UNTAMED - Glennon Doyle

3.5 stars

What an interesting and thoughtful memoir / self-help guide. Really sticks with you at points.

Pacing: ★★★
Chapter flow: ★★
Enjoyment: ★★★ 1/2

I initially rated this 4 stars when I finished it, but once the high of the last few sections wore off, I realized that while there were parts I loved there were also some significant clunks that I...didn't.

Untamed is an interesting nonfiction read, in a genre hybrid that I would classify as memoir meets self-help book. This is obviously Glennon Doyle's niche, as her previous books sound like they fit that mode as well (I haven't read them, but they are mentioned often in this one).

In Untamed, Glennon is telling us the radical moment that changed her life: as a fully-formed, middle-aged adult, married with three kids and with a career as a Southern Christian motivational speaker, Glennon realizes in an instant that she is actually attracted to women, and she finds her match across a (semi) crowded room—just like a fairy tale. Thus begins the moment that radically alters her established life and leads her on the path to acceptance. Welcome to Untamed.

What was truly amazing about this story was the love in its pages. It is clear that Glennon loves, and those around her also love. I loved, even, when it came to hearing about her children, her path to true acceptance as a gay woman, and her intimate decisions when it came to self awareness and reflection. As a woman reading the story of a woman coming into her own, both sexually and as a woman who'd let the cultural systems break her into the box they'd predetermined for her, I loved this book.

Where Glennon lost me was in the structure of Untamed itself. I am really, really not a fan of non-linear fiction or nonfiction. This book had us in one timeline (Glennon realizing her true love at a writer's conference) and then it went back in time to the before (Glennon as a child)—that transition was fine, I've read many a book like that before. But then, two pages later, we would be in a new chapter break and that new break would be in the future (Glennon now, with her wife) and both the past the present are gone. Then we would go back to a slightly different present or past. Ping pong, ping pong. Coupling that fact with the fact that each chapter varied in length from 2 pages to 8 pages, on average, and it was on the wrong side of confusing for me.

I also struggled with this book's strong metaphysical overtones (the "Knowing" and her faith), but to a much lesser degree than the nonlinear transitions—just placing it here for those who also might have felt the same way.

Overall, a thoughtful and memorable read!