The 100 Thing Challenge

The 100 Thing Challenge, by Dave Bruno

I picked this up at the Garden Home Library because it looked appealing, but it was a huge let down. I knew the book would be disappointing when I got to the page where he began talking about the "doll plan" he and his wife had for both of their daughters. I literally laughed out loud. A "doll plan" for someone who espouses simple living? He then went on ad nauseum about how fabulous American Girl dolls are...before then asking his young daughters to downsize their doll collection, and then realizing that this project was about him and not about his family.

Bruno developed this book based on his blog, and he really did not have enough content for a book. In a word: BORING. I also found it truly bizarre that he got rid of so many things only to replace them with more expensive things (e.g., jackets). He had bizarre rules such as counting all of his books as one item (library) yet counting separately three bibles. What is with that? And why would you keep three bibles if you could only have 100 things?

Technically, he didn't really have 100 things, because he didn't count everything he shared with his wife or family.

In short, what might have been an interesting experiment was just a really boring book with not very good writing and a lot of brand names thrown in. The man has a huge love of brand names, such as Patagonia. I finally gave up before finishing the book.