Give It Up! My Year of Learning to Live Better with Less

In Give It Up!, Mary Carlomagno writes about her experience of cutting out indispensable aspects of her very urban and very swanky life (think Sex and the City). Stressed out and literally bombarded with shoe boxes, Carlomagno started questioning her daily habits and re-imagining her routines. She drops one habit every month for the whole month throughout the year, starting from alcohol and shopping, and ending with chocolate and multitasking.
The chapters are short and fast to read. Carlomagno’s style is enjoyably low-key, like having a chat with a friend. Unfortunately there is neither a unifying theme nor a conclusion; the December chapter leaves the book hanging. The introduction does make up for this lack to some extent, however. show more There are no deep discussions here, but if you happen to be in the same demographic group, some peer experiences might just open your eyes. For others, it’s a hit or miss.
EJ 01/2013 show less

About the best thing that I can say about this book is that at least it was short!
Some of my the main difficulties I encountered with this book: There was no unifying theme, general premise or conclusion; this is a straight-up twelve chapter book, each chapter representing a month of the year, and in each month a different item given up for the duration of that month only, to be resumed anew once the month is over. The author is prone to hyperbole and over generalization. For example, in her first month, she gives up alcohol (purportedly) but says she avoided social outings during the first two weeks, and slipped into having a drink per outing during the last week -- which basically means that, if the timelines are true, there was show more essentially one week during which she went out with friends and abstained from drinking. But, oh my! the fuss she makes about it -- apparently the peer pressure was constant and overt with friends badgering her about her nutty resolution to go without booze for month! (It certainly did not make me want to be part of her social network, that`s for sure!) Another issue is that there is no follow-up -- after January's experiences with giving up alcohol and the alleged lessons of finding that one or two drinks per social outing is the optimal amount, there is never any mention of drinking again. No looking back during the month of no coffee or the month of no chocolate to say 'well, at least I can drink wine!' And finally, I simply did not like the author's tone or the persona of the author as it appeared through the lens of this brief, fluff piece. show less

The longer I read this book, the more I realized that thislady is in real trouble. She drinks enormous amounts of alcohol andcoffee, watches tv for thousands of hours a year, eats out all thetime, and talks constantly on her cell phone. From a simplelifestyle point of view, she needs to do way more than give upthings for a mere month.

Being published in 2006, I can see how this was interesting back then. Now, there's an abundance of people doing 30 day challenges all over the web. Didn't learn anything new from this.

intriguing idea. She gave something different up every month for a year. I did this myself last year and it was interesting. It made the year seem longer, and each month longer as well. I didn't do too well some months, better other months. I'd try it again another year to see what I would choose to give up. The writing was so-so, though.

Made me more aware of the subtle dependency that exists in my life and gave me more awareness of my options.

Interesting concept, but it fell short, for me.