2019: #3 – Girl, Wash Your Face (Rachel Hollis)

Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be by Rachel Hollis
Published by Thomas Nelson on February 6, 2018
Genres: non-fiction, self help
Pages: 220

Do you ever suspect that everyone else has life figured out and you don’t have a clue? If so, Rachel Hollis has something to tell you: that’s a lie.
 
As the founder of the lifestyle website TheChicSite.com and CEO of her own media company, Rachel Hollis developed an immense online community by sharing tips for better living while fearlessly revealing the messiness of her own life. Now, in this challenging and inspiring new book, Rachel exposes the twenty lies and misconceptions that too often hold us back from living joyfully and productively, lies we’ve told ourselves so often we don’t even hear them anymore.
 
With painful honesty and fearless humor, Rachel unpacks and examines the falsehoods that once left her feeling overwhelmed and unworthy, and reveals the specific practical strategies that helped her move past them. In the process, she encourages, entertains, and even kicks a little butt, all to convince you to do whatever it takes to get real and become the joyous, confident woman you were meant to be.
 
With unflinching faith and rock-hard tenacity, Girl, Wash Your Face shows you how to live with passion and hustle--and how to give yourself grace without giving up.

I wasn’t familiar with Rachel Hollis before I started this book, and honestly only picked it up because so many people in my universe were talking about it. What I didn’t pick up on before I started it was that it was going to have such a Christian angle to it. I can’t say that made it terrible, but it meant that a lot of it didn’t really speak to me.

I listened to the audiobook and enjoyed Hollis’s narration, but I found that after a while I was just listening to it out of curiosity, and didn’t really take anything away from it for my personal life. I guess I liked her personal stories the best, just because I like to hear people talk about their lives. The whole story about how she met her husband was a little alarming, but I appreciated her talking about her struggles in the foster care system (though I hope it doesn’t scare anyone away from foster care!). Her career path is definitely not one that most people can follow, but it makes for a nice story?

Like I said, I didn’t hate this but I also didn’t take anything away from it, personally. I’ve already figured out that I can’t control how other people think about me.

Other reviews:

• “Don’t let my critiques dissuade you from checking out “Girl, Wash Your Face.” I still think it’s worth a read.” — Laura Harris Writes
• “I dog-eared a couple pages in this book and hope to come back to it from time to time when I need a reminder. It’s a cold-hard-truth kind of book, so if you don’t think you’re ready to hear someone tell it to you straight, then maybe this book isn’t for you.” — Cook Scrap Craft
• “So if you can’t tell I loved the book. The part about washing your face is more about (at least in my mind) washing off all the lies we tell ourselves and seeing (and acting) clearly for the first time.” — The Sassy Dietitian