Okay, Whatever

 

What do I want to say about Untamed, another bestseller by Glennon Doyle?

I know it's popular. "Over 1 million copies sold." "#1 New York Times bestseller." Life-changing for lots of women, famous and otherwise. Praised by publications and celebrities alike as an empowering, liberating, world-shaking book that helps women find their voice and turn away from subserviently pleasing everyone but themselves. Definitely a worthy goal and worthy results, things that need to be written and done.

It just didn't catch hold with me. I definitely had trouble with the rhapsodic "love at first sight" story of how she met her wife. I don't doubt that it happened that way, that both of them saw each other across a fancy conference room and instantly recognized their soulmate, and then upended their lives to be together; Doyle's honesty about all aspects of her life is her brand. 

I'm just saying that "love at first sight" struck me as a myth that deserves exploring and exploding with the same zeal that Doyle applies to the other myths that hem in women today. Perhaps that omission tainted the rest of my experience as a reader. Or perhaps that's coming in the next book.

Excerpt:

I think of what she said to me every day. She was saying: Playing dumb, weak, and silly is a disservice to yourself and to me and to the world. Every time you pretend to be less than you are, you steal permission from other women to exist fully. Don't mistake modesty for humility. Modesty is a giggly lie. An act. A mask. A fake game. We have no time for it.