Untamed by Glennon Doyle | Audiobook Review

Untamed by Glennon Doyle
Narrator: Author
Publisher: The Dial Press (Random House Audio)
Release Date: March 10, 2020
Length: 352 pages (8 hrs. 22 min.)
Amazon

{A Bit of Backstory}

Single Sentence Summary

Wise, witty, and wonderful, part memoir, part self-help, part wake-up call, Untamed is the one book I’d love to put in every woman’s hand this year!

From the Publisher

“There is a voice of longing inside each woman. We strive so mightily to be good: good partners, daughters, mothers, employees, and friends. We hope all this striving will make us feel alive. Instead, it leaves us feeling weary, stuck, overwhelmed, and underwhelmed. We look at our lives and wonder: Wasn’t it all supposed to be more beautiful than this? We quickly silence that question, telling ourselves to be grateful, hiding our discontent – even from ourselves….This was her own voice – the one she had buried beneath decades of numbing addictions, cultural conditioning, and institutional allegiances. This was the voice of the girl she had been before the world told her who to be. “

The Draw

• I’ve read very little nonfiction this year and tend to like memoirs.
• Catherine from The Gilmore Guide to Books loved it and rarely steers me wrong.
• The sample was enough to tell me I’d enjoy listening to Doyle.

{My Thoughts}

Let’s just get right to the point. I loved this book! Glennon Doyle is my new hero. Now the hard part. The book is difficult for me to describe which may be why the publisher’s blurb is so long. I only included a part of their description above, but it goes on to tell you that while on a speaking tour to promote her last book (a book about saving her marriage) Doyle met and fell in love with a woman. Obviously, this was a profoundly life altering experience for Doyle, but it wasn’t her first. In her life she conquered an eating disorder and alcoholism, and found her way out of a deeply unhappy marriage. Along the way Doyle began to look at everything the world had programed her to think and believe about herself and about women, about life differently.

Untamed is Glennon Doyle’s journey toward a completely new, fabulous take on life and on being a responsible woman in today’s world. Her reading could not have been better. Every minute of listening to Doyle share her experiences, challenges, revelations and hopes was pure pleasure. It does have some swearing, just to be warned, but it’s there for good reason. I’m going to let Doyle’s words speak for themselves in a couple passages below, and if it wasn’t clear already, I could not recommend Untamed more highly. I want to send it to every woman I know!  Grade: A

“They’d convinced me that the best way for a woman to love her partners, family and community was to lose herself in service to them. In my desire to be of service I did myself and the world a great disservice I’ve seen what happens out in the world and inside our relationships when women stay numb, obedient, quiet and small. Selfless women make for an efficient society, but not a beautiful, true or just one. When women lose themselves the world loses its way. We do not need more selfless women.”

“The blueprints of heaven are etched in the deep desires of women. What women want is good, what women want is beautiful, and what women want is dangerous, but not to women, not to the common good. What women want is a threat to the injustice of the status quo. If we unlocked and unleashed ourselves unbalanced relationships would be equalized, children would be fed, corrupt governments would topple, wars would end, civilizations would be transformed. If women trusted and claimed their desires, the world as we know it would crumble. Perhaps that is precisely what needs to happen, so that we can rebuild truer, more beautiful lives, relationships, families, and nations in their place. Maybe Eve was never meant to be our warning. Maybe she was meant to be our model. Own your wanting. Eat the apple. Let it burn.”

If you liked this book you might also enjoy:

• Tell Me More by Kelly Corrigan – Another woman who shares some of life’s lessons that have deeply affected her and her outlook on life. (my review)
• Daring to Drive by Manal al-Sharif – The courageous memoir of a Saudi woman growing up in a strict Muslim home, and slowly seeing the injustices to women, fighting for change. (my review)