I'll admit to never having heard of the Minimalists before seeing the except of their book Love People, Use things offered on BookishFirst. The concept of the book is simple enough: we have too many material possessions. When the Celadon Readers program gave me the opportunity to review a copy through NetGalley, I figured I'd give it a try, hoping that it would give me some insight into home organizational techniques. After all, the Marie Kondo method has ushered in a new era of "sparking joy" and finding contentment in one's space.
And I do agree with it's basic premise: America is laden with rampant consumerism and it's not improving our lives. But I had several issues with this text.
Firstly, for a book about simplifying your life, the narrative is anything but simple. In fact, it's all over the place, seeming to not know what type of book it is. I had assumed it was going to be a how-to book in finding a system to get rid of all that extra stuff in your house. But the parts that deal with that are relatively few and are scattered through a variety of other topics. Is this about organization? Building community relationships? Strengthening your marriage? Focusing on your financial literacy? Improving your health/healthy eating/not taking dozens of/abusing prescription drugs? I suppose it can be all these things, but it had a strange flow.
And I'm very weary of people whose mantra is: "simplify your life and don't do any unnecessary spending, so you can give to others and be fulfilled, but oh, do buy this book (instead of me providing the contents on say, an online blog) and go buy a special 'companion notebook' so you can journal with our prompts (what's wrong with suggesting you use one of the old notebooks you have lying around your house you found when packing up all your worldly possessions in boxes?)."
Secondly, I absolutely hated the tone of this text. Maybe I'm not the target audience, as my family's financial situation is fairly responsible at the moment, but I found the authors' (mostly Joshua, I suppose, as Ryan was only thrown into 'codas' at the end of each chapter) voice really off putting. From insulting the audience (your stuff is a "child's blanket" and a "pacifier") and just being downright preachy. You're irresponsible for using a credit card because you can't afford what you're buying? Excuse me? How does one make an online purchase then? This is pretty tone-deaf as we're just coming out of a global pandemic where everyone panicked and shut a bunch of stuff down soooo...how would one go about paying in cash on location? And what of people who don't max out a dozen cards (as the author admitted to doing) and pay off their balance every month?
Maybe I needed to listen to their podcast first, but this book is filled with so much pretentious condescension, that I'm going to pass on that. It's really hard to relate to someone who is basically using this book as a platform to say "we screwed up everywhere in life (it details 5,000$ a month drug habits, divorce, huge credit card debts), so you shouldn't enjoy the finer things in life either. I mean, really. I found it hard to sympathize with a guy who claims to have been making 200,000$ a year by his mid twenties while at the same time was driving around in not one, but two Lexuses and a Range Rover in that same time. AND built his own house. You know where I was at the same time (we are the same age roughly, so living through the same economies)? Driving my beat-up Chevy Cavalier to my 30,000 a year teaching job. And I also recognize that even I enjoyed many privileges others didn't.
I'm sure we've all heard the saying that money doesn't buy happiness. There are plenty of anecdotal evidence of lottery winners and Hollywood types living with depression to know that this adage is somewhat true. But money does make life a little easier (as people who grew up poor--including the authors, according to their narrative--know). And to imply that there's no way to lead a fulfilling life and enjoy material things at the same time is a little shortsighted. What is the alternative anyways? Because the book doesn't give anything as an antidote to the issues of Western capitalism. I can think of the historical opposite, and well, I suppose people were living minimally under the Iron Curtain! I'm not sure I want that either though...
So in the end, I was hoping I'd find some fresh insights in this book, and maybe some of the charm that Marie Kondo exudes. Unfortunately, this didn't work for this reader.
Thank you to Celadon Books for allowing me this copy in exchange for an honest review--I always appreciate your titles!
And I do agree with it's basic premise: America is laden with rampant consumerism and it's not improving our lives. But I had several issues with this text.
Firstly, for a book about simplifying your life, the narrative is anything but simple. In fact, it's all over the place, seeming to not know what type of book it is. I had assumed it was going to be a how-to book in finding a system to get rid of all that extra stuff in your house. But the parts that deal with that are relatively few and are scattered through a variety of other topics. Is this about organization? Building community relationships? Strengthening your marriage? Focusing on your financial literacy? Improving your health/healthy eating/not taking dozens of/abusing prescription drugs? I suppose it can be all these things, but it had a strange flow.
And I'm very weary of people whose mantra is: "simplify your life and don't do any unnecessary spending, so you can give to others and be fulfilled, but oh, do buy this book (instead of me providing the contents on say, an online blog) and go buy a special 'companion notebook' so you can journal with our prompts (what's wrong with suggesting you use one of the old notebooks you have lying around your house you found when packing up all your worldly possessions in boxes?)."
Secondly, I absolutely hated the tone of this text. Maybe I'm not the target audience, as my family's financial situation is fairly responsible at the moment, but I found the authors' (mostly Joshua, I suppose, as Ryan was only thrown into 'codas' at the end of each chapter) voice really off putting. From insulting the audience (your stuff is a "child's blanket" and a "pacifier") and just being downright preachy. You're irresponsible for using a credit card because you can't afford what you're buying? Excuse me? How does one make an online purchase then? This is pretty tone-deaf as we're just coming out of a global pandemic where everyone panicked and shut a bunch of stuff down soooo...how would one go about paying in cash on location? And what of people who don't max out a dozen cards (as the author admitted to doing) and pay off their balance every month?
Maybe I needed to listen to their podcast first, but this book is filled with so much pretentious condescension, that I'm going to pass on that. It's really hard to relate to someone who is basically using this book as a platform to say "we screwed up everywhere in life (it details 5,000$ a month drug habits, divorce, huge credit card debts), so you shouldn't enjoy the finer things in life either. I mean, really. I found it hard to sympathize with a guy who claims to have been making 200,000$ a year by his mid twenties while at the same time was driving around in not one, but two Lexuses and a Range Rover in that same time. AND built his own house. You know where I was at the same time (we are the same age roughly, so living through the same economies)? Driving my beat-up Chevy Cavalier to my 30,000 a year teaching job. And I also recognize that even I enjoyed many privileges others didn't.
I'm sure we've all heard the saying that money doesn't buy happiness. There are plenty of anecdotal evidence of lottery winners and Hollywood types living with depression to know that this adage is somewhat true. But money does make life a little easier (as people who grew up poor--including the authors, according to their narrative--know). And to imply that there's no way to lead a fulfilling life and enjoy material things at the same time is a little shortsighted. What is the alternative anyways? Because the book doesn't give anything as an antidote to the issues of Western capitalism. I can think of the historical opposite, and well, I suppose people were living minimally under the Iron Curtain! I'm not sure I want that either though...
So in the end, I was hoping I'd find some fresh insights in this book, and maybe some of the charm that Marie Kondo exudes. Unfortunately, this didn't work for this reader.
Thank you to Celadon Books for allowing me this copy in exchange for an honest review--I always appreciate your titles!