‘Girl, Wash Your Face’ fails its target audience
Anna Erickson
It’s a mouthful and it’s already telling you what to do. The official full title of this novel is “Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies about Who You Are So You Can Become Who You’re Meant To Be.” It’s a 2018 self-help, women’s empowerment book by Rachel Hollis, and it is supposed to to do exactly what it says on the cover: help women boost their self-confidence and worth.
I hate to admit it, but things get tricky before you even open this book. The cover of “Girl, Wash Your Face” is written in a handwritten, white font I might have used in a PowerPoint in sixth grade. It shows Hollis sitting next to a yellow fire hydrant, flashing a playful smile toward whoever decides to pick up a copy of her novel. She’s wearing Converse and ripped jeans. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she could be in one of my college classes.
Here’s the tea, though: Hollis is 36 years old, a wife and a mother of four children. She looks pretty damn good for being more than halfway to 40, I’ll give her that. She’s the founder of a lifestyle website TheChicSite.com. She’s gained hundreds of thousands of followers by sharing the messiness of her own life on this platform and eventually in her book. Her role as a wife and mother gives her experience to speak from and some pretty entertaining stories to tell and that’s great. There’s a big fat “but” coming, though.
Most everything seemed to be sugar-coated bullshit I’d heard my whole life in church.
The appearance of this novel made me think it was pretty on trend with my demographic, being a 22-year-old woman. I was expecting to read advice and perspectives from a woman who’s experienced 14 more years of life than me and had been through things I hadn’t, like raising children. But after making it about halfway through the 240 pages, I wasn’t completely sure if I had learned anything I didn’t already know. If I felt this way as a young adult, I can only imagine the frustration anyone over 25 reading this must have felt. Oof. Most everything seemed to be sugar-coated bullshit I’d heard my whole life in church.
Yes, in church. I was pretty much attending a sermon every time I opened the novel and that’s my biggest issue with “Girl, Wash Your Face.” Nowhere on the cover, the description or even the genre does this novel mention anything about Christianity or having Christian references and yet… every single element or issue Hollis faces turns into a lesson from God. As a Christian, I don’t immediately consider that a bad thing, but even the perspectives Hollis throws out are somewhat cliche in the realm of both Christianity and self-help, such as “Comparison is the death of joy, and the only person you need to be better than is the one you were yesterday.” Another direct quote reads, “God has perfect timing, and it’s highly possible that by not being where you thought you should be, you will end up exactly where you’re meant to go.”
Most of these ideas repeat themselves in various forms throughout each chapter (each of which begins with a lie Hollis once believed about herself). I’d go so far as to say some of the advice Hollis cites might even keep people in rut when they’re stuck in one, if they feel that it’s where God wants them to be and that it’ll all work out eventually. And for the atheist who unknowingly bought this book thinking it was simply a women’s empowerment novel — you’re straight out of luck, my friend.
She’s vulnerable in the fact that she isn’t afraid to show the ways she’s not perfect and delves into insecurities about her body and relationships…
If you can get past the preachy, repetitive feel, “Girl, Wash Your Face” does have some redeeming qualities. Hollis doesn’t hold back on sharing personal anecdotes from her life, whether it be from when she was a teenager or something that happened last year. She’s vulnerable in the fact that she isn’t afraid to show the ways she’s not perfect and delves into insecurities about her body and relationships, which is definitely the most relatable part of the novel. She talks about a daydream involving hypnotic iguanas, her struggle with her son comparing her to “other moms” and her temporary obsession with marrying Matt Damon.
These small moments add a bit of uniqueness to the overall dullness of the novel. While it was a somewhat entertaining read, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone over 20. For the Christian girl in middle school, I think it’d be a home run. “Girl, Wash Your Face” wasn’t so much written poorly as it was marketed poorly. I had completely different expectations of what I was getting and that’s where Hollis went wrong for me.
My expectations for “Girl, Stop Apologizing” — the sequel which came out March of this year — have been appropriately adjusted. It may not be on my personal reading list, but after finishing “Girl, Wash Your Face,” I can say it’ll end up in the hands of whoever it’s supposed to end up in. Or at least, that’s what Hollis is probably saying.
Impressed & Expressed 