"Girl, Wash Your Face," by Rachel Hollis

Audience: Young Adult/Adult Women

Genre: Nonfiction

Overall Content Rating: Somewhat Clean

Sexual Content

Post-birth bladder control mention

Mentions "showing off her body to her first boyfriend"

Being said boyfriend's "booty call"

Whole chapter on sex

Substance Use

Alcohol mentions sprinkled throughout

Reliance on alcohol

Mentions Xanax (taken with the alcohol)

Overall Review

I'll be honest, I'm not sure I got the audience "right" on this one. And I say that because I'm not even sure if the audience is well-established in this book. One moment I think teens could read it, the next moment it starts talking about the Christian view of sex or having to "raise your babies." To put things simply, I'm confused by the point of this book.

On one hand, it's meant to be an encouraging book. Written by entrepreneur Rachel Hollis, CEO of Chic Media, we have a book that is supposed to uplift you and tell you the truth about many things that are lies. But I'm not sure it does that as well as it could. Some reviewers put this really accurately when they say it was written by a "white woman" with "white woman problems." Meaning, quite simply, it's a rather entitled way of writing "you've got this."

We all know there's a lot of struggle in this world, and we all appreciate books written from a Christian point of view, but I'm not sure that this book really captures what it tries to claim it's selling. I wasn't impressed like I expected to be when I saw "#1 New York Times Bestseller" on the front cover, and just because it was Christian, that didn't mean it didn't mention things like sex. And while she didn't mention it in a vulgar way... why was it dropped in there in the first place?

She goes from a somewhat boring but semi-okay book to adult territory faster than I can snap and I wasn't ready for it. And looking at the table of contents, I should've seen the chapter literally titled "The Lie: I'm Bad at Sex." But truly, when she mentions post-birth bladder control, showing off her body to her first boyfriend, being his "booty call" for a while, and then adding the whole chapter on sex, it makes me stumble a little bit. While the sex chapter was something I had just honestly missed, the other stuff was just hidden in there and I didn't like it. I don't think it helped the story out in any way, I don't think it really added relatability, and yes, while it was a part of her story... I wasn't able to appreciate it the way that I wanted to, and I think this has to do with how it was conveyed.

When I read Christian books, I think there will be an absence of these topics. That's not to say that Christian books don't handle these topics well, but in this case, she didn't seem to handle it with enough seriousness. All throughout the book we have mostly humor and while she can look back at her past experiences and laugh, her readers still may cringe and there are no signs of her indicating that she understood that.

However, I think a lot of this was her attempted appeal to other audiences, too. She wasn't just writing this for a Christian audience but instead was also writing this for a larger religious audience that crosses what we see as boundaries. She talks about this in a positive way, but in the end, I'm not sure she managed to convey herself to any of them properly. That said, I'm a Christian. I'm not Islamic or Catholic or Buddhist or Mormon or any of the other many religions that are under the sun.

All that said, despite there being a lot I didn't like about this book, there were some things I did. After each chapter, there was a set of "Things that Helped Me" that she put in there. This isn't her prescription for all your woes, but it's a step forward and I liked that she didn't force it on anyone. It wasn't some giant journaling assignment, but instead, it was another look into her life in a way that you could see might work or might not work depending on who you are and what your preferences are.

Ultimately, whether or not you read this book is up to you and I'm not of the opinion that it's a bad read, it's just not a great read either. And regardless, you're totally allowed to have a different opinion. So go ahead, pick up this book, and challenge yourself to find something you liked about this book that I maybe didn't mention. I'd love to know what you come up with!