Not Buying It

I am usually not much of a book "review" kind of person- I either like it or I don't. Sometimes I love it, and then I tell everyone I know about it and tell them to read it too, but if I don't like a book I just set it aside and that is that. But after recently reading Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping, by Judith Levine, I have a few things to report.
First, no, she doesn't make it a full year. In fact, what counts as "shopping" to her seems to be quite fluid depending on her mood or circumstance. For example, she considers buying the NY Times as an "essential". She and her partner have an apartment in NYC and a home in Vermont. (they were adding on to the Vermont home during the writing of this book). She states many times that she is not restraining from shopping in order to be frugal but rather to explore the effects of consumerism. She refrains from going to movies and plays and other entertainments that I would consider spending money, but not really shopping. She seems to miss this entirely- and then states again that it's not about saving money. THEN WHAT IS IT ABOUT JUDITH? They let their friends take them out to eat and buy them presents- which is still consuming, just adding a middle man. She gets on her soapbox about the state of public libraries and the lack of funding, and then goes to the museum and makes a "donation" of 25 cents. (which I think she says is all she ever donates- not just during her shopping hiatus.)
She goes on at length about politics- both national (which is understandable to some extent, since the project took place in 2004.) and local about the cell tower that is being proposed in her little town in Vermont. She goes on quite a bit about the state of government and why she thinks Democrats should win the election, and that is all well and good, but it's not why I was interested in reading the book. She is also one of those people that believe the world begins and ends on the island of Manhattan. Any place west of Philly is uncivilized. They make a trip to MT towards the end of the book for a niece's graduation and it is laughable how much they generalize the rest of the country. Also, she proclaims to be a committed environmentalist, but they have 3 cars between the 2 of them, for the 6 months of the year they aren't in the city. They discuss it, but they decide they can't possibly get rid of one. *eye roll*

She's written the book in diary form so that each entry starts with the date. Yet she never talks about things that happened that day or what she bought or didn't buy. Instead, it's written more like a sociology paper, and only half as interesting. It would have been better organized by chapter. Then I could have skipped all the "Here's why NY is superior in every way" and the "Why I don't want a cell tower in my backyard" chapters.

Overall Judith just pissed me off. She's a snooty baby boomer who is a freelance writer and her idea of "sacrifices" and not buying anything are just not connected to an average American reality in any way. She doesn't really seem enthused about the project and she uses a lot of political filler. She pretentious and condescending. It was hard to keep reading it, but I wanted to be sure to finish it. I'm glad they had it available at my (underfunded) library so I could read it for free.

Thank you, my name is Jen.