Girl, Wash Your Face

I technically did not finish this but definitely got the gist. The author is cute and she wrote one really moving chapter about her early relationship with her husband. I don't really recommend it though, you can get everything she has to say from her Instagram.

Hyper-Christian and gender-normative, but a lot of good tips and actionable tricks, even for people that aren't god-fearing.

BLUF: Worthwhile, entertaining, but not for me.

This book had good themes, honest stories, and has reminded me to respect myself enough to reduce self-depreciation, but... it was a little underwhelming. This book was recommended to me by a coworker who swore up and down by it - and I see her life aligning with the concepts - but it wasn't as inspiring or life-changing as she made it out to be.

Thought this would be a fluffy, feminist, you-go-girl self help book. I've already read plenty but thought there might be something special about this one given its wild popularity. Turns out what's special about it is some really disturbing body shaming and ablelist body policing, a heavy layer of Christianity, excusing horrible male behavior with the implication that, well, you have to marry the guy you give your virginity to, and a really long, self-absorbed chapter about how unfair the foster care system is for rich white couples who already have biological children and aren't willing to take an older kid. I haven't hated a book this much in years.

I absolutely needed this book at this time. Thank you, Rachel, for such a powerful book.

I felt so uplifted and I felt so much better after reading these stories and thoughts. We are all doing our best and trying to find our way home. We can help each other, love each other and we can do it!

So I made the mistake of reading reviews on this book. I had heard so much great feedback on how awesome this book was but then I read some bad reviews and didn't want to read it anymore. But after buying it I decided I was going to read it. And honestly I think a lot of the bad reviews were misguided. Most were “this is by a privileged white woman” “this woman preaches about one thing than describes a scenario in her life showing the opposite” and “this is supposed to be a Christian book but it only talks a little about God”. Well I found all of these, as I've said, misguided. Do not take the book by the woman writing it but by the words. Make each word similar to your life. The premise of this book isn't a rags to riches or a how to save your marriage or a praise Jesus. It's an uber successful woman (and life coach) telling her story in hopes that it helps someone. She's not just preaching...she's giving advice with her personal journey on how she got to that particular revelation. I think that it was very articulately written. I think that it has some wonderful advise (even some that I didn't feel immediately pertained to me). Every well written self help book can be made (in the right mind set) to pertain to your life. I think this was a wonderful book and it made me (after initially judging her by the reviews) very interested in her and her career and family. The motivation in this book is for you to make it happen for YOURSELF and I loved that.

GIRL, DONT READ THIS BOOK

There are some bits and pieces of good, non-body-shaming advice in here, and I could see this being particularly helpful for what seems to be Hollis's target audience of conservative stay-at-home moms who maybe aren't getting sex-positive advice from other sources? But most of the parts I thought were good were kind of basic for someone with my general background/sphere.

But I think its biggest flaw is refusal to acknowledge how helpful her rich husband has been in her “success story”?

For much more on this...

http://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-144-girl-wash-your-face/

Not for everyone (obviously, given the mixed reviews), but it was perfect for me. Loved it.

Lifestyle media content (not macrame) is her vehicle for communicating to “her tribe” and I couldn't bail out fast enough. Not for me.

Just wasn't my cup of tea

Rachel Hollis reminded me a little too much of someone I know in my life who doesn't actually match her “behind-the-scenes” life to the one she shares publicly. That's not Rachel's fault though; it was just hard to separate the two.

I can definitely get behind and recommend almost any book that has a core message of, “You are responsible for your life.” This is worthy read overall.

had some good lessons