Book Review: The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying; Marie Kondo.

Having watched Kondo's Netflix show, I knew I wanted to read the books that she has written and a friend kindly gifted me this one! I read it in a day and learnt a lot!

SOURCE: Gift
TYPE: Paperback

TITLE: The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying
AUTHOR: Marie Kondo
SERIES: Magic Cleaning (#1)
PUBLISHER: Vermillion
PAGES: 256
GENRE: Non-Fiction

RATING: 4.5/5 Stars

Blurb:
Transform your home into a permanently clear and clutter-free space with the incredible KonMari Method. Japan's expert de-clutterer and professional cleaner Marie Kondo will help you tidy your rooms once and for all with her inspirational step-by-step method.

The key to successful tidying is to tackle your home in the correct order, to keep only the things you really love and to do it all at once – and quickly. After that for the rest of your life you only need to choose what to keep and what to discard.

The KonMari Method will not just transform your space. Once you have your house in order you will find that your whole life will change. You can feel more confident, you can become more successful, and you can have the energy and motivation to create the life you want. You will also have the courage to move on from the negative aspects of your life: you can recognise and finish a bad relationship; you can stop feeling anxious; you can finally lose weight.

Marie Kondo's method is based on a 'once-cleaned, never-messy-again' approach. If you think that such a thing is impossible then you should definitely read this compelling book.

What I Liked:

• The book goes into a lot more depth regarding the principles of the KonMari method shown on the Netflix show and I really appreciated that. It's pretty brutally honest at times, cites examples from Kondo's clients is full to the brim of practical advice for a variety of categories.
• I liked that Kondo also spoke about her own mistakes and childhood while developing her method. It gave the book a much more personal feel and also illustrated some of the interesting cultural differences between Japan and Western society. Kondo also has an awesome sense of humour!

What I Disliked:

• Nothing really struck me as 'bad' other than the sheer amount of information. It would have been nice to have more in the way of diagrams or illustrations to demonstrate a technique more clearly and break up the text blocks!

Overall Conclusion:

I loved this book a lot! It's definitely a great coffee table read, and one I'll be keeping on my shelves for a long time. Kondo has a lot of experience in the field of cleaning and organisational tidying and claims a 100% success rate for those that follow her methods to the letter. I have no challenge believing this - the challenge is trying to follow the method perfectly. I struggled, for example, on her chapter about books which limited how many should be owned at a time. An impossible number for a book blogger let me tell you!