Spark Joy by Marie Kondo

Spark Joy is the follow up book to Kondo’s best-selling The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up where she talks about organizing by categories instead of rooms. An example of her method is sorting through ALL your t-shirts. Not just the ones currently in your bedroom closet. Also the ones in a drawer, in storage, or in another room. Kondo also wrote about valuing the memories that came from an item and being willing to rid of the items themselves.

Spark Joy offers an illustrated guide to the principles taught in her earlier book. It has step-by-step instructions for things we consider fairly simple, such as putting socks away. Yes, socks. We should fold them. Kondo also offers guidance for specific categories, such as clothes, books, and papers. Cynics have criticized the book as a cash cow for concepts already presented in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up .


Although I understand the criticisms, I do think it makes for a nice reference guide for people who read the first book. Tidying up is a big task for some of us and having a guide to go through it a step at a time is helpful. Although I agree where she is coming from with much of the book, the thought of Mari Kondo ever entering my home is absolutely terrifying. I have a bookshelf in every room and at my last estimate, I had 400+ books. Does every single book ‘spark joy’? Maybe not, but they’re books. Books are sacred. I will not get rid of my books. If Marie had her way in my house, every single book I owned would be dumped on the floor in the same place and gone through one by one to decide which ones to keep and which ones to give away. Simply thinking about it makes me anxious. Books people. Don’t ask me to give away books.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.