Reviews

This isn’t saying anything particularly new or groundbreaking for me personally. However, having been adjacent to the Christian community Glennon comes from, I know that a lot of what she’s saying is pretty revolutionary. The Glennon she is in Untamed is probably a very different from the one her audience previously knew, which makes what she’s written here much more impressive than it would seem at first glance.

suesstoryvibe's review against another edition

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emotional funny informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

wendy327's review against another edition

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2.0

This was just not the right book for me. Part memoir mixed with self-help, I thought there were some good stories in the mix and some decent advice. However, self-help has never been my favorite genre, so some of the advice sounded preachy and landed flat due to the author’s tone of voice.

elgregorich's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing medium-paced

5.0

meekoh's review against another edition

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3.0

Untamed is a woman’s journey to self-discovery and embracing feminist narratives at the age of 40. Doyle is a late bloomer and therefore can sometimes come across as privileged and naïve. For example, at the age of 36 with a husband and three kids she does not know how to book a flight because quote – “my sister usually does easy things for me.” Doyle also never thought to raise her son as feminist or acknowledged the existence of harmful male stereotypes until 5 years ago while watching CNN. Nevertheless, I get it; this is a story of growth not of perfection.

The author definitely has some blind spots. Doyle’s stance on friendship is to embrace her unwillingness to invest any effort into maintaining them. She does not want anyone to text or call her and is undaunted by leaving messages unanswered. However, her eureka moments throughout the book are usually framed by calling a friend and frantically asking for advice or exploring her issues. Doyle does not appear to see the irony in this. It is a strange approach for someone who lists empathy as her superpower.

As is common with self-help books, Doyle sometimes comes off as overly presumptious or simplistic with her advice. In particular, during the two instances when she mentions mothers with dying children. It felt wrong to hear someone speak on such a traumatic topic in which they lacked lived experience or education.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand why people love this book. There are some exceptional chapters and passages. Doyle makes great use of metaphors to conceptualize feminist ideology. She also knows which stories to present to convey emotion and understanding. The cheetah metaphor, the Touch Tree concept, the answer to the God conflict, the notion of anger revealing boundaries, modesty vs. humility, the hot yoga story, the midnight/pearl poem about Abby… all great moments.

I wish my enjoyment of this book was more linear but for me it was pretty up and down. I was either engrossed or bewildered.

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