Why Don’t I Like Glennon Doyle?

A confession that will make a lot of people I love really mad.

I tried so hard. So many people I have respect for seemed to love this book. As I read Untamed, every time Glennon Doyle said something I agreed with — which was a lot — I would feel relief. Phew! I am being woman the right way. But why am I not in love with this book? In between the many soundbites and redundant quotable excerpts at the end of every paragraph — all of which I agreed with — a looming feeling of ick was growing inside of me.

Untamed was my introduction to Glennon. About 100 pages in — after Googling her to try and gain clarity on why everyone loved this person so much and why I didn’t — I discovered she had written another best-selling book about self-discovery, titled Love Warrior, that she was now confessing in Untamed was a total sham. I thought to myself, is this not bothering anyone else? Regardless, that was was the part in the book where I allowed myself to feel whatever I wanted to feel.

The question kept haunting me: If Love Warrior was a sham, why were we listening to her in Untamed? In fact, why were we listening to her at all? Unlike authors like Brene Brown or Nedra Glover Tawwab, who have the expertise to back up their wisdom on topics like vulnerability and boundaries, Glennon just has her opinions — and a lot of them. I happened to agree with most of them… but did that really make her my hero? On every turn she kept telling me she was every woman, but I saw nothing of myself in her. I don’t worry about my thighs and I knew how to book a plane ticket by myself at age 30. Sure most women are inspired by the idea of listening to your knowing, but many of us could also stand to hear hard truths from healthy and trusted people in our lives. Should our knowing really be all we need in life?

If nothing else, Glennon is fantastic at marketing inner healing and self-worth to women. I don’t want to take away from that, the positive impact is real. I’m just worried the person saying the words isn’t real. For example, the cell phone conversation with her son — in which she frames herself as both woke mom and wise mom at the same time — I’m calling bull. I work with teens, I have a teen, and I’m telling you that did not happen the way it is written. I don’t want parents around the world to wish they were “more like Glennon” when I can almost guarantee that parent doesn’t exist.

Bottom line: I’m worried for people to hitch their wagon to someone that will change their “truth” once it’s no longer serving them.

Glennon did a great job of creating an army of fans, which is why I’m scared to criticize this book. But if you’re still listening, and haven’t closed me out as Glennon would suggest you do — I just want to say proceed with caution. I’ve listened to her podcast a few times (in hopes that she came across less self-righteous there) and I continue to hear this tone of “I’ve got life all figured out” or “If someone doesn’t like the way I do things, I cut them off”. This tells me Glennon is not very far along her healing journey. It isn’t healthy to cut anyone off who doesn’t agree with you. It isn’t healthy to enter a relationship (albeit an adorable one on Instagram) so quickly and become each other’s “everything”. It isn’t healthy to be triggered by a ringing phone and blame the caller (something she actually goes into oddly heavy detail about in the book). There are a lot of red flags here, folks. We’ve confused Glennon’s relatability with her wisdom — but what she’s actually saying if you listen closely is “I’m better than you.”

I want to beg people to please find another “guru” to put on a pedestal… one who actually does know their sh*t. There are so many better authors to idolize. I mentioned Brene Brown and Nedra Glover Tawwab, but there’s also Devon Price, Tara Westover, Julie Lythcott-Haims, Bruce Perry, Marc Brackett… the list goes on. Can we please place our healing in the hands of more capable people than someone who already told us who she is — when she wrote and profited from a memoir that she later admitted she knew was a lie while she was signing autographs to adoring fans who were following her every word.