A memoir about star crossed lovers, self discovery, and family love, Untamed by Glennon Doyle is a book for posterity. It is a memoir that should be used as a tool for empowerment and encouragement for all women.
Doyle’s memoir was published early in 2020 right before the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world, but that didn’t stop it from becoming a hit.
Untamed is a memoir that tells the story of how and why women should release their inner cheetah and become “untamed”.
Since it was published, women have been raving about Doyle’s empowering writing. I find it interesting that this profound book was published right before the COVID-19 pandemic took full force, a pandemic that has unprecedentedly impacted women more than men (statistically speaking).
- Violence against women has increased globally
- Why?
- Cramped living conditions and isolation with abusers
- Deserted public spaces
- Movement restrictions
- Security, health, and money worries
- Why?
- More women are expected to provide unpaid care and domestic work
- Why?
- Lack of childcare
- 1.5 billion students at home from school in March 2020
- Women are expected to fill in these extra roles
- Why?
- Women are expected to take on the extra tasks from the pandemic, plus maintain previous responsibilities, and some also have to maintain a fulltime paying job
- The pandemic has shed a light on the gender pay gap in healthcare
- “Globally, 70 per cent of health workers and first responders are women, and yet, they are not at par with their male counterparts. At 28 per cent, the gender pay gap in the health sector is higher than the overall gender pay gap (16 per cent)”.
All of the above information was sourced from: UN Women
The economic toll that the COVID-19 pandemic has taken on women has set the fight for women’s equality back for years. SO, I hope everyone is giving the women in their lives grace and love; let us lift one another up and give credit where credit is due.
70 PERCENT of healthcare workers in the world are WOMEN! They are the champions of caring during the pandemic and they deserve support.
If Untamed taught me one thing, it is this: please, cheer on the women around you because, dang, globally, women sure are carrying the weight of this pandemic.
About Untamed and Glennon Doyle
From Carry On, Warrior, published in 2013 and a #1 The New York Times Bestseller to Love Warrior published in 2016 and featured in Oprah’s Book Club, Glennon Doyle was a successful and experienced memoir writer even before Untamed.
Doyle is an American author and activist. She is the founder and president of Together Rising, an all-women led nonprofit organization. She is known for her grassroots philanthropy and has helped raise over $30 million for women, families, and children in crisis (for more info go HERE).
Untamed was published on March 10, 2020 by Dial Press. Doyle has since sold over 2 million copies and Untamed was listed as number one on The New York Times non-fiction best seller list for 7 weeks.
She currently lives in Florida with her three children and wife.
In Untamed, Doyle tells the story of becoming her true self.
What I Enjoyed/Found Interesting about the Book
1. Organization
I normally am not a fan of memoirs because they tend to make me fall asleep; maybe I should start reading them before bed lol.
However, Untamed is not your average memoir. Most memoirs tend to be organized chronologically, working through the timeline of history. Doyle took a different route where the chapters seem to be organized by thought and content.
When I read books, I tend to make notes either in the margins or on sticky notes and then I label them with a general word like “religion” or “grief” so I know what is being discussed in that section. When I look back at the organization of my notes it’s quite interesting.
This is the organization of one portion of the book:
- Pain
- Religion
- Imagination
- Life isn’t easy
- Bravery
- The self
Notice how each topic can transition into one another creating a train of thought almost like an essay.
This form of organization was much more interesting for me than the traditional chronological order.
2. Quotes on Quotes
Glennon Doyle’s writing is so raw and conversational, yet polished that I’m pretty sure every page had a sentence or two where I was like “Yes, I want to put this on my wall or on a pillow because I never want it to leave my brain”
Here are just a few of my favorite:
- “Perhaps imagination is not where we go to escape reality but where we go to remember it. Perhaps when we want to know the original plans for our lives, families, world, we should consult not what’s in front of us but what’s inside us”
- “The truest, most beautiful life never promises to be an easy one.”
- “We can do hard things, like be alive and love deep and lose it all, because we do these hard things alongside everyone who has ever walked the Earth with her eyes, arms, and heart wide open”.
- “Privilege is being born on third base. Ignorant privilege is thinking you’re there because you hit a triple. Malicious privilege is complaining that those starving outside the ballpark aren’t waiting patiently enough”.
- “The Jesus idea is that justice casts the widest net possible so that every last one of us is inside. Then there are no others–there is only Us. Inside one net we are free from our cages of fear and hate and, instead, bound to one another. The revolutionary idea that every last one of us is both held and free: That is our salvation”.
Every sentence, every word has a reason in Doyle’s memoir. A reader can easily tell that her words are pure and completely her own. It’s as if she is speaking in front of you with every word deeply researched and developed.
Many determine if a book is good or not by deciding if they will read it a second time “because it was just that good”. I don’t always like to use this evaluation method because sometimes I love a book but I don’t see myself reading it again.
Untamed is a beautiful memoir. Do I see myself reading it a second or even a third time? I don’t really know. It’s a pretty heavy book and Doyle’s writing is so memorable I don’t know if I will ever need to read it again. However, I do see myself going back to certain chapters at different points in my life for some friendly reminders.
Have you read Untamed yet? If so, let me know what you thought in the comments!
If you haven’t read Glennon Doyle’s newest memoir, give it a chance, you may be pleasantly surprised.
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