Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be

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It's pretty misleading to put this book in the "religious/Christian" book genre. Some of the most notable/cringey parts to me were, "I am my own hero. This is all me. Any achievements you've accomplished, those are all you. I wish someone had told me this, but I had to navigate through life and learn it on my own: Only YOU have the power to change your own life - this is the truth. I ran an entire marathon with Philippians 4:13 written on my arm with Sharpie, and I fully believe my Creator is the strength by which I can achieve anything. **But God can't make you into something, without your help.** You have the power to change, you have to stop waiting around for someone else to do it for you." The God who made the moon and the stars and the mountains and the oceans, the Creator who did all of those things, believed that you and your baby were meant to be a pair. That doesn’t mean you’re going to be a perfect fit. That doesn’t mean you won’t make mistakes. It does mean that you need not fear failure because you can’t fail a job you were created to do.” Another popular review called the book “sanctimonious twaddle” and asked what Hollis could possibly offer women who have been through real hardships: “What about women that have lost a child? Those that have been beaten, verbally abused, raped, or shot at? What about those forging their way through life in male-dominated careers instead of party planning?” A third reviewer says that Hollis “lost me when she spends an hour talking about her super emotionally abusive relationship and then reveals that the abuser is now her husband.” Note the use of the passive voice here: “photos show up.” Not “photos are strategically posted at just the right time of day by my social media team for maximum engagement.” But even the “messy” pictures of Hollis are adorable, so maybe it doesn’t matter whether she’s wearing sweatpants or a designer brand so much as that her audience believes it’s real. Authentic. Sincere. Is that dishonest? What is honesty when your life is your brand? Though her words can't all be gospel but I'll definitely consult this book from time to time especially because it is an authentic story of a woman who needed some growing up in all aspects of life.She made mistakes but she did do something out of her missed steps.Her story mirrored at least every one's inner determination to rise anew every day and face life head-and-shoulder on.

Sadly, Hollis doesn’t attribute this wisdom to knowing who she is in Christ. She credits self-love. Hollis is a self-proclaimed Christian, and the book is published by Thomas Nelson (a Christian publisher). References to the Bible, Jesus, her faith, and Christianity are peppered throughout the book. It’s not some kind of devotional—but it is marketed as Christian. And yet much of Hollis’s advice isn’t Christian, though some of it is still good. She doesn't sugar coat it, she doesn't tell you it's going to be easy nor does she tell you that change will happen overnight. What she does tell you is that YOU ARE WORTH IT. You are worth the fight, the struggle, the battles, and the pain. YOU ARE WORTH the hard work, the tears, the rejection, and the exhaustion. Because, ❝Life isn't meant to be merely survived-it's meant to be lived❞ Read for book club. Not something I would EVER choose for myself. The fact that people like this, quirky bloggers who are experts in precisely nothing, get to write entire books about how to live is probably the strongest argument I can think of in support of shutting down the internet, full stop. Essentially, after reading this book...there's not a lot new. The advice being given isn't groundbreaking. I've laughed, cried and contemplated. There are self-help books, and then there's 'Girl, Wash Your Face'!

Our society makes plenty of room for complacency or laziness; we’re rarely surrounded by accountability.” You must choose to be happy, grateful, and fulfilled. If you make that choice every single day, regardless of where you are or what’s happening, you will be happy.”

If we can identify the core of our struggles, while simultaneously understanding that we are truly in control of making changes, then we can utterly change our trajectory.❞ Thanks, but I’m good. I don’t hustle. I have no desire to create a vision board with my #goals because not all women want to live that way. The day I refer to my friends as my “tribe” is the day I will beg someone to duct tape my mouth shut. I’m not a workaholic. If I believe God is in control, then I don’t need to worry about “taking control of my life.”You are in charge of your own life, sister, and there’s not one thing in it that you’re not allowing to be there,” Hollis writes. But Hollis’s glibness makes clear that her “sisters” are only such if they look like her, share her padded bank account (and her priorities), and don’t venture too far into the real and wrenching difficulties of life. One of my distant relatives on my mom's side was known in the family for his severe chronic depression. He died about 20 years ago, but the one thing I remember about him was my grandmother's opinion of his life. Whenever it came up in conversation, she would lament, in German: "I don't know why he insisted on being so sad all the time. He could have had such a happy life!" However, ultimately it doesn't work for me because a lot of the time the advice contradicts itself, the stories she shares aren't relatable and often I see her advice subtly digging at people who can't do what she can. Ultimately, at the end of the day...I was entertained by the book...just don't take her word as gospel. At the center of Hollis’s messaging is the conviction that if you simply “choose positivity,” you can change the material conditions of your life to become a happier, more fulfilled being. She lays out this principle in the intro of Girl, Wash Your Face: “You, and only you, are ultimately responsible for how happy you are.”

once you understand that you are the one in control, you'll get up and try again. And you'll keep going until being in control feels more natural than being out of control.❞ It works because it is catchy. Hollis knows how to take a concept and frame it in such a way that it seems brilliant. This was so unsettling to read. I've never been this uncomfortable reading a book! I tried to keep going, and hoped that Hollis would redeem herself for the naive, close-minded, and sometimes outright insulting statements she preaches in this book. It didn't happen.Rachel Hollis's newest book Girl Wash Your Face is just the book I needed to read to start my new year. It's one of those books that made me think about my life, the things I do, and it was a highly entertaining read!