Customer Reviews
We didn’t read the book yet. We tried to play the game. It backlashed :( My husband says he has a better idea: doing everything together. Yes it is impossible to do everything together. But cooking and cleaning together is more fun than one person cooking all the time. I still face the problem of ownership though. But honestly he has been progressing lot with “Let’s do it together” approach, from laundry to dishes, that I have stopped pushing the game on him. While we play the game, he goes into defensive mode thinking I am trying to negotiate in a way that I will transfer everything to him. As long as it works, whatever method works is okay imo.
I just finished this book. I must've picked it up and set it down a dozen times finding it needlessly repetitive in some areas. I also acknowledge that it is written from the point of view of a very specific person: a cis-het stay at home mom with a partner who fits traditional gender roles. It definitely has value and it has its place; I can think of a couple friends who might benefit from this approach with their spouses where the burden of domesticity is not equally shared. For me, however, looking for a way to reclaim more joy and less tedium for my whole family, with a spouse who is a true partner in all things, it felt a bit too 2-dimensional. We may still give some of it a whirl and I love the concept of unicorn space, but it's a firm 'meh' from me.Side note: my unicorn's head is cut off on the cover which is a weird printing glitch and feels somewhat ominous!
Unless you have kids this book isn't for you. A lot of "mommy" talk. Content is misleading.
All three stars are for the importance of the concept, which is strong. But, the missing stars are because the book is a bit repetitive, as it common with pop books, and can occasionally steer a little toward overgeneralizing the genders. It may be the case that one could just as effectively watch a YouTube videos and order the card deck instead.
To be clear, the system presented in this book seems logical and helpful and I look forward to implementing it with my partner. The 2-star review reflects how the system was presented, not the system itself.In summary, here are my main issues with this book:1. It’s not designed to be read in partnership. My husband and I wanted to go through the book/process together, but the book is clearly written with the intent that a woman will read it and present the idea or concept up her male partner, which is actually hilarious given that the subject of the book is that men don’t contribute. We ended up book clubbing it essentially with me reading and my husband listening to the audiobook followed by chapter discussions.2. It is very biased against men. My husband felt extremely attacked by this book, which seemed to essentially be an excuse for the author to vent her rage against men. Again, the concept is not bad, but the language was extremely tailored to “women do everything and men do nothing” which is not true for all situations. It also leaned towards couples with a dynamic of the woman staying home, which did not apply to us. Many of the examples came off as very unrealistic and dramatic - I’m sad if they are true for some women but they seemed so far-fetched to us.3. It’s not inclusive. This book is for women to read and teach to their men. If you don’t have kids or are in a same-sex relationship this book is barely if at all inclusive to you. She uses the term “she-fault parent” in place of default parent multiple times and all of the negative examples are exclusively men committing household crimes against women. She does have the audacity to include ONE reference to a homosexual male couple at the very end but to my knowledge that’s it.It’s really unfortunate because again the system seems good and helpful! If the book was written from a more open, inclusive and unbiased point of view instead of the vitriolic blame game it presents as it could be much more impactful.
