“Girl, Wash Your Face” – Rachel Hollis
I'm not the type of person that seeks out motivational quotes or stories to help inspire me. I believe that my fire is already lit, and I feel pretty confident in being able to motivate myself. I'm also not a huge fan of nonfiction books or memoirs (unless you count Angela's Ashes, because for real, who doesn’t love that book). However, there was a craze surrounding Girl, Wash Your Face and I had to know for myself if this was just another fad, or if I was potentially missing out on something fantastic. Is it weird that I want to say the answer is probably a bit of each?
Girl, Wash Your Face is a series of essays by Rachel Hollis, founder and CEO of TheChicSite, a blog site designed to bring women together and share information on how to improve their lives whether through Pinterest-like ideas, new recipes, or what have you. On top of that, she's also a high profile event planner, TV personality, writer, and mom of four. With all her experience in different industries (and through life), Hollis makes for a great choice as someone to listen to and take some advice from. Each chapter in the book is a lie she's told herself, what she learned about herself from that lie, and what she did or is currently doing to overcome it, making changes to her life in various ways and describing how the reader can also make changes to her own life (this book is primarily targeted to women) depending on her goal.
One of the best things about Hollis is that her writing is so easy to read. She writes exactly like she's having a conversation with you, and once you've read a few chapters and realize how much time has gone by, you don't feel like you've read a book at all; more like you've spent the last half hour having a coffee chat with a good friend. Her stories are, for the most part, relatable (aside from maybe that time she met Matt Damon), and when she's sharing her experiences, it's second nature for you to reflect on your own experiences and say to yourself, “Yeah, me too!” She also gives great insight on some topics or issues I may not have necessarily thought I was having issues with, but after reflecting on her words, I'd find that I had, in fact, had the same thoughts as her, and was not aware of how my behavior was impacting the situation.
Some of the chapters in the book are not relatable to myself or younger girls because she often reflects on being a mom and the lies she's told herself as a parent. However, this is her life and her story, and being a mom plays a huge part in who Hollis is. It also plays a significant part in the lives of many of her readers, so it makes sense why she discusses her mom struggles so much. Despite the fact that I don't have kids and couldn't relate to her 'I'm a bad mom' lies she's told herself, I liked that I was able to read about these struggles she overcame because it gave me insight on how some of my mom friends (or even my own mom) might be feeling, and that alone was a great benefit from the read.
One thing I feel I must note for your benefit is the amount of time Hollis talks about God and her faith. I'm an atheist (maybe agnostic? Who knows, we're all discovering ourselves, right?) born into a Christian family and baptized Lutheran before I could even say the word ‘God’. My family's faith ranges from those who share the same beliefs as me, to those who are Catholic or worship every weekend. I have friends from all different backgrounds and religions. Although religion isn't something I partake in (unless you count Harry Potter, because I would definitely consider the whole series as sacred texts), I love hearing my friends and family talk about their own beliefs and learning about opinions that may be different from my own. I also believe that if religion can be a form of therapy for someone, even better! Sometimes people need religion, and if they do, that's great for them. I took Hollis's experiences the same way, and was still able to relate her experiences to my own regardless of our different views on religion. However, with the extent of how much she talks about this, I could understand how it could dissuade someone from not wanting to read her book. Sometimes it seems a bit over the top, and as the book continues, she seems to get deeper and deeper into her religion. Again, it's not a bad thing, just might not be your thing, and though I enjoyed it, it wasn't my thing either.
I really loved and appreciated the experiences and lessons Hollis shared and even took down some notes in my notes app because I found them very inspirational (I know, surprised me too!). As previously stated, I'm not the type of person who feels the need to read inspirational stories to motivate myself, and maybe I'm not using the quotes to motivate myself so much as to de-stress myself from my own thoughts. This very blog, for example, caused a great deal of stress for me in the beginning. What if people don't like it? What if I'm not a good writer? What if the readers hate the books I pick out, don’t share my same opinions, or have more intelligent things to say than I do? I wanted to be successful and be good at blogging about books, not because I wanted to make a name for myself out of it, but because I love literature and talking about literature, and that's when I realized that it doesn't matter if people don't like it, think my writing is subpar, or hate my choice of books to review. That's because I'm not just writing this blog for you, reader, but I'm also writing it for myself. That's why I turned off the comments section on the blogs (you can still reach out to me through my various forms of social media and my email), but I didn't want any opinion of my blog, whether good or bad, to alter my own vision of my blog, and be a permanent reminder on the page for myself and my readers to see. One of the quotes I saved from Hollis's book says, “Whether or not something is good and worthy is up for interpretation, and if you're unconcerned about other people's interpretations, then everything you make is fantastic.” Basically, it doesn't matter if my readers think I'm the best or worst book blogger ever, because the most important opinion is my own opinion, and if I love doing this and I think I'm good, I'm just going to keep going and try to better myself as I continue, and if someone can enjoy my words even a smidge of how much I enjoy them, then it was more than worth it.
All in all, Girl, Wash Your Face was a great book for inspiration, reflection, and guidance, and I'd recommend it to almost any woman out there looking for a little extra something in their lives.