Untamed: Reese's Book Club

By Glennon Doyle

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OVER THREE MILLION COPIES SOLD! “Packed with incredible insight about what it means to be a woman today.”—Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club Pick)

In her most revealing and powerful memoir yet, the activist, speaker, bestselling author, and “patron saint of female empowerment” (People) explores the joy and peace we discover when we stop striving to meet others’ expectations and start trusting the voice deep within us.

“Untamed will liberate women—emotionally, spiritually, and physically. It is phenomenal.”—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of City of Girls and Eat Pray Love

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Oprah Daily, The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Bloomberg, Parade

This is how you find yourself.

There is a voice of longing inside each woman. We strive so mightily to be good: good partners, daughters, mothers, employees, and friends. We hope all this striving will make us feel alive. Instead, it leaves us feeling weary, stuck, overwhelmed, and underwhelmed. We look at our lives and wonder: Wasn’t it all supposed to be more beautiful than this? We quickly silence that question, telling ourselves to be grateful, hiding our discontent—even from ourselves.

For many years, Glennon Doyle denied her own discontent. Then, while speaking at a conference, she looked at a woman across the room and fell instantly in love. Three words flooded her mind: There She Is. At first, Glennon assumed these words came to her from on high. But she soon realized they had come to her from within. This was her own voice—the one she had buried beneath decades of numbing addictions, cultural conditioning, and institutional allegiances. This was the voice of the girl she had been before the world told her who to be. Glennon decided to quit abandoning herself and to instead abandon the world’s expectations of her. She quit being good so she could be free. She quit pleasing and started living.

Soulful and uproarious, forceful and tender, Untamed is both an intimate memoir and a galvanizing wake-up call. It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is the story of navigating divorce, forming a new blended family, and discovering that the brokenness or wholeness of a family depends not on its structure but on each member’s ability to bring her full self to the table. And it is the story of how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honor our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts so that we become women who can finally look at ourselves and say: There She Is.

Untamed shows us how to be brave. As Glennon insists: The braver we are, the luckier we get.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Mar 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781984801265

Glennon Doyle

Glennon Doyle is the author of the New York Times bestseller Carry On, Warrior and founder of the online community Momastery, where she reaches more than one million people each day. She is also the creator and president of Together Rising, a nonprofit organization that has raised close to five million dollars for families around the world through its Love Flash Mobs, which have revolutionized online giving. Glennon is a sought-after public speaker, and her work has been featured on The TODAY Show, The Talk, OWN, and NPR; in The New York Times, Ladies’ Home Journal, Glamour, Family Circle, Parents Magazine, Newsweek, Woman’s Day, and The Huffington Post; and in other television and print outlets. Glennon lives in Florida with her family.

Book preview

Cover for UntamedBook Title, Untamed, Author, Glennon Doyle, Imprint, The Dial Press

This is a work of nonfiction. Nonetheless, some names, identifying details and personal characteristics of the individuals involved have been changed. In addition certain people who appear in these pages are composites of a number of individuals and their experiences.

Copyright © 2020 by Glennon Doyle

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by The Dial Press, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

THE DIAL PRESS is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

Acknowledgment is made to M. Peck Scott (The Road Less Traveled) and William James (The Varieties of Religious Experience) for their presentation of the the unseen order of things.

In addition, acknowledgment and appreciation is expressed to Professor Randall Balmer, whose 2014 Politico article The Real Origins of the Religious Right informed and impacted the Decals chapter of this book.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

Daniel Ladinsky: Dropping Keys adapted from the Hafiz poem by Daniel Ladinsky from The Gift: Poems by Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky, copyright © 1999 by Daniel Ladinsky. Used with permission.

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.: Five lines from A Secret Life from Landscape at the End of the Century by Stephen Dunn, copyright © 1991 by Stephen Dunn. Used with permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Writers House LLC: Excerpt from Letter from a Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., published in TheAtlantic.com. This article appears in the special MLK issue print edition with the headline Letter From Birmingham Jail and was published in the August 1963 edition of The Atlantic as The Negro Is Your Brother, copyright © 1963 by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and copyright renewed 1991 by Coretta Scott King. Reprinted by arrangement with The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr., c/o Writers House as agents for the proprietor New York, NY.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Doyle, Glennon, 1976– author.

Title: Untamed / Glennon Doyle.

Description: New York : The Dial Press, 2020.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019047945 (print) | LCCN 2019047946 (ebook) | ISBN 9781984801258 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781984801265 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Doyle, Glennon, 1976– | Married women—United States—Biography. | Wambach, Abby, 1980– —Family. | Lesbians—United States—Biography. | Christian biography.

Classification: LCC CT275.M469125 A3 2020 (print) | LCC CT275.M469125 (ebook) | DDC 306.89/3—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019047945

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019047946

randomhousebooks.com

Cover Design by Lynn Buckley

Cover Illustration © Leslie David

ep_prh_5.4_148355210_c0_r7

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue: Cheetah

Part One: Caged

Sparks

Apples

Blow Jobs

Directions

Polar Bears

Tick Marks

Algorithms

Gatherings

Rules

Dragons

Arms

Part Two: Keys

Feel

Know

Imagine

Let It Burn

Part Three: Free

Aches

Ghosts

Smiles

Goals

Adam and Keys

Ears

Terms

Erikas

Beach Houses

Temperatures

Mirrors

Eyes

Gardens

Vows

Touch Trees

Buckets

Attendants

Memos

Poems

Boys

Talks

Woods

Cream Cheeses

Bases

Islands

Boulders

Bloodbaths

Racists

Questions

Permission Slips

Concessions

Knots

Decals

Girl Gods

Conflicts

Streams

Lies

Deliveries

Invaders

Comfort Zones

Elmer’s

Luckies

Buzzes

Sandcastles

Guitars

Braids

Seconds

Ideas

Sidelines

Levels

Epilogue: Human

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Also by Glennon Doyle

About the Author

About Together Rising

prologue cheetah

Two summers ago, my wife and I took our daughters to the zoo. As we walked the grounds, we saw a sign advertising the park’s big event: the Cheetah Run. We headed toward the families scouting out their viewing spots and found an empty stretch along the route. Our youngest, Amma, hopped up on my wife’s shoulders for a better view.

A peppy blond zookeeper in a khaki vest appeared. She held a megaphone and the leash of a yellow Labrador retriever. I was confused. I don’t know much about animals, but if she tried to convince my kids that this dog was a cheetah, I was getting a Cheetah Run refund.

She began, Welcome, everybody! You are about to meet our resident cheetah, Tabitha. Do you think this is Tabitha?

Nooooo! the kids yelled.

This sweet Labrador is Minnie, Tabitha’s best friend. We introduced them when Tabitha was a baby cheetah, and we raised Minnie alongside Tabitha to help tame her. Whatever Minnie does, Tabitha wants to do.

The zookeeper motioned toward a parked jeep behind her. A pink stuffed bunny was tied to the tailgate with a fraying rope.

She asked, Who has a Labrador at home?

Little hands shot into the air.

Whose Lab loves to play chase?

Mine! the kids shouted.

Well, Minnie loves to chase this bunny! So first, Minnie will do the Cheetah Run while Tabitha watches to remember how it’s done. Then we’ll count down, I’ll open Tabitha’s cage, and she’ll take off. At the end of the route, just a hundred meters that way, there will be a delicious steak waiting for Tabitha.

The zookeeper uncovered Tabitha’s cage and walked Minnie, eager and panting, to the starting line. She signaled to the jeep, and it took off. She released Minnie’s leash, and we all watched a yellow Lab joyfully chase a dirty pink bunny. The kids applauded earnestly. The adults wiped sweat from their foreheads.

Finally it was time for Tabitha’s big moment. We counted down in unison: Five, four, three, two, one… The zookeeper slid open the cage door, and the bunny took off once again. Tabitha bolted out, laser focused on the bunny, a spotted blur. She crossed the finish line within seconds. The zookeeper whistled and threw her a steak. Tabitha pinned it to the ground with her oven-mitt paws, hunkered down in the dirt, and chewed while the crowd clapped.

I didn’t clap. I felt queasy. The taming of Tabitha felt…familiar.

I watched Tabitha gnawing that steak in the zoo dirt and thought: Day after day this wild animal chases dirty pink bunnies down the well-worn, narrow path they cleared for her. Never looking left or right. Never catching that damn bunny, settling instead for a store-bought steak and the distracted approval of sweaty strangers. Obeying the zookeeper’s every command, just like Minnie, the Lab she’s been trained to believe she is. Unaware that if she remembered her wildness—just for a moment—she could tear those zookeepers to shreds.

When Tabitha finished her steak, the zookeeper opened a gate that led to a small fenced field. Tabitha walked through and the gate closed behind her. The zookeeper picked up her megaphone again and asked for questions. A young girl, maybe nine years old, raised her hand and asked, Isn’t Tabitha sad? Doesn’t she miss the wild?

I’m sorry, I can’t hear you, the zookeeper said. Can you ask that again?

The child’s mother said, louder, She wants to know if Tabitha misses the wild.

The zookeeper smiled and said, No. Tabitha was born here. She doesn’t know any different. She’s never even seen the wild. This is a good life for Tabitha. She’s much safer here than she would be out in the wild.

While the zookeeper began sharing facts about cheetahs born into captivity, my older daughter, Tish, nudged me and pointed to Tabitha. There, in that field, away from Minnie and the zookeepers, Tabitha’s posture had changed. Her head was high, and she was stalking the periphery, tracing the boundaries the fence created. Back and forth, back and forth, stopping only to stare somewhere beyond the fence. It was like she was remembering something. She looked regal. And a little scary.

Tish whispered to me, Mommy. She turned wild again.

I nodded at Tish and kept my eyes on Tabitha as she stalked. I wished I could ask her, What’s happening inside you right now?

I knew what she’d tell me. She’d say, "Something’s off about my life. I feel restless and frustrated. I have this hunch that everything was supposed to be more beautiful than this. I imagine fenceless, wide-open savannas. I want to run and hunt and kill. I want to sleep under an ink-black, silent sky filled with stars. It’s all so real I can taste it."

Then she’d look back at the cage, the only home she’s ever known. She’d look at the smiling zookeepers, the bored spectators, and her panting, bouncing, begging best friend, the Lab.

She’d sigh and say, I should be grateful. I have a good enough life here. It’s crazy to long for what doesn’t even exist.

I’d say:

Tabitha. You are not crazy.

You are a goddamn cheetah.

part one cagedsparks

Four years ago, married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.

Much later, I watched that woman drive away from my home to meet with my parents and share her plan to propose to me. She thought I didn’t know what was happening that Sunday morning, but I knew.

When I heard her car return, I settled into the couch, opened a book, and tried to slow my pulse. She walked through the door and directly toward me, bent down, kissed my forehead. She pushed my hair aside and took a deep breath of my neck, like she always does. Then she stood up and disappeared into the bedroom. I walked to the kitchen to pour some coffee for her, and when I turned around, she was right there in front of me, down on one knee, holding a ring. Her eyes were certain and pleading, wide and laser focused, sky blue, bottomless.

I couldn’t wait, she said. I just could not wait another minute.

Later, in bed, I laid my head on her chest while we talked about her morning. She’d told my parents, I love your daughter and grandchildren like I’ve never loved before. I’ve spent my entire life searching and preparing myself for them. I promise you that I will love and protect them forever. My mother’s lip quivered with fear and courage as she said, Abby. I have not seen my daughter this alive since she was ten years old.

Much else was said that morning, but that first response from my mother jumped out at me like a sentence in a novel begging to be underlined:

I have not seen my daughter this alive since she was ten years old.

My mother watched the spark in my eyes fade during my tenth year on Earth. Now, thirty years later, she was witnessing the return of that spark. In the past few months, my entire posture had changed. I looked regal to her. And a little scary.

After that day, I began to ask myself: Where did my spark go at ten? How had I lost myself?

I’ve done my research and learned this: Ten is when we learn how to be good girls and real boys. Ten is when children begin to hide who they are in order to become what the world expects them to be. Right around ten is when we begin to internalize our formal taming.

Ten is when the world sat me down, told me to be quiet, and pointed toward my cages:

These are the feelings you are allowed to express.

This is how a woman should act.

This is the body you must strive for.

These are the things you will believe.

These are the people you can love.

Those are the people you should fear.

This is the kind of life you are supposed to want.

Make yourself fit. You’ll be uncomfortable at first, but don’t worry—eventually you’ll forget you’re caged. Soon this will just feel like: life.

I wanted to be a good girl, so I tried to control myself. I chose a personality, a body, a faith, and a sexuality so tiny I had to hold my breath to fit myself inside. Then I promptly became very sick.

When I became a good girl, I also became a bulimic. None of us can hold our breath all the time. Bulimia was where I exhaled. It was where I refused to comply, indulged my hunger, and expressed my fury. I became animalistic during my daily binges. Then I’d drape myself over the toilet and purge because a good girl must stay very small to fit inside her cages. She must leave no outward evidence of her hunger. Good girls aren’t hungry, furious, or wild. All of the things that make a woman human are a good girl’s dirty secret.

Back then, I suspected that my bulimia meant that I was crazy. In high school, I did a stint in a mental hospital and my suspicion was confirmed.

I understand myself differently now.

I was just a caged girl made for wide-open skies.

I wasn’t crazy. I was a goddamn cheetah.

---

When I saw Abby, I remembered my wild. I wanted her, and it was the first time I wanted something beyond what I had been trained to want. I loved her, and it was the first time I loved someone beyond those I had been expected to love. Creating a life with her was the first original idea I’d ever had and the first decision I made as a free woman. After thirty years of contorting myself to fit inside someone else’s idea of love, I finally had a love that fit—custom made for me, by me. I’d finally asked myself what I wanted instead of what the world wanted from me. I felt alive. I’d tasted freedom, and I wanted more.

I looked hard at my faith, my friendships, my work, my sexuality, my entire life and asked: How much of this was my idea? Do I truly want any of this, or is this what I was conditioned to want? Which of my beliefs are of my own creation and which were programmed into me? How much of who I’ve become is inherent, and how much was just inherited? How much of the way I look and speak and behave is just how other people have trained me to look and speak and behave? How many of the things I’ve spent my life chasing are just dirty pink bunnies? Who was I before I became who the world told me to be?

Over time, I walked away from my cages. I slowly built a new marriage, a new faith, a new worldview, a new purpose, a new family, and a new identity by design instead of default. From my imagination instead of my indoctrination. From my wild instead of from my training.

What follows are stories about how I got caged—and how I got free.

apples

I am ten years old, and I’m sitting in a small room in the back of Nativity Catholic Church with twenty other kids. I am at CCD, where my parents send me on Wednesday nights to learn about God. Our CCD teacher is my classmate’s mom. I do not remember her name, but I do remember that she keeps telling us that she is an accountant during the day. Her family needed service hours, so she volunteered to work in the gift shop. Instead, the church assigned her to room 423, fifth-grade CCD. So now—on Wednesdays between 6:30 and 7:30 P.M.—she teaches children about God.

She asks us to sit on the carpet in front of her chair, because she is going to explain to us how God made people. I hurry to get a spot in front. I am very curious about how and why I was made. I notice that our teacher does not have a Bible or any other books in her lap. She is going to speak from memory. I am impressed.

She begins.

God made Adam and put him in a beautiful garden. Adam was God’s favorite creation, so He told Adam that his only jobs were to be happy, rule over the garden, and name the animals. Adam’s life was almost perfect. Except that he got lonely and stressed. He wanted some company and help naming the animals. So he told God that he wanted a companion and a helper. One night, God helped Adam give birth to Eve. From inside Adam’s body, a woman was born. That is why she is called woman. Because women came from the womb of man. Womb—man.

I am so amazed that I forget to raise my hand.

"Wait. Adam gave birth to Eve? But don’t people come from women’s bodies? Shouldn’t boys be called woman? Shouldn’t all people be called woman?"

My teacher says, Raise your hand, Glennon.

I raise my hand. She motions for me to put it back down. The boy sitting to my left rolls his eyes at me.

Our teacher goes on.

"Adam and Eve were happy, and everything stayed perfect for a while.

But then God said there was one tree they couldn’t eat from: the Tree of Knowledge. Even though it was the only thing that Eve wasn’t allowed to want, she wanted an apple from that tree anyway. So one day, she got hungry, picked the apple off the tree, and took a bite. Then she tricked Adam into taking a bite, too. As soon as Adam bit into the apple, Eve and Adam felt shame for the first time and tried to hide from God. But God sees everything, so God knew. God banished Adam and Eve from the garden. Then He cursed them and their future children, and for the first time, suffering existed on the earth. This is why we still suffer today, because Eve’s original sin is inside of all of us. That sin is wanting to know more than we are supposed to know, wanting more instead of being grateful for what we have, and doing what we want to do instead of what we should do.

That was some careful accounting. I had no further questions.

blow jobs

My husband and I began working with a therapist after he admitted that he had been sleeping with other women. Now we save up our problems throughout the week and take them to her on Tuesday evenings. When friends ask me if she’s any good, I say, I guess so. I mean, we’re still married.

Today I’ve asked to see her alone. I’m tired and jittery because I spent all night silently rehearsing how to tell her what I’m about to tell her.

I sit quietly in my chair, hands folded in my lap. She sits upright in the chair across from me. She wears a crisp white pantsuit, sensible heels, no makeup. A wooden bookshelf crowded with textbooks and framed degrees climbs the wall behind her like a bean stalk. Her pen is poised above a leather notebook in her lap, ready to pin me down in black and white. I remind myself: Speak calmly and confidently, Glennon, like a grown-up.

I have something important to tell you. I’ve fallen in love. I am wildly in love. Her name is Abby.

My therapist’s mouth falls open, just enough for me to notice it. She says nothing for an eternal moment. Then she breathes very deeply and says, Okay.

She pauses, starts again. "Glennon, you know that whatever this is—it’s not real. These feelings are not real. Whatever future you’re imagining here: That’s not real, either. This is nothing but a dangerous distraction. It won’t end well. It has to stop."

I start to say, You don’t understand. This is different. But then I think about all the people who have sat in this chair and insisted: This is different.

If she won’t let me have Abby, I need to make my case, at least, for never again having my husband.

I cannot sleep with him again, I say. You know how hard I’ve tried. Sometimes I think I’ve forgiven. But then he climbs on top of me, and I hate him again. It’s been years and I don’t want to be difficult, so I close my eyes and try to float away until it’s over. But then I accidentally land back inside my body, and what I land in is white-hot fiery rage. It’s like: I try to go dead inside but there is always a little life left in me, and that life makes sex unbearable. I can’t be alive during sex, but I can’t get dead enough, either, so there’s no solution. I just—I don’t want to do it anymore.

I am furious that tears come, but they do. I am begging now. Mercy, please.

Two women. One white suit. Six framed degrees. One open notebook. One pen, poised.

Then: Glennon, have you tried just giving him blow jobs instead? Many women find blow jobs to be less intimate.

directions

I have a son and two daughters, until they tell me otherwise.

My children believe that the shower is a magical portal of ideas.

My youngest recently said to me, Mom, it’s like I don’t have any ideas all day, but when I get in the shower my brain is full of cool stuff. I think it’s the water or something.

Could be the water, I said. Or it could be that the shower’s the only place you’re not plugged in—so you can hear your own thoughts in there.

She looked at me and said, Huh?

"That thing that happens to you in the shower, babe. It’s called thinking. It’s something folks did before Google. Thinking is like…it’s like googling your own brain."

Oh, she said. Cool.

That same child steals my expensive shampoo once a week, so the other day I stomped to the bathroom she shares with her teenage brother and sister to steal it back. I opened the shower curtain and noticed the twelve empty bottles littering the tub’s edge. All the bottles on the right side were red, white, and blue. All the bottles on the left side were pink and purple.

I picked up a red bottle from what was clearly my son’s side. It was tall, rectangular, bulky. It yelled at me in bold red, white, and blue letters:

3X BIGGER,

DOESN’T ROB YOU OF YOUR DIGNITY,

ARMOR UP IN MAN SCENT,

DROP-KICK DIRT, THEN SLAM ODOR WITH A FOLDING CHAIR.

I thought: What the hell? Is my son taking a shower or preparing for war in here?

I picked up one of the girls’ slim, metallic, pink bottles. Instead of barking marching orders at me, that bottle, in cursive,

Reviews for Untamed

[jmcdbooks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Rated: B+
Wow! I was wow-ed by some to the beauty and true ideas Glennon shared. We can do hard things. I've said that to at least a dozen people. This book is the story and struggle of an individual awakening to her sense of self -- unbounded and untamed from traditional perspectives regarding gender roles, religious dogma and other forces that influence our lives. i pushed back on some of her statements. Love shares, surrenders and sacrifices some (but not all) of self to people and causes they love. God is love.

[melissarochelle_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Glennon Doyle gives me permission to just be me and for you to just be you. It's OK that we're messy. It's OK to feel. It's OK to check-in. I am (we are) the cheetah, Tabitha, I was never meant to be trapped in society's bubble of what's "normal", I was supposed to be me -- wild and free and alert.

[katiekrug · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Self-help and empowerment is decidedly not my usual fare, and I'm not sure how this one ended up on my library WL. Maybe due to a non-LT friend? Anyway, I'm not sorry I listened to it, and Doyle's message of finding one's value within and not from the conditioning/"taming" of societal expectations is a good one. It occasionally veered a little too far into the woo-woo for me, and she's coming from a religious perspective which is also not my jam. But she is very honest, and her personal story is an interesting one. I also found myself nodding along at several points, and her discussion of social justice issues and confronting unconscious biases and racism was pretty powerful.

4 stars

[thegalaxygirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I haven't read any of Doyle's other books, nor do I know much about her. I picked this up at random at the thrift store.

Be who you are. Let others be who they are. We'll all be happier for it.

That's this book in a nutshell. And I loved it. A few of the chapters are a bit redundant, it's a little self-focused (although it is a memoir, so there's that), which is why it loses a half star for me.

In this world, in this country, in this time where half the people feel the need to control the other half, where old white men don't want to trust women to make decisions about their own bodies, where many folks want to dictate how others express their sexuality, where a small minority want to force their beliefs about how to live life, more people need to read this book.

[Ligia Soto · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Behind every woman, there is a world of possibilities, of love, of integrity, of acceptance, but above all, an unlimited potential to create the most wonderful life we can. What do we need? According to Glennon, we only need to fly and get out of the cages where we have been sheltered and step into life to enjoy, to be whatever we want, to put ourselves first and be that great woman we are destined to BE. We did not come to this life to follow instructions and be domesticated; we are a damn cheetah, free, magnificent, strong, and capable of making difficult things easy. (Translated from Spanish)

[NeroGonza · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I have nothing against the author; I see that she has certain ideas and points in which she is right and that are very valid to acclaim (which are few), but what I disliked is that she has been victimizing herself with those ideas. I do not agree with the rest of the things she proposes and feel that some are meant to attract attention in some way. (Translated from Spanish)

[eas7788 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Content-wise, it is often smug and self-congratulatory. She seems to think she’s discovered that feminism is about men too, and that sports can be good for girls. I want to yell at her to go read some books and learn about what you’re writing about before thinking you’re breaking new ground. And also she is not the first or last woman to divorce a husband so she can marry a woman. The only reason it's noteworthy is that she marketed herself the way she did in her fist two books. If you keep putting yourself forth as an expert, then you’re more likely to be questioned when you don’t follow your own expertise. I know she says in this book that all he beliefs are written in sand and she is always changing and that’s the point, but if so, why are we reading it? And also, that’s a lot of sand writing.

[typefetishist · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

JUP. Read it, weep, take stock of your life, act accordingly. It’s been awhile since a book delivered a sentence, an idea, a moment that has made me weep in recognition.

[barnesbookshelf · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Doyle gives you a lot to chew on. I went into this book knowing nothing about her. While reading the first few chapters I realized "she's a poet" simply from her metaphors and the flow of her words. There were a few phrases and moments that caught me off guard while reading that I had to pause and sit with for a moment, marking them with a sticky note. I'm eager and scared to follow the advice Doyle gives, partially because I wonder if, as a 20-something, I have enough life experience to even attempt find my Knowing the way she describes. There's also lots in this book that makes me want to have deep conversations with my mother.

There have been times when I read a book that many people are recommending and going wild over where I find the book isn't as good as everyone says. This is not one of those times. I cannot even count the number of times I thought "so'n'so should totally read this!"

[selia-26098 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lovely, authentic, unflinchingly honest, and echoes of Reviving Ophelia. Like this could have been written by one of the subjects in that book but fast-forwarded 30 years.

Loved it, would strongly advise everyone to read it! Even if the ideas and concepts aren't brand new and revolutionary for you, it's still very refreshing to read and see yourself reflected. Adding this to my arsenal of supportive yet brutally honest authors to keep in my life!

[librarianlion · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found solace in Glennon's raw vulnerability with her own journey to sobriety and rediscovering her long abandoned inner voice. Years of people pleasing and learning to put other people first is not undone overnight; I appreciate Glennon's honesty in portraying some of the more humbling moments of confronting old, inherited thoughts and choosing to let them go to make room for thoughtfully considered new values.

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Glennon Doyle had it all sorted, life, family, relationships, religion and then she's at an event and a woman walks in and her mind goes "There. She. Is." and her life is thrown into an upheaval that forces her to make new choices and to reevaluate her life and to let go of some old assumptions and try a new life. Through this she finds a more true self and then exhorts us all to try to do the same, to stop accepting the barriers to being ourselves and look for ways to be and not just exist.
I galloped through this and really felt seen a lot; while a lot of her experiences are not mine (I don't have kids or a divorce) still the yearning to be more authentic is a siren song in my mind at the moment.

[mallorieluna · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I don't think this book was meant for me, but I appreciate the work of exposing yourself your life and your heart, especially when that life is one of change.

[AndreaDG · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If there is something beautiful in life, it is recognizing all the power we have within. Glennon in this book takes us into her family, her life, her profession, and the drastic change she had to make to truly LIVE, and not just survive. She stopped thinking about others to focus on herself, on what she really felt, and to be who she wanted to be. A woman with a marriage, three children, and a renowned career had the courage to leave all prejudice behind to live the love she dreamed of having, with another woman. From her account, a personal perspective, she shares every detail she had to go through to achieve the happiness of being.

INSPIRING. (Translated from Spanish)

[angelalam-300700 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Bite-size essays about love as being free and held. Interesting perspective about the need to periodically destroy everything that is no longer true in order to create a braver more authentic life, especially for women.

[sarahebear · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An eye-opening, semi-autobiographical examination of social norms and how they dictate our thinking and behaviour. Doyle beautifully describes how our socially structured and imposed systems of belief cloud our innate personal judgement, preventing us from being our genuine selves and living our true lives. This is a relevant, inclusive, non-threatening and inspiring book. This is a great starting point for all (especially Gen X and Boomers who may find some feminist style writing a little alarming and smash-the-state). A must-read.

[ms_rowse · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

All the feels--so much so that I started writing how each chapter made me feel at the end of them, just 1-2 words. Empathy. Anger. Sadness. Confusion. Guilt. Helplessness. Some hard truths throughout, applicable to things I'm currently experiencing. Read over two days in a matter of hours.

[lorenbevi · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved it. Glennon is a totally inspiring woman. Her resilience is impressive and the eloquence, strength, and love in her words completely captivated me. This is the first book I've read by her, and I have no doubt I will read the others. I enjoyed reading her so much. (Translated from Spanish)

[moukayedr · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book is a series of loosely connected blog-style essays. some are better than others, but they are meant to talk to general themes of finding one's true voice, raising happy children, and building a relationship. It touches on body image, faith and love.

I have mixed feelings about this book and its author. Ms Doyle's experiences are somewhat relateable. She makes excellent points about the life of women and how we are all subject to unconscious bias when it comes to women who are sure of themselves and know what they want. All of us label them as aggressive and they are faced with dislike even from their sisters. I understand the urge to keep our wild, and the need to raise our children to live their own destiny, to be held and free at the same time.

But even as I admire her work as a volunteer and activist, and even as I cheer for her modern concept of family, I am not sure I could relate fully to her constant insitence on KNOWING. There is too much prolytesizing and bids for one-upmanship, too many excuses for past opinions and backpedaling from past knowings, and not much room for a healthy margin of doubt. I am happy that things worked for her for now, but for some of us finding grace takes a lot longer, and it is more about accepting failure and not-knowing, rather than finding a magical spell that solves everything.

I am uncomfortable around people who insist on KNOWING, who constantly need to bow to some sort of divinity, whether it is within or without. I am still searching myself, and if I bow to the divinity of knowing, to love, to acceptance, or to anything that I find within, I always accept that this could be transient. I am never sure whether this will be my ultimate knowing or just the-best-of-my-knowledge-for-now. I am happy with the not-knowing and curious about what I will learn next. This saves a lot of future backpedaling.

My approach to life is different from what she suggests, but hers is useful for what she is doing. I am still searching for an approach that will work for me. I am curiosity, doubt, not-knowing. I bumble along in my life doing what is right-for-now, which might very well turn out to be utterly wrong tomorrow.

I could write a story about this, but never a book of advice, because I want to be able to change my mind, as I know I will.

[capewood · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

2021 book #41. 2020. Glennon Doyle is a famous memoir writer and speaker whom I never heard of. Read for a book club. She writes about her problems and successes. Interesting and readable but not, at least for me, very relatable.

[arosoff-513117 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I wasn't going to read this, but people I like and respect like it, so I gave it a try.

There are a lot of problems with this book, and I haven't entirely teased them apart, but I'm going to try. Some reviewers have criticized Doyle because she's an entitled white woman writing for other entitled white women. There's more than a grain of truth to that, but it's not quite it. My overwhelming sense is that she's a well off white woman who only recently really got into the depths of systemic issues in this country. Unfortunately, she already had a platform to speak from, so what we got was to watch her process, instead of seeing the results of sustained work. All I can say about that was that as a woman who knew by the age of 16 that she was never going to perform womanhood and femininity in the socially approved manner, I could not really relate. It's not simply a question of anger; I'm angry and disappointed every day. It's just evident that this is not something she has knowingly lived with in her bones for 27 years. She was a feminist, yes, but that connection doesn't seem to have existed for her until she got older.

I'm a huge fan of memoirs. I love listening to or reading people's stories. Doyle has writing talent, she has a story, and she shows insight when it comes to recovery. Real things have happened to her; it's not one of those books where someone who's never had a problem is telling you how to be perfect. At the same time, she turns that insight off too often. A story about letting her child try out for an elite soccer team is supposed to be empowering, about putting aside your own feelings in favor of what's best for your child. Instead it wound up leaving a bitter taste in my mouth about the unexamined privilege, or her lack of consideration of all the options available. All too often, her stories are told in a way that turns them into hectoring lectures, like taking phones away from kids. There's some attempts at softening it with humor or self deprecation, but too often--as with her mediocrity opening to the soccer story--it feels like a way to refocus everything on her rather than a real joke.

All of Doyle's stories have a point, which is to launch into her breed of self help, and I hated it. Everything is about you. Your Knowing. Be a cheetah! It's supposed to be about being an empowered woman, but it made me tired and sad. First, I hate vague, woo-wooey language. Second, Knowing is sometimes how you delude yourself. More importantly, though, this feels like just another variant of the usual women's self help: the message that YOU are in control. You are responsible for your happiness and your happiness comes first. The idea that we are in control of our destinies is the great lie America tells white people. The tension for white women is that we are simultaneously told that we are responsible for our happiness but that we should find it in making other people happy, regardless of the cost to ourselves. Doyle has discovered the lie of the second half, but doesn't address the second.

Doyle also has a tendency to use jokes that make her sound like, frankly, an asshole: I'm not a good friend and I don't try. Is she really? I don't know, but it's not the greatest tone to strike. She's also gone on to a pretty privileged life of famous friends and activism, which she's not shy about name dropping. Added to her tendency to lecture, and it sometimes crosses the line into "I'm descending from my enlightened plane to drop advice to you, mere mortals." (I'm unfair; it's really not nearly that bad in tone, but she's really not bridging the gap between herself and her readers. One of us, she is not.)

[juva_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A beautifully intimate, exquisitely written, and thought-provoking memoir about a woman who worked so hard to meet the expectations of her family and culture. She even wrote a book about keeping her marriage together after her husband's confession of infidelity. And then. She just couldn't do it anymore. She couldn't stay married to this man whom she had worked so hard to forgive. So she risked everything to become the woman she hand been trying her whole life to convince herself she wasn't.

She married a woman and started a new life which required radical honesty with herself and others. This is a collection of essays about these changes and about the struggles of parenting and about the struggles of being a woman in a world build on misogyny. There's a lot going on in this book. And it's all fascinating.

[mojomomma_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I didn't mind the repetition that other reviewers complain about. I found some nuggets of truth in each of Doyle's chapters, which read more like short stories than a coherent novel-like arc. Doyle gives up drugs and alcohol when she becomes pregnant. Several years later, as a successful writer, wife and mother of three, she falls in love with Abby, a woman. She decides that the conformity that our society demands of women has never lead her to happiness, so she divorces her husband and marries Abby and for the first time finds true happiness.

[lindaloretz · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Mixed feelings

I think I want to rate this book 2 1/2. Parts of it were good, but it read much like a self-help book. It also seemed preachy at times.

[librarygeek33 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I wanted to dismiss this book but my heart wouldn't let me do it. Just when it would start feeling a little too "New Agey," she would say something that was oh, so true.

[jrlibrary · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

So many passages in this collection of thoughts on being true to yourself ring so profoundly true that were I to highlight the meaningfully significant parts.... I’d potentially run out of ink. Wonderfully thought provoking.

[spinsterrevival · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow this book had a lot. All I knew of the author previously was that she was a Christian lifestyle person, and I remember seeing that she married a woman and thought that must have pissed off a lot of those people (and good for her!). But I loved this story, and there is some amazing insight here for those who probably need it most.

[carmenere_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great book! Glennon’s memoir tells her story about living the life one is supposed to, expected to; Husband, family, career etc etc. It is when she meets her soulmate, Abby that she realizes she’s lived her life as a tamed animal, instructed to jump through hoops, yet inside her natural instincts kick in and she is free to live a life untamed.
Ms. Doyle doesn’t only discuss her bisexuality and it’s implications but many emotional circumstances which affect all kinds of humans.
The thing that I question is how many people we’re hurt for her to find her true self. It’s a delicate balance and one wonders just how much should be suppressed. What do I know, I know nothing. Everybody has to choose what is right for them. Just a thought.
I listened to the audio version but yearned to grab a book and hilight this, that or the other thing. A hard copy is definitely on my “To buy” list.

[bobbieharv · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Toward the end, as she's confessing her need to control people, she writes: " I exist to make all your hopes and dreams come true. So let's sit down and take a look at this comprehensive list of hopes and dreams I've created for you. I have been paying very close attention and trust me, I SEE you and know you better than you know yourself. You can do anything I put your mind to! Let us begin!"

This is as good a description of this whole book, except for the few and far between memoir sections, as I could write. She is lecturing us, prescribing for us, because she knows better.

By the end, I'm sorry, but I couldn't stand her. And today I see it's at the top of the New York Times best-seller list. Who are all these people who want to be preached at?

[lisa_francine · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow! Words of wisdom throughout - I will be re-reading this one again and again. Some of my favorite essays included: polar bears, ghosts, boys, and woods. Thank you @glennondoyle for living your truth and sharing the journey with all of us!