A really funny take on what to do with all the "stuff" we accumulate. As one who has recently, "down-sized," I understand the dilemma. As we age, we all have to come to terms with what is meaningful to keep and what our kids will ultimately throw in a dumpster after we're gone.

It’s most impressive that Ms. Schaub could write a more than 300-page book about the clutter in her life. There was no actual story; just clutter and her cluttered life.

I expected it to be a self-help book about how I could declutter my home. It was not. It was about her self-awareness. Ms. Schaub learned a lot about herself throughout the book as she reminisced with each piece of clutter that she touched, but it definitely got a little lllooonnnggg. Every – it seemed like every, anyway – piece of junk/clutter was liberally described. I found myself wondering how deep was that psychological hole she was trying to fill as she kept almost every item that she touched throughout her life.

I couldn’t decide how many stars to give this book. The writing was free flowing and very descriptive, but the content left me wanting.

P.S. There’s not a doubt in my mind that easily within two years, and probably less, her Hell Room will be completely cluttered once again.

This year, like many years in the past, my new year's resolution was to get organized. The very first thing I need to do to get my entire life organized is to de-clutter my house. When I saw a book called "A Year of No Clutter for some reason I thought it was going to be a book detailing how I could use the next 365 days to get my house organized. To my surprise, it was actually a book about someone else's quest to clean up her own act. At first, I was just going to bail since it isn't exactly what I was looking for, but I stuck around and enjoyed reading this very relatable book. I too have a "Hell Room" where all of my junk goes and I really can't seem to get it cleaned up no matter what I do! It almost made me feel better to know someone else has the same problem and made me feel even better to know that she too was motivated to clean out her room. Towards the middle of the book, there was a lot of repetitiveness and the book just became uninteresting to me, so I don't know whether she was successful in cleaning out her "Hell Room" or not but the portion of the book I read did motivate me to get started de-cluttering my own house.

In her second book, author Eve Schaub explored the tendencies to accumulate too much stuff in her humorous and engaging memoir, “Year of No Clutter”. This book follows her debut release: “Year of No Sugar” (2014). The introduction was written by Schaub’s husband Steve, a quote by Anne Lamott was also included: “Nothing heals us like letting people know our scariest parts.” Readers will unlikely be unable to view their stuff in the same light after reading this book.

In their large Vermont home, Schaub was determined to clear the “hell room” which was crammed to the max with stuff, so much that she feared little visitors going in and out of the room. Stuff spilled out into the hallway, she was overwhelmed, dazed, as a “tranquilized water buffalo”-- it would take several attempts to clear all the stuff out. Scraps of fabric, papers, kids art projects, looked interesting, a single old sneaker would make a great Santa Maria in her Columbus diorama.
Besides, did she really want to throw things into the landfill that could be useful to others? Using Marie Kondo’s "the life changing magic of tidying up" (2016) she wasn’t so sure about the Japanese expert’s principle that her belongings should “spark joy”. It was a revelation to her that not everyone had a “hell room”, nor did they save 5th grade report cards, dried flowers, stuffed animals, or the dress worn to graduation. In fact, she would learn that her powerful impulse to save things was likely genetic, related to a form of OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) for which she received therapy and medication.

Hoarding was a deviant condition—a torture, that brought sadness, misery, depression, hopelessness with an inability to cope. With the death of Gary, a friend from church, he had been a severe hoarder, Schaub agreed to help. Friends were barely able to enter the house, the heat and electricity hadn’t worked in years, there was minimal plumbing. (From the book) “I breathed into my dust mask and had the odd sensation of scuba diving in a shipwreck.” There were tall mounds, stacks, and piles that had to be carefully navigated through, they were unable to find a photo for Gary’s memorial service. Schaub compared the experience to the documentaries and shows related to Hoarding.

Profits in the storage industry total about 3 billion USD per year, Schaub realized the value and importance of space as “hell room” became the “art room” that her daughters Greta and Ilsa enjoyed using. Unable to resist writing about all her belongings, “The Autobiography of a Rug” and “The Weirdest Things I Own” seemed to be of utmost importance—to the author. 3* GOOD. ~ With thanks to Sourcebooks Inc. via NetGalley for the DRC for the purpose of review.

Good Read... Slow in some parts but there are a lot of AHA moments in this book. If you don't think you have a clutter problem - you will rethink it after reading this book.

A laugh-out-loud look at the world of clutter in all it's forms and stages. Ms. Schaub comes to grips with her own problem-is it hoarding or "disposiphobia"? Her self-deprecating humor and snappy writing style puts the problem of "too much stuff" front and center, and helps those of us with similar tendencies take a sharp look at the things we hang on to and why.

An interesting, at times uncomfortable read - I identified with the author's feelings and actions a little too often for my peace of mind. The association of objects with memories was very telling and explains why I find it so hard to throw away old greetings cards from people I no longer know. After finishing the book I have today finally for round to sorting the boxes of craft supplies that have been lying about for ages, so my husband is very happy that I read it!

I loved the writing in this book and could absolutely relate to some of her thoughts (and accomplishments!) in regard to clutter in her home. I don't often turn to non-fiction in my reading life, but this one was absolutely worth it and very well told.

During my progress update, I wrote this book seems slightly 'cluttered', to use the author's words. However, having finished the whole thing, I feel that it has every right to be. A) it seems totally fitting to the author's character - any other thing would have felt just not right. Good thing too that the editors did not (as I initially hoped) de-clutter the story too much.

While this is not a self-help guidebook, the book offers several notes of advice on how to handle and reduce your clutter, just not as straight-forward, but to be found in between the lines (actually, there are even one or two lists that might come in handy for the reader).

As for the rest, the book really reads like a kind of memoir (I wondered why it was categorized there) and it got very personal in the process. There were many small anecdotes which at first I deemed 'clutter', but which make reading this book such a likable and honest thing. The author is not some self-proclaimed expert on organizing or cleaning up, but she is one of 'us' - a person that has experienced clutter herself and decided to do something about it, while at the same time admitting she will never be a neat-freak. It was consoling to see so much similarities in her way of thinking and behaving. While I do not have something as large as a complete Hell Room, there are several corners and boxes in my home that have mysterious clutter-magnetic powers. I could relate to the author's outbursts of clearing frenzy as well as her phases of depressed numbness very well. There are certain days where sorting is the easiest thing to do, while on others I can't seem to part with even the smallest thing while at the same time feeling overwhelmed by all the clutter in my life. So I decided long ago to just roll with the tide and do my clearances only when in the right mood - otherwise I will only end up shifting things from one place to another without actually achieving something. Usually spring is my perfect season to declutter, so it was a good thing I read the book now as a reminder and motivation to start another round of me vs. clutter.

While any actual practical advice taken from this book was not new to me, the author put in clear words how I feel about my clutter but which was always slightly fuzzy - one thing is the past of things, the memories and feelings they represent and which is hard to let go, even if it means only physically. The other is 'it may be useful to someone some day'. I absolutely share this reluctance to part with stuff that is not broken and still perfectly usable, even if keeping it or trying to find someone who has use for it takes up lots of space and time I could spend in better ways.

So while I often feel slightly intimidated by expert guidebooks and sometimes even wonder how they can give advice on something they haven't experienced personally (ha! it's easy for them to talk), this book meets you on 'eye-level', so to speak, and I'm more willing to take advice that has actually been put to the test. While it seems my review got a bit cluttered itself now, I only have good things to say about this book, so I guess that's OK ;)
Recommended!

I loved this book. Eve begins the book essentially to tackle her "Hell Room", a room so full of stuff she locks the door when the babysitter comes over or keeps it shut when her friends visit. It's filled with years of items she cannot seem to part with out of fear of regret. I don't have a Hell Room myself, however, I can identify with Eve's compulsion to keep even the most ridiculous things because they seem important at the time or I simply don't know what to do with them. The book follows Eve's journey to find balance: Hell Room vs. keeping what you find truly important and can fit without it trying to take over your house. I found Eve to be incredibly relatable and I enjoyed every second of her journey. I may even start my own!

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank You to Sourcebooks for providing me with an advanced copy of Eve O. Schaub's memoir, Year of No Clutter, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT- Having previously written a book where her family eliminated added sugar for a year, Schaub is back, with a challenge to give herself a year to master the clutter in her home. It's more than just clutter, Schaub has one room in particular, that has been dubbed the "Hell Room", which has turned into something out of an episode of Hoarders. Can Schaub and her family fix the "Hell Room" and get to the root of their clutter problem? In modern society, is it possible to live clutter-free?

LIKE - My mom was a highly organized person, who did not keep more than was necessary, however, after she died, I found some unusual examples of hoarding. She was a single woman, who didn't cook, yet she had about thirty boxes of Saran wrap in a pantry. In the pantry, I found stock-piles of tin foil, AA batteries, and unopened boxes of playing cards. No clue why she amassed such quantities of these specific items. I wish I could have asked her! None of this of course was a huge deal, but it was weird. Schaub mentions dealing with death, and wondering what your possessions will say about you, when you're gone. Thinking about this topic fascinates and worries me.

Year of No Clutter does not contain photographic evidence, however, Schaub's home in no-way sounds like a hoarding situation. She does visit the house of a deceased hoarder, who was a friend of a friend. Schaub wore a mask, as she carefully waded through the mounds of trash, accumulated over many years. This made me think of an experience I had a decade ago, cleaning out the apartment of the daughter of my mom's friend, who had died. This apartment was just on the edge of hoarder status, certainly a situation where the clutter was out of control. The job was so massive, that we ended up searching for anything of value, and then calling a company to do the clearing out. I was stunned by the enormity of it all.

Schaub writes about the accumulation of clutter, and how things as innocent as a birthday present, contribute to a growing mess. Schaub has a friend who sent out an email asking her friends and family to stop giving her gifts. She had everything she need. Schaub's friend quickly learned that this was easier said than done; our culture shows love and appreciation through gifts. Her loved ones could not comply. I connected with this sentiment and I imagine most readers would agree that the own stuff that they simply don't need or even want. The stuff is a burden and because it was a gift, they are even more torn over removing it from their home. Schaub makes many references to organization guru, Marie Kondo, who has a rule about only keeping objects that bring you joy. Unfortunately in Schaub's case, she manages to "find joy" in what most people would consider to be junk. Junk, or maybe just gross, like when she decides to keep a dead mouse in a box.

DISLIKE- Although I found Year of No Clutter to be relatable and even inspirational, it lacked a sense of intensity or urgency. A year is a long time to spread out this type of project and there were no consequences for failure, other than a home with clutter. To this end, I found myself loosing interest and wondering if the concept warranted a full book treatment. I think a more appropriate venue for her story would have been a lengthy magazine feature, hitting the highlights of her experiment. In book form, it lost steam.

RECOMMEND- Maybe. Schaub is funny and likable, as is her family, and Year of No Clutter is going to be relatable for many readers. Although I found myself skimming her memoir I think it would provide inspiration to many readers. Clutter is certainly a problem that plagues many people.

A light hearted easy to read book about hoarding and how the author tackled her own hoarding. This book looks at clearing our homes of items we do not need, gives ideas of what to do with them and gives a few facts on hoarding. It is a humorous story of how the author cleared a room in her house and makes us think about the things stored in our own attics.

When it comes to stuff, are you a keeper or a pitcher? I grew up a keeper for sure, although as I get older I'm morphing more into a pitcher. Still, I tend to be sentimental about things, which greatly complicates the situation.

So I felt like I'd found a soulmate in Eve Schaub, author of the new book "Year of No Clutter" (thanks, NetGalley, for a review manuscript).

I found this book a bit mistitled. I was expecting it to be about someone who decided to not take in any clutter during a year, and to clear the house of it. Instead, Eve tells us about her mission to clean up her "Hell room" -- a large room in her house full of mountains of unsorted stuff (incidentally, I would also have loved to have seen photos).

Anyway, I plunged into the book -- kind of like Eve into the room, ha ha. Exactly what kind of stuff filled the Hell room? "... my fifth grade report card, three sheep's worth of wool fleece, and a desiccated dead mouse in a box ... a never-played board game, a hook rug I made of Garfield the cartoon cat when I was nine ... enough leftover fabric from homemade Halloween costumes to provide a trousseau for a medium-sized horse." Take out the dead mouse, and here was a woman I could relate to.


The book is really part memoir, part the author's thought process as she attempts to let go of various things in the room. Many of her thoughts felt quite familiar. She stressed over letting go of things from her past, due to thinking that getting rid of the item was in some ways like getting rid of her memories. "I have a firmly-entrenched belief that keeping things can make the difference between success and failure, between happiness and regret, between remembering and forgetting."

Some of her points which I found interesting:

"If I keep everything, who's going to know or who's going to say what's really important? If it all gets thrown away someday anyway, then what the heck was the point?"
One of my biggest issues in decluttering is my desire to not just throw things away, but to get each item to someplace where it can be useful to someone. Eve is the same way, and let me tell you, decluttering with this mindset is HARD WORK! Eventually, she comes to realize that "no matter how much good luck (things) brought you in the past, you have to let albatrosses (aka clutter) go. Even if that means they'll go sit in the landfill and no one will ever appreciate or understand them."
There is a correlation between hoarding and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): between 18-42% of those with OCD have hoarding issues too.
She mentions a friend who, upon the friend's engagement, burned all her mementos of earlier relationships. "This was pretty much the complete inverse of how I related to the world. The world, in particular one's private, most personal world, was for gathering and keeping! Not for destroying ... I could not have been more horrified if she had told me she had burned her own childhood."
Eve recounts the pleasant experience of looking through childhood mementos with one of her daughters: "... perhaps this is what I had been saving all this stuff for -- not for posterity, but for ... now. For this moment. I had retold a story of myself that I had forgotten all about -- shared it, enjoyed it with Greta. What more was required of these things? Could it be, I wondered, that their job was done?"
Schaub faces another issue -- many people in her life give her their old things. She is too nice to say no, and also tends toward hoarding, which just makes the problem worse: "Partly this is me being the problem-solving good girl my personality always seems to default to: wanting to help, remove their separation anxiety, even gain their approval: Yes! I can solve your problem! I'll take that monstrous, glass, art nouveau cigar ashtray off your hands -- I will appreciate it and will give it a good home!" Wow, I could have written that.
Related to that, she mentions the hoarder's problem of seeing potential in everything, everywhere. They are "crippled by potential." I can relate to this; I think it's a common issue for teachers, who save many things, ostensibly "to use in the classroom."
She eventually comes around to the philosophical issue: why is she saving all this stuff, when it can't last forever anyway? "Alex's fourth birthday party won't be around forever, just as people who care to sit down and watch that tape won't be around forever. Although it seems like common sense, nevertheless it's a thought that continues to elude me, probably because I want it to elude me. Who wants to think about the time in the not-too-distant future when we will all be dead and gone? How long does it take until no one will remember us at all? ... I intend to live forever, curating the Eve Museum into eternity. It makes sense, therefore, that keeping things can be interpreted as a kind of denial of death." INTERESTING!
One final humorous observation -- Schaub struggles over getting rid of a pot of hers which has lost its handle. She ruminates "Laura Ingalls would have kept it. She would've found a use for it -- feeding the pigs or watering the horses, or perhaps storing treasures in it under her bed." So funny, and so similar to something I would think!

I recommend "Year of No Clutter" as an entertaining read, and one that you may find yourself relating to, if you (like me) struggle with keeping your stuff under control.

A pleasant memoir about family, well-being, materialism as well as minimalism and of course everyone's enemy - clutter! Loved it!

I've been interested in decluttering and a clutter free lifestyle for quite a while now. Therefore this book immediately caught my attention.

The chapter about the hell room is extremely interesting and her writing is easy and quick to read. It was a nice way to get into the whole subject matter. Throughout reading it, personal stories and problems Eve had to face made it richer in variety.

To be completely honest, at first I wasn't aware of how serious and well-conceived this book was until I was around one third into it. I was absolutely sure that it would be just like other articles and posts on the internet about this topic, just in a longer version. But I was wrong, this book made me feel something and I could relate to it so much, I felt what Eve must have been feeling in some way or another.

The book deals with the subject matter of mental health and especially OCD pretty well, in my opinion. Of course I cannot speak for people with this kind of problem, but it is sensitive enough with not any obvious insensitivities and not totally ignorant.

Eve is such a lovely and likable narrator. This memoir and her story are quite unique in my opinion. Her writing and use of language was - at least for me with English not being my native language - sophisticated and exiting, with many words I had never heard before. It somewhat showed some quirkiness of her character I think. Which I mean in the most positive way!

I wasn't expecting all too much, since I hardly ever read memoirs, but let me tell you I was stunned! Eve has such an empathetic way of telling her stories, I was able to connect and feel like I was a part of that story. It's definitely a fast read, with some helpful advice along the way.

Year of no Clutter is a story of one womans journey to clean up her hoarding habits. It's gotten to the point where her life is literally cluttered with clutter. I felt like I could relate to her in certain ways. It's so easy to be in her position when you're not able to let go of material things. Little did I know, some get bad enough that medication is necessary. It's a branch of OCD.

"Who knew? The United States is… hoarding hoarders."

Do books count? Yikes!

I found the book to be funny at times and emotional, however, It wasn't keeping my total attention.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I was drawn to the book initially because the title had the word “clutter” in it. If it’s a book on clutter, I’m there. Schaub is a writer, artist, wife and mom of two girls. Since she was a child she has felt sentimental about her belongings and has found it difficult to let go of items. These days she lives in a big house in Vermont where she has lots of space to hold on to items as well as collect more. This culmination of stuff has mostly found its way into a room Schaub refers to as the “Hell Room”, and it is her goal to have the room organized and decluttered by the end of a year’s time. This book isn’t so much a detailed manual on how to get rid of your clutter as it is an intimate look into how a regular person was able to tackle her obsession with “stuff”. That being said, I did feel motivated to start cleaning after finishing the book because the author’s realistic view of decluttering made it seem more approachable.

I enjoyed the latter two-thirds of the book the most, when Schaub delves into side-stories of family members and friends and their relationships to clutter. I found the book to be a good companion to the “Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” bestseller by Marie Kondo. Like many others, I really enjoyed Kondo’s book, although I have not yet put any of her methods into practice (one day, when I’m done reading all my books on clutter). The author Eve Schaub’s sentimental methods of holding on to items make her more of a kindred spirit to me than Kondo’s more utilitarian, less emotional sensibility. I have not yet read Schaub’s previous book about not eating sugar for a year, but will seek it out.

Loved her previous book, so this was a must read. Did not disappoint. Though at times it got very wordy, the premise of the book was interesting. We all probably know someone that is messy or on the hoarding side, but this put a fun spin on it. Well done!

Engaging story and easy to read - goes along well with a lot of the "no clutter/minimalist" themes that you see lately, but it's less judgy!

On the heels of her book A Year of No Sugar, Eve Schaub decided to tackle another yearlong project. But clutter? Could clutter really involve an entire year of effort, including, as her no sugar year did, her entire family? Would anyone else be interested in her struggles with cleaning her house? Would it be book-worthy?

Yes! I had my doubts going in, as did Schaub, but with her frequent detours into the psychology of hoarding and the (entertaining) obstacles to achieving her goals, the book was an eye-opener and made me think about my own clutter. Actually, I don't have a problem with physical clutter, but it seems the same principles that helped Schaub get her clutter under control can be applied to digital clutter, mental clutter, or even getting organized in general.

Also recommended - Junk: Digging Through America's Love Affair With Stuff by Alison Stewart.

(Thanks to Sourcebooks and Netgalley for a digital review copy.)

Part memoir, Eve describes her life as an amateur hoarder. She has a 'hell room' (I liked to think of it as a smaller version of the Room of Requirement). The parts I enjoyed most about this book were the interactions with her daughters, her dad and other members of the family. It was sweet to read how her youngest daughter reacted to finding out about her mum's life pre-children! Many times I thought 'oh yes, I do that' and anyone who has hidden boxes around the house with random items stored there, specifically because they are 'memories' will be able to relate to a lot of what Eve says.
There's quite a bit of melodrama (which fortunately the author does acknowledge), but this is tempered by a look at why we might hoard, which I found interesting - the nostalgia/potential explanation makes complete sense.
At times the book did drag unfortunately. It felt like the author was enjoying reminiscing too much over long lists of items. The over use of similes and creatingwordsthatruntogether I found irritating towards the end.
However overall it was enjoyable and has made me reflect on own clutter. Whatever that may be.