Reviews with content warning for Eating disorder - Indomable

Reviews tagging 'Eating disorder'

Indomable by Glennon Doyle

155 reviews

alisonfaith426's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

3.0

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thequeengeek's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.5

Hear me out. I started listening to Brené Brown books in the shower and sobbing right after I had Anthony. I was going through some bad PPD and decided to do a partial hospitalization program. A lot of the work I was doing there involved breaking down the shame and armor that Brené Brown discusses in her books. So, shower sobbing audiobooks began.

Now, I'm a little self conscious about the practice and about the material. Is it contributing to white woman nonsense? Am I somehow perpetuating privilege in a negative way by taking on this worldview? Is this all stuff I already paid to learn by a parade of very good therapists and group therapy and and and? Probably. Probably all of it.

HOWEVER hearing someone tell you that it's okay to listen to yourself and not please someone else and that you don't need to live in a little armored bubble fueled by shame and guarding against rejection is, in fact, nice. It's validating.

Enter this book. This is a more memoir-based version of the research based Brown's work. It tells stories about learning the hard way why "whole-hearted living" helps us and changes the course of our lives. It gives advice to stop asking for advice and polling and researching to make decisions and sit deep inside ourselves. It talks about stop living for the way you are supposed to be and start honoring who you are. Just more sobbing shower material.

I make fun of this, yes, but I do think that for a white middle class woman who struggles with unlearning the upbringing of the 80s and 90s, this is a good book. I want my friends to read it. I want to talk about it. And, honestly, it felt good to cry along with it. I did not always agree with her conclusion. I think that's okay. I did like hearing how she totally changed the order of her life and survived. It's a good reminder about parenting and expectations and honoring our children and our families.

This book isn't really about the content, though the content is good if you need it. But it's about the vibe. Sometimes she seems self indulgent, and sometimes a little unhinged, and sometimes you may think that what she says is completely selfish or won't lead to good choices. But I think that doing even a little bit of what she suggests could uncage us all.

I also read this book at the same time as When Women Were Dragons and the themes were so spot on that it felt like it enhanced my reading of both. I was happy that I was exploring rage, and social expectations, and making yourself small at the same time I was reading a modern book asking the same questions but directly AT me.

Look, I like this book. I'm couching it in all these caveats probably because I'm not just owning my feelings. Please read it and let me know when you are down shower crying so we can talk about it.

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pmhandley's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful reflective fast-paced

3.5

This book is best when it's a memoir. The author is a fascinating and funny person and she has a lot of interesting stories and wisdom. When it steers into broad self-help it gets a bit iffier. Glennon Doyle has great advice if you are very similar to Glennon Doyle, which is a very specific demographic. I enjoyed her insights, but large portions of this book it was apparent it was Not For Me. I actually found the later parts of the book much more enjoyable than the earlier ones, I think because it just took me awhile to adjust to the author's voice. Some of the stories the author uses about her kids made me uneasy, just because they often required a certain suspension of disbelief and because Doyle has a tendency to project her own motivations onto even innocuous things her children say. (Also, I rolled my eyes a little at the story of her daughter trying out for a travel soccer team, because while heartwarming that she made the team with little experience, how many kids get to intensely train with ABBY FREAKIN WAMBACH to prepare?) The overuse of metaphors in this book was a bit much. Some just didn't really work and were a real stretch. But it's a pretty quick, amusing read.

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