Jaclyn’s Review: Fair Play by Eve Rodsky

Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live)
written by Eve Rodsky
published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2019

find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Apple Books, Target, Walmart, Kobo, Book Depository, Goodreads

Did I enjoy this book? It’s been a few weeks since I finished reading this book, and I am still shocked over how much I enjoyed it!!! This was a Reese Witherspoon book club pick. I thought it was a work of fiction, so you can imagine my surprise to find that it’s actually a self-help type book! Whoops!! Even so, this book grabbed me from the very beginning. It was as if the author had been watching my life unfold. I cannot believe how much I related to everything she wrote. This book talks about finding balance in your domestic life—not necessarily making things equal but making them fair. I genuinely wish I had found this book 7 years ago when my husband and I were both working outside of the home and we had just brought home our second child. Even now, I found such useful information throughout the entire book. This would be a great book for anyone struggling to find balance, who feels like she’s not the person she used to be, who can’t figure out how to fit one more thing into her day. It is primarily written assuming a male/female marriage, with the woman being stressed, but it could easily apply to any domestic relationship where the balance is unequal. To be fair, I have not actually “played the game” that the author designed, but this has given me new language to use when talking to my husband and has helped me to view my own personal time in a different light.

Would I recommend it? I recommend it to everyone I meet! This book is truly life changing, and I cannot recommend it highly enough! This would make a great gift for the frazzled person in your life. My only regret is that I could not read this book at the beginning of my marriage, but I’m so glad I found it when I did. Please, read this book and improve your life!!!

 

 

About the book – from Goodreads: A revolutionary, real-world solution to the problem of unpaid, invisible work that women have shouldered for too long.

It started with the Sh*t I Do List. Tired of being the “shefault” parent responsible for all aspects of her busy household, Eve Rodsky counted up all the unpaid, invisible work she was doing for her family — and then sent that list to her husband, asking for things to change. His response was… underwhelming. Rodsky realized that simply identifying the issue of unequal labor on the home front wasn’t enough: She needed a solution to this universal problem. Her sanity, identity, career, and marriage depended on it.

The result is Fair Play: a time- and anxiety-saving system that offers couples a completely new way to divvy up domestic responsibilities. Rodsky interviewed more than five hundred men and women from all walks of life to figure out what the invisible work in a family actually entails and how to get it all done efficiently. With four easy-to-follow rules, 100 household tasks, and a figurative card game you play with your partner, Fair Play helps you prioritize what’s important to your family and who should take the lead on every chore from laundry to homework to dinner.

“Winning” this game means rebalancing your home life, reigniting your relationship with your significant other, and reclaiming your Unicorn Space — as in, the time to develop the skills and passions that keep you interested and interesting. Are you ready to try Fair Play? Let’s deal you in.

 

 

 

* This post contains affiliate links.

** This post first appeared on Every Free Chance Books (everyfreechance.com) on December 13, 2019.