Book Review: Year of No Sugar

Book: Year of No Sugar: A Memoir by Eve O. Schaub

Source: Library

Rating: 1 star

Review:

I like to read books where people may take on a project such as Jennifer, Gwyneth & Me, The Late Starters Orchestra etc. because they are inspiring. I have attempted a few over the years, I remember when I was younger I had gave up TV for the summer which worked as a kid since you don't need to watch the news to stay informed and during the summer there's nothing on TV anyway.

And now that I'm a little older, I occasionally go tech free for the weekend and attempt other mini better myself projects. So when I found this book at the library, I was eager to give it a read.

But my enthusiasm started to drop the more I read. This is not exactly the most interesting book. Yes, it's informative (at times) but not interesting. The writer's words don't really have me wanting to follow her family's experience as they attempt to go sugar free for the year.

The idea for this project started when the author saw a YouTube video of Dr. Robert H. Lustig talking about the dangers of sugar. After watching that video she was so inspired that she wanted her family to try going without sugar, well at least for a year.

She decided to create a blog to document her family's progress which transformed into this book.

I think it's good that the author and her family wanted to take the challenge of going sugar free especially with sugar being added to so much of our food but I found the writing to be judgmental and pretentious while mostly just being boring.

I was expecting to read about how the family suffered or struggled or possibly how they felt after giving up sugar. Did her family feel better or have periods of feeling awful or was there no difference in how they felt? There was hardly any mention of how the family was dealing with it.

Truthfully, the project really wasn't accomplished because the family substituted one form of sugar for another and had quite a few exceptions (cheats) for getting in sugar here and there.

I would like to know why she included her daughter Greta's journal entries, for one thing they didn't read as if her daughter (a ten year old at the time of the project) was the one who wrote them. It felt more like the author wrote them then attached her daughter's name to them.

Also, if this was supposedly about sugar and the harmful effects of eating too much of it then why all the talk about meat.

This book was a disappointing read and I would say it was a fail on all levels.