Review - The Year of Less

'The Year of Less' is sharp and witty but the narrow worldview of the author makes it hard to gain more than a few small sparks of minimalist inspiration from this autobiographical recount of the year Cait Flanders abstained from shopping.

The book is split into twelve chapters - one for each month of the year of Cait's shopping ban. The most interesting parts of this book were Cait's reflections on addiction and her road to recovery. If you are looking into minimalism for the first time, this is not the book for you. I would instead recommend 'Goodbye Things' by Fumio Sasaki or the tried and tested 'The Magic Art of Tidying Up' by Marie Kondo. If you are a fellow 'compulsive shopper' like Cait, then perhaps this could be a good place to start. However, I will reiterate that this is not a 'how-to' book. It's an auto-biographical recount with a few tips about decluttering and the minimalist mindset thrown in.

My real problem with this book is the hypocrisy in Cait's tendency to categorise other people in stark, black and white categories while spending so much time speaking about her own growth and self-awareness; for someone who has made such drastic changes to her own life, she comes across as dismissive of other people's ability to change.

A typical example can be found in chapter four, when she's talking about friendship. She states that "...there are two types of friends in this world: the friend who will save you from going home with the random person you met at the bar, and the friend who will celebrate your sexual escapade over Bloody Marys the next morning". The whole point of Cait's book is that she is a complex person capable of great personal growth. So why then, would you suggest that other people can be put in two categories? 'Responsible, supportive, boring' VS 'irresponsible, enabling, fun'?

I also found her description of some of her friends disturbing. Cait mentions how some friends not only questioned her attempts at sobriety and shopping ban but also tried their best to tempt her into her old ways and even begged than she joined them in those behaviours?! Good friends will be supportive when you are making a big, difficult life change. They won't enable toxic and harmful behaviour. Luckily, Cait does go on to describe some friendships which seem positive and supportive, but I found her acceptance of her friend's enabling behaviour disturbing. Then again, I don't know what it is like to be addicted to drugs, alcohol or shopping and this is really where the value of the book lies - in reading first-hand accounts of overcoming addiction.

Despite its flaws, I did find some sparks of inspiration in this book. I enjoyed reading it because the perspective was different from my own. However the narrow perspective of the lessons on minimalism, mindfulness and decluttering are sure to leave you frustrated if you are expected 'The Year of Less' to act as an introductory guidebook on these counter-cultural lifestyles.

3/5