"I used to wear the word count of my first novel on a cheap gold bracelet around my wrist: 82,311 was etched into it, and every time I looked at it, I would remember what I’d achieved. I was the one who’d strung 82,311 words together in semi-coherent sentences. When faced with the challenge of writing other books, I revert there . . . Well, I think, at least I know I can write that many words. I’ve done it before!"
Occasionally every single person I am connected to on goodreads reads the same book around the same time. Around the holidays, it seemed that everyone was reading Girl Wash Your Face! Well, GWYF was unique because not only did it seem that all the goodreads peeps were reading this together, but all of my friends (IRL) seemed to be reading it too. From September to February I couldn't even talk to hardly anyone without having them ask "have you read Girl Wash Your Face yet?" I nearly bought the book several times because I hadn't heard anyone speak negatively about it.
I write all this to say it hadn't really crossed my mind that I would find myself reading this and wondering "what on earth does everyone and their mom love so much about this? What are they connecting to?" After I finished the book the question I couldn't stop asking myself was "what exactly was there to connect to?"
I had a lot of issues with this book. The big factor for me in deciding to give it 2 stars instead of 3 was the way I felt disconnected from Hollis' narrative voice. It was odd because Hollis really airs her dirty laundry in this book. In her author's note/foreward, she talks about how important it is for her to be honest and open about her journey and her struggles to anyone who bothers to read her books and/or her blog. That is all well and good. She did that. She talked about peeing her pants on the trampoline and feeling like she was bad at sex. She detailed the loss of a loved one to suicide, and her struggles with parenting and working. That is all emotional stuff on its own, and I think people were really captivated by her honesty and her call to "be in control of your life" instead of "letting your life happen to you."
The disconnect for me is where she put her focus. She paraded her struggles and failures around but the emphasis wasn't on the actual struggles or the journey through them, the emphasis was on the neat little bow she tied around all of her failures and embarrassments. This created a feeling of falseness for me. I felt like she was pitching emotions instead of doing the work to connect them to herself and the reader.
But hey, I am in the minority here, so what do I know!?
If you want something in this same non-fiction genre vein, that feels less like a motivational speaker salespitch, I HIGHLY recommend either of Glennonn Doyle Melton's books. Those books will transform you, and Glennon won't even try to fix your problems by recommending you have sex everyday for a month. Cool, right?
Just a quick side note before I go: if you want to clean out your friends on social media without lifting a finger, just mention in insta stories that you aren't enjoying GWYF 😳 holy hell, did Rachel hire you? Did she buy you a thousand dollar LV bag in exchange for your undying fandom? Seriously did she? Because I can rewrite this review and drink the koolaid!
2/5 Stars
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