Book review: Girl, wash your face by Rachel Hollis | Better you books – personal development

In this video I will review Girl, wash
your face by Rachel Hollis. In 2018 this
was the second most popular book on
amazon.com, keep watching to find out why.
Hi I’m Linda and welcome to my YouTube
channel Better you books where I read
and review books that help you to become a
better version of yourself. In today’s
review of Girl, wash your face, I’ll tell
you more about the author,
Rachel Hollis, share with you my thoughts
and key takeaways as well as my favourite
quote, before ending with whom I
recommend this book for and giving it my
star rating, so keep watching till the
end to find out what score I gave it.
Girl wash your face was published in 2018
and it is a number one New York Times
bestseller. I first heard about this book
last year, I saw that it had so many
positive reviews online so I wanted to
see what all the fuss was about. I read
it for the first time last year, I picked
it up again in January this year to give
me a boost of motivation and then I
reread it again so I could do this
review for you guys! Girl, wash your
face

is by far Rachel’s most successful
book, however she is written quite a lot
of books in different genres, she
actually started off by writing chick lit
novels and she’s also released a couple
of cookbooks, I actually have one of them
and I can wholeheartedly recommend
the Spinach chicken bake as I made that
the other night and it was delicious!
She’s also written a follow-up book to Girl,
wash your face called Girl, stop
apologizing. Rachel is from California in
the US and she now lives in Austin, Texas
with her husband Dave and her four
children. Rachel started her career as an
event planner and she set up a lifestyle
blog to supplement the business and just
to promote it really but actually the blog
became really successful so she ends up
transitioning away from the event
planning business into the lifestyle
blog. Over time
she’s now evolved into becoming an
author, she has two popular podcasts and
she’s also an in demand motivational
speaker and hosts her own conferences
which thousands of women attend every
year and so much more. Rachel is a really
passionate entrepreneur and she is
always working on something new. This
book is divided into 20 chapters and
each chapter is a lie that Rachel once
believed that held her back. The lies
include things like ‘I should be further
along by now’, ‘I’m not a good mom’ and ‘something
else will make me happy’. At the end
of each chapter Rachel says what worked
for her to overcome these lies.
Regular viewers of my channel may feel
that this format is somewhat familiar
and that’s because it was copied in
Rachel’s husband’s book Get out of your
own way which I reviewed a few weeks ago.
Different people will get different
things from this book especially
depending on their stage in life, for
example there are quite a few chapters
on being a mother that I’m sure that
other mums could get a lot of key
insights from, but here are mine. Number one:
you have the ability to change your life.
I believe this is actually the central
tenet of the book and the first time I
read this I actually cried on the very
first page, when I read this “you and only
you are ultimately responsible for who
you become and how happy you are”. At the
end of the book Rachel adds “you have the
ability to change your life. You’ve
always had the power.. you just have to
stop waiting for someone else to do it
for you” and this really resonated with
me but this idea does come across a lot
of criticism which I will address later
in this review, but personally I find it
really empowering I think that we can
take more responsibility for our own
lives whether that might be leaving a
job that we hate or end in a toxic
relationship and so on. Number 2: no is
only an answer if you accept it. This is
actually really similar to one of my key
takeaways from Marie Forleo’s book
Everything is figureoutable. Rachel is
a really big dreamer she sets herself
big goals and she has achieved so many
of them and I think this premise is the
reason why. In the book Rachel writes
“when it comes to your dreams no is not
an answer,
the word no is not a reason to stop. If
you can’t get through the front door, try
the side window, if the window is locked
maybe you slide down the chimney.” I love
this analogy! In the book Rachel recalls
how nobody would publish her first book
but she would not accept no for an
answer and she decided to self-publish
instead. I can relate this to my own life
too because when I first applied for my
current role I didn’t even get to the
interview stage because they didn’t
think I had enough
experience but when I saw that the job was
still available a little while later I
persevered and I eventually got an
interview where I was able to show them
my passion and my ability to do the job
and I ended up getting it. Number three:
don’t break promises to yourself. in the
book Rachel writes “I can’t count the
number of diets I’ve tried. I can’t tell
you the number of times I’ve made plans
to go to the gym and then blew them off.
Number of half marathons I signed up
for, paid the entry fee for and then
quietly pretended not to remember when
it was time to actually train? Two. Number
of times I’ve declared ‘from here on out
I’m going to walk a mile every morning
before work!’ and then never made it past
the third day? Infinity.” Sound familiar?
It definitely does to me! Rachel talks in
the book about how she’s turned this
around now and she doesn’t break
promises that she makes to herself. She
says it might not feel like it’s
important blowing off some of these
things but it is because our words have
power but our actions shape our lives,
and she does caveat this by saying that
you shouldn’t really commit to things
that you don’t feel that you can
accomplish because they’re incredibly
important to you because otherwise
you’ll set yourself up to continually
fail. I like quotes and this is my
favourite one from the book: “This is your
life. You are meant to be the hero of
your own story” and I like this because
it makes me picture myself as a
superhero! This book is a phenomenon, it
has almost as many reviews on Amazon as
Harry Potter! I think the main reason for
this book’s success is because it’s so
honest and vulnerable and I think the
magic of this book is that is so
painfully honest that she talks about
things that women often feel but don’t
often talk about so by sharing her
stories she helps other women to feel
less alone. The things that she’s honest
about in the book range from silly
things like peeing her pants on a
trampoline after having a baby and
having hairy toes and having to shave
them to things which are much more
serious like her finding her brother’s
body after he committed suicide and also
talking about the beginnings of her
relationship with her now
husband Dave which doesn’t paint either of
them in a good light. I’ve seen Rachel
described as a boot camp instructor, her
father was a preacher and there’s an
element of that in her style as well, she
can definitely be very tough love but
she’s also caring and compassionate and
I do genuinely believe that she wants
to help other women to make their lives
better. I really like her style of
writing, she could easily make me laugh
and smile but she also had me in tears
especially reading about her brother’s
suicide and her adoption struggles. The
format of the book worked well. However, it is not very actionable but I think that
Rachel recognised this because her next
book Girl, stop apologizing is much more
practical. I feel like i should say that
Rachel is a Christian and she does
mention her beliefs in the book so if
you are also a Christian then you might
appreciate this. However I really don’t
think it matters if you’re not because
it’s not the central topic of the book
and she really doesn’t force her beliefs
on anyone. I can’t finish this review
without mentioning some of the criticism
that Rachel receives because you can’t
Google ‘Girl wash your face review’
without finding so much of it. I think
some of it is because when someone is so
successful then people like to tear them
down. However I’m not saying that
everyone should like Rachel Hollis, I
don’t think she is for everyone and
that’s okay. I’m gonna address a couple
of the main criticisms now briefly.
People have said that she doesn’t
address the possibility that for some
people, obstacles to happiness are
outside of their control. I do think
she could have acknowledged in the book
that she was born with more privilege
than other people and that it is
inherently more difficult for some
people to achieve their dreams than for
others. However I don’t believe that it
is impossible and I still think that it
is an empowering message. The other
criticism that gets levelled against her
is that not all of her content is
original. I saw a quote from Rachel
herself which helps to explain this “I’m
not an expert. I’m not a guru. Anything
I’ve ever done, the work I’ve done, has
been like your girlfriend telling you
what worked for her.” Rachel has read so
many personal development books and
listened to so many podcasts and what she
does is she summarises everything that
worked for her into her books and her
teachings and personally I’m fine with
this because I feel like she’s already
done the work, found out what works for her
and then she sums it up in a really
motivating and engaging way. I enjoyed
this book and I’m grateful to it for
introducing me to Rachel Hollis because
I’ve got so much out of her content
ever since whether that’s from her next
book, her podcasts, following her on
Instagram and much much more.
I find her really motivating and inspiring.
She really pumps me up. As this book is
not very actionable, I think it’s best
read in conjunction with her next book
Girl, stop apologizing. I’m going to give
this book four stars. I would recommend
it for people who want more for their
lives and want someone to really fire
them up. This book is definitely aimed at
women, I’m not saying that men couldn’t
get anything out of it but it’s
definitely worth bearing in mind before
reading it. What do you think? Does this
book sound like something you might be
interested in reading for yourself? Check
out the links below for more information
on the book and for Rachel. If you prefer
listening to audio books rather than
reading, Rachel narrated the book herself
for audible and she also released a few
chapters free on her podcast Rise. If
you’re interested in the book but just
don’t have the time to read right now,
you can read the key insights from the
book in less than 15 minutes on blinkist,
I’ve included a link below to a free
trial. Next week I will be moving into
the health arena and reviewing Just eat
it by Laura Thomas. This book is about
intuitive eating and how to encourage a
more gentle approach to food and your
body, watch next week to see if it works.
Thank you so much for watching. If you
enjoyed this review then please click
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videos. I hope you have a lovely week and
I’ll catch you next time.

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