There are no solar panels on Robyn Harding’s roof. Her family is not bathing in collected rainwater. And yes, she enjoys the occasional distinctly un-green trip to Las Vegas. But underpinning her life is a mantra: go green without going crazy. Harding’s going-green memoir is no Ecoholic, no Omnivore’s Dilemma. It’s a self-deprecating look at what happens when books like those land in the hands of a mere mortal. And Harding is one mortal who still likes her warm baths and air travel.

Harding’s odyssey begins with her family’s move from Calgary to Australia to Vancouver. Feeling “green guilt” – about the bug spray liberally applied throughout their cockroach-infested Australian home, about the five years of heavy driving and spotty recycling in Calgary – Harding decides to make an environmentally friendly change for the better. But in her new neighbourhood, the Joneses of the 20th century have become the Greens of the 21st. Keeping up is more an exercise in foregoing than acquiring, but is equally exhausting.

Each successive chapter confronts a crisis of greenness with high hopes, best intentions, and, often, middling follow-through. Serious environmentalists may balk at these efforts, particularly the chapter in which Harding attempts to ride the bus, only to find it icky, smelly, and altogether not worth the effort. The book is at times too flippant for an eco-memoir, but the author’s ill-fated determination to make a difference, if only a small one, keeps this story entertaining.

The author of The Journal of Mortifying Moments, Unravelled, and several other chick-lit successes, Harding is no stranger to confessional humour, and uses it to full effect when chronicling her earnest (if irritating) efforts to green her extended family. Refreshingly funny, disarmingly honest, and mercifully free of apocalyptic horrors, Harding’s tale will resonate with those who feel unequal to the task of buying organic milk, let alone saving the planet.