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plantaebryophyta 's review for:
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
this book gave me a great place to start when it comes to cleaning. i have a very hard time keeping my room clean, and i hold a lot of shame about it. i listened to most of the book while cleaning my room one day, months after my mom recommended it to me, and it really helped me maintain the motivation i needed to get shit done.
i really needed the permission to just throw things away, i have a lot of eco anxiety and hate wasting things but donating things is a big task i rarely get to.
I can't fault the author for speaking from experience, and she did say a few times that she wasn't going to talk about things she didn't have firsthand knowledge about, but this book is definitely geared toward a pretty specific demographic: upper middle class married mothers of young children.
most of her tips are still helpful, but her advice being "pay a cleaner" or "speak to your ready and willing spouse and divide the work between the two of you" was frustrating to me.
there wasn't much about what to do if you can't hire someone or if you aren't married. this was addressed: she said she wouldn't talk about things she'd never gone thru, like needing to work constantly to afford to feed a family/pay rent. i think talking about something or giving advice on something you've never gone thru is not a great practice, especially for a book like this, and the author obviously agrees with me on that, because she had a Black woman write a segment about how to care for Black hair when it's been neglected for a long time. that was very smart. what i wish was that someone else did a segment about care tasks while in poverty or care tasks as a single parent or care tasks while living at home with no children. it seems like a missed opportunity, and is obviously something she is willing to do, because of the section on Black hair.
that complaint aside, i found the book helpful, well written, and full of gentle and kind words. i am certain that the principles taught in it will help me.
i still feel the need to remove some stars because, other than the universal tips she gives, there's so much focus on tips for upper middle class married mothers of young children that the advice and encouragement often felt irrelevant to my own experience.
i really needed the permission to just throw things away, i have a lot of eco anxiety and hate wasting things but donating things is a big task i rarely get to.
I can't fault the author for speaking from experience, and she did say a few times that she wasn't going to talk about things she didn't have firsthand knowledge about, but this book is definitely geared toward a pretty specific demographic: upper middle class married mothers of young children.
most of her tips are still helpful, but her advice being "pay a cleaner" or "speak to your ready and willing spouse and divide the work between the two of you" was frustrating to me.
there wasn't much about what to do if you can't hire someone or if you aren't married. this was addressed: she said she wouldn't talk about things she'd never gone thru, like needing to work constantly to afford to feed a family/pay rent. i think talking about something or giving advice on something you've never gone thru is not a great practice, especially for a book like this, and the author obviously agrees with me on that, because she had a Black woman write a segment about how to care for Black hair when it's been neglected for a long time. that was very smart. what i wish was that someone else did a segment about care tasks while in poverty or care tasks as a single parent or care tasks while living at home with no children. it seems like a missed opportunity, and is obviously something she is willing to do, because of the section on Black hair.
that complaint aside, i found the book helpful, well written, and full of gentle and kind words. i am certain that the principles taught in it will help me.
i still feel the need to remove some stars because, other than the universal tips she gives, there's so much focus on tips for upper middle class married mothers of young children that the advice and encouragement often felt irrelevant to my own experience.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction
Minor: Sexual assault