Thanks to the One2One Network, I was able to review a digital copy of Heather Solos’ new book, Home-Ec 101: Skills for Everyday Living.  My opinion of the book is pretty mixed.

The book is very, very thorough in going over all of the basic areas of homemaking.  It addresses cleaning, laundry, repairs/maintenance, and cooking.  In the cleaning section, for instance, the author describes the chemistry of cleaning.  (Don’t worry, you don’t need a chemistry degree to understand this; it just talks about how and why cleaners work — so you know what to use!)  That’s pretty representative of the depth the book goes into.

The cleaning section describes how cleaners work, tells you what basic supplies you will need to deep-clean a house, then proceeds to walk you through the house, telling you how to clean each area.  Walls, floors, and windows are all covered, as well as the fixtures and such that you might expect.  Basic organization and decluttering skills are addressed, as well, since it’s hard to clean if you have to move a bunch of stuff first!  The laundry section talks about stain removal — with a separate treatment (no pun intended) of a variety of specific types of stains — laundry odors, mending, sorting, etc.  Repairs include basic plumbing, appliance, and floor/wall repairs.  This section also covers other basic maintenance must-knows, like water shutoffs and fuse boxes or circuit breakers.  Finally, the cooking section talks about what equipment you need in your kitchen, lists pantry basics, and gets you started with actual cooking.  It also addresses specific questions like how to get the whole meal on the table at the same time when you’re expecting company.

Given these topics, you might expect the book to be boring, despite its helpfulness.  Amazingly, it isn’t.  The author’s witty style makes this a fun read.  However, that also brings me to my one caveat: the style is not only witty, it’s saucy/irreverent, with a few “choice words” scattered here and there.  Many of those in our conservative Christian circles may not be entirely comfortable with it.  Unfortunately, that makes a book that would otherwise be perfect as a gift for young newlyweds less useful for that purpose.  (I might be willing to overlook a word here or there for myself — or, at worst, black out the words in our own purchased copy — but I don’t know that I’d be comfortable giving it to someone else.  In my mind, giving something as a gift implies a certain recommendation of the book that I’m not comfortable with, without including a caveat.)

All in all, if you can get past the irreverence and the few (mild) vulgarities, it is probably the most useful book of its kind I’ve seen yet.  And it’s definitely more enjoyable to read than most homemaking books!

Disclaimer: The digital copy of this book that I read for review purposes was provided to me by the author/publisher and the One2One Network.  However, as you could probably have guessed, all views expressed in the review are purely my own.