Better Homes and Gardens - A Magazine Review

Right from my teens, I have read a variety of magazines, ranging from magazines specially designed for heavy metal fans (no longer in publication) to the women centric ones. I usually enjoy doing book reviews but for a change felt the need to write a magazine review.

At first I thought I’d choose one I am very familiar with and which I read regularly like cosmopolitan for example. Then on second thoughts decided to review a magazine I was reading for the very first time. Less bias, more challenging.

Magazine of choice: Better Homes and Gardens and what’s more, it was their 100th issue this month (July 2015).

To be honest I don’t really care for home improvement mags. The one or two that I have read previously have been the kind that made me feel unless I am a celebrity with a huge mansion and hired a top interior designer it is quite unlikely that I can connect to anything written there and it’s not for ordinary folks like me with very ordinary homes- too glossy, too posh, too generally too!

Better Homes and Gardens was quite a pleasant surprise featuring the regulars’ editor’s note, letters to the editors (called in your words) amongst other articles.

Extras on this issue were 100 life tips to sort out your world for everything from the bedroom to the bathroom to different areas of your life. ….from cutting old PVC pipes in varying lengths to hold kitchen cutlery to improving relationships to style to gardens. Top marks for this feature. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the ideas that were simple and doable accompanied by some great pics.

I’d give this specific feature a 5/5 with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest on the rating scale.

The rest of the magazine had other features broadly listed below and my ratings and comments for the same which includes:

1. Celebrity interview – Suchitra Pillai – 4

2. Better Living - more products and tips and articles– 5

3. Better Fitness – On exercise and people who fall into various exercise categories– very interesting – 5

4. Better self care – on allergies – 4

5. Better health – the latest buzz on health news – 4

6. Garden plantings, structures and know hows – 4

7. Food and recipes – 2.

And ends with new products in the market.

Almost all the contents got top marks or nearly there except for the recipes. The recipes featured in this issue were for a potluck special. Unique though they seem, I do wish it used more “easy at hand” kitchen ingredients. For example: The barley and fruit salad.. not all have blueberries handy and I don’t even know what a fennel bulb is let alone slicing and coring it.

To be fair, I dint want to just judge the recipes based on this one issue so I did refer to some of the other issues. Being a complete foodie, I prefer recipes that are more “earthy.”

There didn’t seem to be anything appealing enough for me to eagerly try it out which is usually the case when I read recipes from some of the other magazines.

That said, the overall ratings for the magazine:

Readability – 5 it did keep me interested.

Contents – 5 – a good mix of various topics and well written too.

Color/layout/photos – 5 (wowsa!)

The true worth of a magazine read for the first time lies in one question

Would I buy this magazine again?

And for Better Homes and Gardens, it’s a YESSS!! I am definitely adding this to my monthly list of magazines.

Overall – 5/5.