Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I adore Rachel Hollis. BUT.... Despite her frequent and boisterous claims on social media that she aims at creating content for and building a community of diversity, this book is not really for a diverse audience. Within the first chapter it was clear. Rachel Hollis’ avatar, or target audience, is a married, working mom or a married, stay-at-home mom. This makes reading GWYF really hard for me as a single mom. This book is 90% an autobiography, and about 10% or less of “self-help” or “personal development.” At times the text even reads like a pitch to hire her to speak at my next event, touting her every victory, achievement, and accolade. While she shares the tools she utilized to help her achieve goals, and some of them are great tools, it still reads like an autobiography and I grew weary of the “me, me, me” monologue. Sadly, this book did not live up to the hype. At all. Given my first career in sales, I’m left sort of wondering if some of that hype was artificial, manufactured spin by the publisher and the guiding hand of her husband’s professional influence since taking over the running of her media company. As a single mom trying to make my own dreams come true while working 8-5, I found this book and her story hard to relate to. I just can’t listen to her talk about her 5 minutes of financial challenges because the reality is she built her business with her 6-figure corporate husband paying all the bills and supporting their lifestyle. Yet another story of a woman achieving her dreams only because her husband was able to financially support them and any income from her wasn’t required. By her own admission, she worked because she wanted to, not because she had to. As a single mom, these stories do nothing for me. Her tools are useless for my single mom life. Though I thoroughly enjoyed her writing and story-telling, I read this as a biography not a personal development gold mine. It sends a message that a woman with children can only achieve her dreams if she has a husband at home so she can quit punching a clock and devote herself full-time to chasing her dream. For a working mom or a stay at home mom, Rachel Hollis’ words may be sweet balm to a tender soul. It may give them hope and courage to have a heart to heart with their partner. For those readers, I’m sure this book was all they thought it would be. However, Rachel Hollis incredibly naive if she believes her story is widely applicable to any and every woman, regardless of marital status, income level, or education. The fact is, if she didn’t have a Disney executive husband financing their lives and now at the helm of her company, the landscape of her life would look very different. Their lifestyle is not the norm, and it never has been. His income alone was probably at least $20,000 more than the median, combined household income of average American citizens. That affords a tremendous amount of freedom and luxury for his spouse to pursue any kind of dream, regardless of what kind of income it brings in. The average woman in our country does not have a husband that makes six-figures working for media megalodon and can afford for her to quit her job to pursue her dream. Most successful authors and speakers unfortunately have the same narrative: ambitious wife left the security of punching a clock when her husband agreed to support her following her dream. Since that’s not who I am, I just couldn’t relate to most of her book. There wasn’t anything she offered that was that unique or thought-provoking. Her style wasn’t that big a deal to me because that’s sort of how I am in my real life - The stop-whining-because-it’s-raining-and-put-on-your-polka-dot- Rain-boots-and-grab-an-umbrella-and-keep-it-freakin-moving type of woman. Maybe because I’m the friend that won’t allow you to whine and so are my closest friends, I didn’t find her in-your-face-like-a-football-coach style all that novel. The Rachel Hollis in the book says she never reads reviews anymore. Book Rachel says she deliberately and intentionally seeks out people different than herself, humbly receives criticism when she unintentionally puts her foot in her mouth due to naivete or ignorance. The Rachel Hollis on social media and podcasts constantly begs for reviews on iTunes, Amazon, Goodreads to help her following and rankings grow. Social media Rachel projects an arrogant, “IDGAF” attitude to anyone who dares disagree with her, calling them bullies and sad people, daring them with “COME AT ME BRO.” So, Book Rachel doesn’t care what I say, but Social media Rachel says I should write a review because “it means so much” to all the people that work hard to create content? But Live Stream Rachel doesn’t care either? So, which is it? Does my review only matter if you like what I have to say? Does In Real Life Rachel read them or not? Who is Rachel Hollis really and does she care or not? I think I liked Rachel Hollis a lot more before I read GWYF. Again, I love Rachel Hollis. She’s funny, honest, and is okay going through life just figuring it out along the way. She seems to have found the secret sauce to maintaining a great marriage, healthy kids, and a thriving career. I enjoy her live streams with her husband and she clearly has love overflowing from her cup onto her children. Like myself, her spiritual gift is likely exhortation and she is passionate about helping women do the same thing she has - work hard and achieve their dreams. I just have a different perspective. I honestly don’t think she sees her perspective is the privileged, air-conditioned VIP box at the baseball field and most of us are out here in the cheap seats in the outfield. Her level of success has many prerequisites not available to the majority, and to pretend none of that matters and anyone can do what she did in all her claims borders on unethical. Her only unique, innovative creations in the personal development space are her #Last90Days challenge and the Start Today journal. Rachel Hollis has just announced she is starting one-on-one coaching in 2019 and I’m guessing her daily livestreams on Instagram are the grass roots beginnings of a morning show with national syndication. I’m hanging out for the time being, guardedly optimistic about what the Hollis Co./The Chic Site (yet another two-sided identity I don’t understand) will continue to produce.