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A review by meekoh
Untamed by Glennon Doyle
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.
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.