose tooth: I know I probably shouldn’t and it won’t help anything, but I can’t help it.
I’ve read the academic literature, I know the stages, I know about the sad paucity of treatment options. These personal accounts are more interesting, now, because they sometimes shed light on angles I hadn’t thought about yet.
Schaub’s story seemed a bit gimmicky to me, I confess, especially knowing that this is apparently her schtick: A year of no sugar, a year of cleaning, etc. I didn’t mind the arbitrariness of it so much as the lack of impact, when she blithely admitted to completely missing her one-year deadline—and it didn’t matter, at all. Weirdly, her editor didn’t even seem to care.
But one thing she said did strike me. In talking about her relationship with things, like clothes, she said that she had an unreasonable expectation that they wouldn’t wear out, and that she’d get unreasonably upset when they did. That resonated, as I’ve often found myself thinking/getting mad the same way: “Oh, no, this shirt’s fraying at the collar/cuff! Hey, that can’t be right, it’s only…” and then my indignant voice trails off, as I realize that I bought said shirt at least ten years ago.
Why am I so surprised that things don’t last forever, even now? It’s a fair question.
I’ve read the academic literature, I know the stages, I know about the sad paucity of treatment options. These personal accounts are more interesting, now, because they sometimes shed light on angles I hadn’t thought about yet.
Schaub’s story seemed a bit gimmicky to me, I confess, especially knowing that this is apparently her schtick: A year of no sugar, a year of cleaning, etc. I didn’t mind the arbitrariness of it so much as the lack of impact, when she blithely admitted to completely missing her one-year deadline—and it didn’t matter, at all. Weirdly, her editor didn’t even seem to care.
But one thing she said did strike me. In talking about her relationship with things, like clothes, she said that she had an unreasonable expectation that they wouldn’t wear out, and that she’d get unreasonably upset when they did. That resonated, as I’ve often found myself thinking/getting mad the same way: “Oh, no, this shirt’s fraying at the collar/cuff! Hey, that can’t be right, it’s only…” and then my indignant voice trails off, as I realize that I bought said shirt at least ten years ago.
Why am I so surprised that things don’t last forever, even now? It’s a fair question.
marianneo's review
2.0
Eve, mother of two and a collector of everything that crosses her path, has an ultra-messy room she decides to try cleaning up one year. Eve is an animated and chatty narrator, but there just wasn’t enough of a story here for me. I don’t think she reached deep enough into the subject or found the greater perspective to make it relevant to a wider audience.
hazelbright's review
5.0
Great book, much deeper than the rote "how to get your house under control" books one normally finds in this category. Like her year-long journey clearing the Hell Room, Schaub does not stop at the surface of things, but provides some profound commentary on the possible evolutionary benefits of having a hoarding personality, the meaning of things in general and how things become conflated with love and loved ones, and the lives of things as they go on in the world without us, freed from their prison under other mounds of stuff.
What Schaub does here that I have not seen in any other book on this topic is to address the emotional part of what she calls "saving." She describes how the capacity to sort through one's things is strengthened with practice, just like any other skill, which is not a new thing, but what she does that no one else I've read has done is to describe how to go about taking those first tentative steps. She provides lots of little tricks to get this done. Moving things to a new place, for example. Things that we can ignore because they've sat there for eons, once moved, become big targets that need dealing with.
If you have a big mess to clean up and want a friend to help you, get this as an audiobook, and the time and work will fly by.
What Schaub does here that I have not seen in any other book on this topic is to address the emotional part of what she calls "saving." She describes how the capacity to sort through one's things is strengthened with practice, just like any other skill, which is not a new thing, but what she does that no one else I've read has done is to describe how to go about taking those first tentative steps. She provides lots of little tricks to get this done. Moving things to a new place, for example. Things that we can ignore because they've sat there for eons, once moved, become big targets that need dealing with.
If you have a big mess to clean up and want a friend to help you, get this as an audiobook, and the time and work will fly by.
camila_caminioca's review
3.0
*This book was given to me by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review – all opinions are my own.*
Oh what to say about this book. It was an interesting one. I requested this book on Netgalley because I expected it to be a bit more like Marie Condo and less like the diary of a mentally unstable person. But hey, I got something halfway in between. The beginning irritated me a little because there was just a lot of obsessive talk going on. While I could recognise some people of my family, cluttering isn't something that I can identity with many real people in my life, making some of the hoarder thoughts sound insane (like 'oh I can't throw away this dead mouse, it's basically a friend'...hm what?). BUT, and yes it's a big BUT, Schaub's writing is excellent. I laughed out loud and by half the book I was captivated by her quest, not just to clear the one 'hell room' in her house, but her way of seeing life and her relationship to 'things' in general. I really enjoyed it in the end and would recommend it to anyone who likes the idea of reading about someone decluttering their house.
Oh what to say about this book. It was an interesting one. I requested this book on Netgalley because I expected it to be a bit more like Marie Condo and less like the diary of a mentally unstable person. But hey, I got something halfway in between. The beginning irritated me a little because there was just a lot of obsessive talk going on. While I could recognise some people of my family, cluttering isn't something that I can identity with many real people in my life, making some of the hoarder thoughts sound insane (like 'oh I can't throw away this dead mouse, it's basically a friend'...hm what?). BUT, and yes it's a big BUT, Schaub's writing is excellent. I laughed out loud and by half the book I was captivated by her quest, not just to clear the one 'hell room' in her house, but her way of seeing life and her relationship to 'things' in general. I really enjoyed it in the end and would recommend it to anyone who likes the idea of reading about someone decluttering their house.
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