Untamed by Glennon Doyle

It's been months since I've written a thing. Not a review, a post, nary a journal entry. I haven't had the words. My light went out. The last few months pulled me under their weight. I let depression and anxiety take full occupancy of my mental space. 

They still live here, but it's up to me how much real estate I give them. So I choose to make space for the things that bring me joy, like reading, writing, and sharing words. It's also been months since I finished the phenomenon that is Glennon Doyle's Untamed.

Untamed had me questioning my hardcover rule. I typically don't buy an author I haven't read before. For the same reason I had a “three single rule” before purchasing an album by a new artist. Back in the day it was a real gamble going off the lead single, when you had to buy an album if you wanted to hear the whole thing. 

As with any rule, there’s always an exception. Like when I heard Starsailor and Remy Shand on MTV2 and immediately bought their debuts to find each album as good as "Tie up my Hands" and "Take a Message." Albums I still revisit now long after the fall of music television.

I hadn't heard of Glennon Doyle until Untamed exploded. This book was everywhere. All over my feed and on the tip of many a friends' tongue. I was intrigued. The title alone was alluring, and the cover art bewitching, beckoning me forth like a painting that draws your eye in so far you find yourself up close to the canvas. My interest was piqued. 

Then I heard Doyle tell the story of Tabitha the cheetah on Brené Brown's podcast and my ear was hers. She stopped me in my tracks crossing the street, hearing her talk about the crock of shit (her words) that the highest praise a woman can attain is to be selfless. She implored that what we need are women who are full of themselves, women who trust and know themselves enough to live their truth. My interest was at a rolling boil.

I was still questioning the hardcover when I found a copy in my mailbox. A dear friend had read it and loved it so much that she sent me a fresh copy. This friend is just as judicious as I am about spending money. So I knew that if she had ponied up for not one, but two hardcover copies, this book had to be something special.

Special indeed. I can see why this book is everywhere. Nothing resonates deeper than truth and this book is filled to the brim. 

Doyle’s writing is disarming. She is so sincere, so direct, that the book reads like an intimate conversation with herself, placing you, the reader, as the lucky fly on the wall. Her writing is like an IV drip of Diet Coke, it seamlessly enters your body without detection and leaves you wired. 

She has a brilliant gift for distilling complex thoughts into visually attractive metaphors. "We're like snow globes: We spend all of our time, energy, words, and money creating a flurry, trying not to know, making sure that the snow doesn't settle so we never have to face the fiery truth inside us - solid and unmoving." She mentioned on Brown’s podcast that her editor cited her for too many metaphors. I disagree. Give me more Glennon. 

I found Doyle at her best when she writes from the intimate space of me. She would lose me sometimes when she got into we territory, talking about her relationship with Abby or the co-parenting of her blended family. What comes from a place of pride, could come off as righteous to this reader. Or as the song “To Hell with Good Intentions” goes by Mclusky, a little “my love is bigger than your love.”

A minor comment on a major work. The type of book you can’t help but underline. A book I have returned to since finishing. A book I will read again. It is both a call to self and a battle cry to women. A reminder of many things you may already feel but need to see and read to fully know.

What I remember most is her fire. She believes and feels so deeply that it is hard not to catch fire yourself. As she says, "Living from the worlds within us will change our outer worlds. Here's the rub: Destruction is essential to construction. If we want to build the new, we must be willing to let the old burn." 

A prescient statement written before our world started collapsing in. I’m all for burning down the proverbial house. For as the Talking Heads song begins, “Watch out you might get what you’re after.”

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