Put Your Sh*t Away: A Hoarder, Twin Boys & One Recovering Perfectionist Put Your Sh*t Away: A Hoarder, Twin Boys & One Recovering Perfectionist by Bronwyn Peters

Put Your Sh*t Away: A Hoarder, Twin Boys & One Recovering Perfectionist by Bronwyn Peters
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a very personable, funny little book about decluttering that is really more about perfectionism, control, motherhood and learning when to let life be messy. The strongest part is the narrator herself: she is self-aware enough to admit when her need for order becomes controlling, and the book genuinely develops from “I need my house to be calm” into “I need to stop making the house more important than the people living in it.” The moment when her son tells her, “Mummy, why are you always cleaning? Come play with us. Daddy’s fun,” is particularly effective because it forces her to confront the emotional cost of her behaviour.

The humour is probably the book's biggest charm. The frozen iron, forty-eight rolls of toilet paper, the turquoise cat, Lego explosions and forensic placemat cleaning are exactly the sort of silly domestic observations that make the narrator feel human rather than preachy. The husband also comes across surprisingly well: rather than simply being “the annoying messy husband,” he has qualities that challenge her worldview, particularly his instinct to repair rather than replace. Their differences feel affectionate and believable.

Where I think the book is weaker is pacing and repetition. Once the central ideas are established, the later chapters return to essentially the same insight many times: clutter creates mental noise, less is better, systems help, and perfectionism needs to be held loosely. The 50% Rule is clear very early, but the book spends a lot of pages circling back to it.

The writing is polished, conversational and very readable, with a strong comic voice.



Verdict

A warm, funny, psychologically honest feelgood read, but somewhat repetitive.