Book Review - Girl, Wash Your Face

Book Review - 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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If you’ve been anywhere in the past couple of months, you’ve seen this striking cover:

Find Girl, Wash Your Face here

And it’s so intriguing.  First, just the picture…Who sits next to a bright yellow fire hydrant and lets it spray all over them? (Especially while wearing casual-cute clothes!) 

But it makes you think… I am like that! I try to go about my casual life (while also looking cute, thank you very much) but then a hydrant sprays water all over me!

Or maybe you think, I am such a mess – I need the strength of a fire hydrant to clean me off so I can start over!

But then what does the title mean?  Is she admonishing us to be sure to wash our faces before we go to bed every night?  Is there some deeper, hidden meaning? 

What Rachel Hollis really means is, Girl, pick yourself up off the floor and do something with your life! 

Who is this Rachel Hollis?

While I’ve been seeing this book everywhere: Pinterest, my friend’s bookshelves, online, Target (so, ya know, all the important places) I hadn’t actually heard of Rachel Hollis before.  Apparently, I’m like the only 30-year-old-woman in Texas who hadn’t… but now people know who Rachel is all over the country. This book has been crazy successful.

Rachel started the blog The Chic Site which grew into Chic Media (she’s the CEO), she has a podcast, she’s an author, she does conferences…basically an all-around big deal!  And as she spreads her wisdom of how to live life to basically every media outlet there is, she’s written a book on how to be who you really want to be.

 

Lies Spinning in Your Head

Do you ever find yourself in a downward spiral of negative self-talk?  It starts simply with, man I forgot to sweep the floor today! And somehow you end up convinced that you must have the dirtiest house out of every person you know, you must be the worst mom, and you probably also will never be able to fix either of those massive problems.

Well, this is not true.

Each chapter calls out a lie Rachel used to believe about herself and how she overcame it. For example, something else will make me happy, I’m not good enough, I’m better than you, I’m not a good mom, I should be further along by now, etc. I resonated with almost all of them.  And I’m guessing you will, too.

The WashingtonPost describes her book as “a conversational self-help guide that mixes memoir, motivational tips, Bible quotations and common-sense girl talk”. And it totally is.  It’s easily readable, and highly relatable.

Is she for real?

There was just one nagging thought/suspicion in the back of my mind, though, when I was reading this.  And it is: is she for real?  Like, is she really real about all of this?

I believe that she really did believe those lies and turn herself around.  But she also sounds kinda like a chaotic mess.  She’s running on fumes to write a book, then she goes and gives a conference, then she works at her office 60 hours a week, but she’s giving everyone advice at how to be the best organizer, mom, homemaker, beauty buyer, and look cute doing it all!  Is she really doing it all?

I guess what I mean is, if she is so busy doing all of these things, how is she actually living her life in the way that she is encouraging everyone (and showing us online) to live it?

But, maybe I’m judging her too harshly.  She is up front about her failures and shortcomings.  And we all have them.  Ok, so maybe she’s a bit neurotic, but also maybe she’s on to something.

Inspirational Writing 

Ultimately, she gives practical, relatable advice, and I found her to be quite inspirational.  I even did what she said in one chapter and wrote down all of my dreams.  Then I cried as I read the next few pages where she told me to take away the fear and chase those dreams!

People are looking for something.  Rachel is promising to deliver.  But- more importantly- she says you have it already.  It is there inside of you.  YOU.  You are capable.  You are the answer.

Books that kinda stick with me get a spot on my nightstand after they’ve been finished.  Because I feel like I might need to pick them up again at any moment.  And Girl, Wash Your Face made the cut. (also notice Chasing Slow in the background)

Read if…

You liked PresentOver Perfect by Shauna Niequist

You want to be encouraged to be your best self!

Happy Reading!

Hannah

What I’m reading next:

In a similar vein to Girl, Wash Your Face, my next inspiring Christian read is Church of theSmall Things by Melanie Shankle.

Also

Party Girl by Rachel Hollis

Apparently, Rachel has written some novels about her time as an innocent girl working as a party planner for the stars in Los Angeles. It doesn’t have rave reviews or anything, but I think it will be worth checking out.

You might also be interested in:

The House at Riverton

How to Reduce theStress in Your Life

Make Your New Year’s(Reading) Resolution

Nonfiction November - Reads Like Fiction

Week four of Nonfiction November!  Thanksgiving has had me running everywhere, and I almost forgot to post!  But I love this book I’m highlighting today, so I can’t miss sharing it with you.

Week 4: (Nov. 19 to 23) – Reads Like Fiction (Rennie @ What’s Nonfiction): Nonfiction books often get praised for how they stack up to fiction. Does it matter to you whether nonfiction reads like a novel? If it does, what gives it that fiction-like feeling? Does it depend on the topic, the writing, the use of certain literary elements and techniques? What are your favorite nonfiction recommendations that read like fiction? And if your nonfiction picks could never be mistaken for novels, what do you love about the differences?

Reads Like Fiction

Nonfiction is hard for me to get through.  Even if I am hungry for knowledge on a certain topic, I simply just read it more slowly than I read a novel. 

There are times when I like to sit with a pencil and underline important facts or jot notes on interesting parts.  It is important to learn from factual sources.

But I just love reading stories.  The characters pull me into their world.  The descriptions pull me into that time and place.  So, writing a nonfiction work that reads like fiction?  Yes, please, I want it!

Often biographies and memoirs are the easiest genres to have “fiction-y” nonfiction.  And my pick for this theme is an autobiography.

Or you could call it a parenting self-help book.

Which, I think makes it the best of all the worlds.

Bringing Up Bébé

The book Bringing Up Bébé is the only parenting book that I finished all the way through.  Not only did I feel like I learned a ton, I was cracking up laughing half the time.  And I felt like I was Pamela’s best friend just having a coffee with her as she imparted all her self-deprecating wisdom.

An American woman marries and Englishman and they move to Paris.  As they begin to start their family, Pamela is struck by the behavior of the French kids.  They don’t throw tantrums.  They eat their vegetables.  They play independently while their moms have a conversation.

*jaw drop*

So, Pamela set out on a mission to find the key to French parenting.

She takes you through being pregnant, teaching your baby to sleep, introducing a toddler to gourmet vegetables, giving your child choices, helping your child practice waiting and much more.  All through the story of her own motherhood experiences.

I laughed at her mistakes.  I underlined all the details.  And I dog-eared the pages with the recipes. 

She also wrote a companion book: Bébé Day by Day that is essentially the spark notes for this book without her autobiography running through it.  My copy had it in the back, and I made my husband read it. 

Basically, the French believe the child is capable of learning anything (yes, even how to sleep through the night!), but also they are not the center of the universe.  French parents have a balance between their adult lives and the lives of their children.  Not because they believe the child is less important than the adults, but because they believe everyone in the family has an important place and needs to be met.  

The French view parenting as éducation – it is teaching them everything they need for life.

Read if…

You are thinking of starting a family

You have young kids at home

You have nieces or nephews or grandchildren

You love to learn about other cultures and laugh along the way!

Nonfiction

I have been trying to expand my nonfiction reading. But I have been stuck reading the same two nonfiction books for quite a while.  Neither read like fiction at all, so I’m thinking that maybe I should make a change for my next nonfiction book. 

And I’m thinking I should probably go back to biography or memoir-type.

I really admire all of you out there who read nonfiction that does not have plot arcs and interesting characters to pull you in and keep you engaged.  You inspire me.  And that is something I need to work on.

I can’t wait to go through the Nonfiction November challenge to get some more book recommendations!

Head over to What's Nonfiction for the rest of the Nonfiction November posts for this week.

What are you reading that reads like fiction?  What should I read next?

Happy Reading!

Hannah