This is a transcript of Episode 144 – Girl, Wash Your Face. These transcripts are a work in progress. If you have any questions or suggestions about the formatting, please let us know! If you have a request for what transcripts you’d like to see next, you can email us at worstbestsellers@gmail.com. Thanks!
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You can listen to this episode here.
[intro theme]
Kait:
Welcome to the Worst Bestsellers. Where we read about living your best life, unless you’re fat, so you don’t have to. I’m Kait–
Renata:
–and I’m Renata.
Kait:
And for this episode, we read, Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis. Joining us to discuss this “Christian mingle approved” self-help book is Margaret H. Willison, librarian/social media bon vivant. One of Pop Culture Happy Hour’s fourth chairs, one-third of Appointment Television, and one half of Two Bossy Dames. Hello, Margaret.
Margaret:
Hi guys.
Renata:
Welcome back.
Margaret:
I’m so glad to be here and so mad I read this book.
[laughter]
Renata:
Margaret is, of course, a returning Worst Bestsellers’ all-star who’s read Modelland and…mmm, Chris Harrison’s romance novel, whatever that was called. [Margaret: Yup.]
Margaret and Kait together:
The Perfect Letter?
Margaret:
Yeah.
Renata:
Yes.
Margaret:
Just two real classics. I feel really blessed, honestly, to be here with both of you on the day that the…clip of Tyra Banks interviewing Beyonce on her talk show is going at least viral on Gay Twitter. [Kait: Mm-hmm.] Where every question that she asked either rhymed with Beyonce’s name or one of Beyonce’s alter egos or she got down the line to Beyonce’s song titles. So it was like, “Josh-a-fierce, which of these two actors named Josh do you think is more attractive?” Uh…
Renata:
And then for, “If I were”– my favorite one, “If I was a boy,” she did, if I was Tolstoy.
Margaret:
[excited] I know…[gasp] It’s just [laughing] It’s just…, It’s just more evidence of what I asserted in my very first episode with you two of Modelland, that Modelland was so inept that it couldn’t possibly have been ghostwritten. [Kait: laughs] It had to come from Tyra’s specific…diseased brain, as I just…think this did too. And I’m just glad she’s-she’s still out there, accruing cultural significance.
Kait:
Still out there being Tyra.
Margaret:
Interestingly– Happy to have another book where, arguably, one of the most informative portions of the book was the acknowledgments. [laughter] Which is the first and only place this…memoir/advice book, full of lots of “real talk” about how to be a good mom, mentions that this good, working mom has a nanny. [Kait and Renata laugh] Which I don’t have any problem. I, in fact, wish every mother could have a nanny. But I do think it is -shockingly- disingenuous, to not include any of that in your chapters about parenting.
Renata:
Yeah…okay, so, obviously…
Margaret:
But shocking disingenuity is kind of Rachel Hollis’ whole thing [laughs]. [Kait: Yeah.]
Renata:
So, obviously, much to discuss. First of all–
Margaret:
So much.
Renata:
–this book, I mean, has been a legit bestseller for a long time, very popular. I mean, since it came out in 2018, it’s been, like, on the list for a long time. The sequel Girl, Stop Apologizing, also a bestseller. And I-I was familiar with the book for sure because I work in a library, and I just said it’s been very popular, but I didn’t really know who Rachel Hollis was, and so I thought…maybe it, like, just the book itself was what made her famous. I don’t know. And so I’m starting to read this and she’s talking about herself, she’s like, “I know you all must like that my life is so glamorous and so perfect, but I’m here to tell you, and like, you must be envious of all the success I’ve had, that I’m here to tell you…” I’m like, “I don’t know who you are.” Like, I don’t– and of course, I am not her target audience in any way, and so some of this, as I was reading I was just like, “I’m…this is so far away from being at all relevant to me” but…some of this sounds like maybe it would be helpful to somebody. A lot of it sounds like garbage. But there were things in here, where I was like, “I dunno. Maybe that seems helpful if you were, like, living this life. “
But so who she is, she runs– throughout the book, like, if you didn’t know who she was, I don’t think you would ever figure it out. ‘Cause she just sort of like…tosses out these pieces, like, “Well, I run my own business and I have a staff of 11, but when I started I was this” and she just makes the vaguest references to what she does. And she had a party planning company business, event planning, party planning, but now I think she just does this media lifestyle blog. Her blog is “thechicksite.com”, or–
Margaret:
“Chic”site.com. Yeah.
Renata:
Um. [huffs] Don’t make me speak French on my podcast. I refuse.
Margaret:
I’ve already made Kait speak French.
Renata:
Oh, that…
Margaret:
It only seems fair.
Renata:
It fits with the quality, you’re right. [Margaret laughs] And then the Hollis Company, I, like– supports these, like, videos and stuff that she’s made. Like, she’s a lifestyle blogger. She has, you know, millions of Instagram followers, and so throughout this book, she’s like, “Oh, and you’ll see all these like ‘Perfect Pinterest Moms’.” And I’m like, “You literally, like, go on your blog and it’s just pictures of your cute kids, and you know [Margaret: Yeah.] your, whatever you made for Sunday dinner. And like, you -are- “this”.
Kait:
Right. I-I think this is one of the reasons why she is so incredibly vague about what her life actually entails. Because if you unpack what her life actually entails…just the idea that she would be in a position to give realistic advice on how to live to anyone who isn’t incredibly wealthy is bonkers. She has this chapter that’s about her special relationship with the word “no”. And it like opens up with like “How did I get to be so big”? And she jokingly does this thing where she, you know, recites biographical details of people who have really entitled and privileged lives.
Renata:
Yeah, like, “My father was a wealthy lawyer” and then, like, “My sisters and I got a reality show and then I married Kanye West.” [Kait: Right.] Oh, haha. That’s not me. That’s Kim Kardashian.
Margaret:
Right. And then she’s like, “I didn’t have any of these advantages. I was just, like, a…like a country girl from the sticks, making good.” And it’s like, well, the advantage that you had is a husband eight years older than you who was a Disney executive who sounds, low-key, like kind of a piece of trash, but like, you two had enormous personal wealth and the income in your household and the well-being of your children wasn’t dependent on your salary. It was chiefly dependent on your husband’s salary. So you two could take a hit for a while, while you built this whole new business. Also, the advantages you have as like, you’re, like, a low-key approachable Christian mom, hot. [Renata: Mm-hmm.] You know exactly how to maximize your Christian-mom hotness and, like, you know…you know how to be…mostly of the people you want to speak to, but just 15% hotter, smarter, more successful, and more confident than them.
Kait:
Yeah, Margaret kinda touched on this, but her career trajectory is basically, you know, she did genuinely, like, come from the middle of nowhere. Brought herself to LA on her own dime.
Renata:
Yeah. Like at the age of 18. I don’t think she went or has been to college.
Kait:
No, she dropped out of college. She was in college and got an internship at Miramax and when they offered her a full-time job for like no money, she was like 18, so she dropped out of college to do that full time. While she was there, she met her husband the Disney executive, started her party-planning business, and then started the lifestyle blog on the side and when that got very popular switched to doing that full time. The Disney executive is what changed in that equation. It was not necessarily her, you know, party-planning skills. She even has a chapter where she talks about how, like, the party-planning business was never as successful as she wanted it to be. Like, it is – [Margaret: Yeah.] — not…she did pull herself up to a certain point on her own and that is commendable, but she did not pull herself all the way up. I think part of the issue too is that, like, I think it falls into that thing where people who are, like, moderately wealthy seem to not recognize that people who are not wealthy don’t see a difference between moderately wealthy and obscenely wealthy. Like, so she keeps saying, like, “Oh, I’m not Kim Kardashian.” And, you know, she’s not probably. But to, you know, someone, some lower-middle-class or working-class person in the middle of nowhere, like, there’s not that much of a discernible difference between the life that she’s living and the life that wealthier people than her are living. Like you are already making more money than you could use.
Margaret:
A 100%. Like, I do want to stress, that like, I think Kim Kardashian is an incredible businesswoman. I think Rachel Hollis probably is too. Like, there are lots of rich wives in the world who don’t build massively successful lifestyle blogs, you know, there are lots of people trying to build massively successful lifestyle blogs who don’t succeed at it. Like, she obviously is…-good- at what she is trying to do, which is not easy. But I, I don’t think that is erased by saying, “And it wouldn’t have been possible, you know, if like my husband, Dave, hadn’t been earning enough at this particular point in time for me to step back and take an earnings hit so that I could be entrepreneurial. And all that would be lost is this –fucking exhausting-, unearned sense of self-righteousness. And that’s, like, my biggest beef with Rachel Hollis. [Kait and Renata laugh] Girl, shut the fuck up and own, like, an iota of your privilege.
Renata:
Yeah, she talks a lot, there’s a lot…
Margaret:
Also, stop calling me ‘Mama.’
Renata:
There’s a lot of back-patting about her work ethic. And, like, I’m sure she, you know, she has four kids. That does…That alone, that’s a lot to do. Like, I’m sure she is busy and has worked hard. Buuu-t, that doesn’t negate everything that Kait and Margaret just said. [Margaret: Right]
Kait:
Even, even in the structure of the book itself, there are points where she’ll be like, you know, like, “Oh, like sometimes being– being successful means you can’t be there for every baseball game or you can’t be there for like every school field trip. And that’s okay. Like, you have to do you. And you have to be the mom that you can be.” But then at the same time, like, she’ll…turn around and act like– and not acknowledge that there are other people doing these things for her kids. Like, there’s one throwaway point where she’s like, “Sometimes the babysitter picks my kids up from school.” And, like, that’s it. You know, it’s one thing to say like, “Yeah, like, I can’t be there for everything for all of my kids because I run this business, so I have help and I could not do it without that help,” but instead she does not seem to acknowledge the help and seems to say, like, “Yeah, like sometimes I have to prioritize my business over doing stuff with my kids…but that stuff still gets done because I can afford to have someone who does those things with my kids.” [Renata: Mm-hmm]
Margaret:
At-at what point are we going to just jump into this wholeheartedly? Cause, I-I feel like we’re pretty much just goin’ for it– [Kait & Renata: Yeah.] And I don’t want to disrupt the structure, but I have so many thoughts.
Renata:
Yeah, I mean. Okay. So that’s who Rachel Hollis is, that’s kind of her deal. The book is structured with a truly bananas introduction, and then every chapter is “a lie”. A lie that, like, she has believed or that society has fed to her. And then it– so the first chapter “The lie- something else will make me happy.” And then she goes through and kind of-kind of breaks down, like, well, why that’s not true, or what’s she’s done to overcome that. So you know, “the lie- I’m not a good mom. The lie- I should be further along by now.” And then kind of accepting that. So I think we, in lieu of, we will usually do a plot summary when we read books that have plots, but this is not structured in that fashion.
So, I thought we might just go around and, and, lightly borrow the format of the podcast I Don’t Even Own a Television, I’m sure they will not mind, and if they do I will throw this book at them. Literally. So, you know, maybe we can start with– let’s start with our high points because we have just been sort of low-key trashing this, and like…and I feel this way about The Secret, about almost all these kind of garbage, like, self-help type things is, I think there’s good bits in it. I think you could certainly pull out some helpful advice. So maybe let’s just start and quickly try to say something that…we “liked” about this. A, a favorite lie that she denied…or something.
[0:13:41]
Kait:
Well, I’ll– I can say that I’m not a parent. I don’t, I don’t have kids. I have spent very recently like a minimal amount of time around, you know, m-my best friend’s kid. I just got back from a trip down there this week to, kind of, hang out with them, and I watched him while he was sick. But that is basically the extent of my…of my childcare knowledge. But her, her kind of, mantra during the parenting section was that there are two things, like not– to ignore all of the…all of the things you think you should be doing, all of the things that the book say that you’re– you should be doing. And at, like, the end of the day, there are two things that you need to do successfully to be a successful mom. And that’s to keep the kid alive and keep yourself alive. And if you’ve done those two things, then you’re a successful parent. Which I-I do think is good advice, you know, seeing various friends of mine struggle with what they should be doing as parents, and what society thinks they should be doing and all of these pressures on them from society to parent in a particular way, or else, you know, it’s bad for the baby or, you know, they’re going to screw up their kids irrevocably. To have it just boil down to, like: No, like ignore all that, push it aside, and just keep yourself alive and keep your child alive. And there you go. So that, I was, I was pleasantly surprised by how… direct that was.
Renata:
Yeah, I agree. I’m similarly not a parent to any human children [Kait snickers], but I work in a sort of parent-adjacent field. You know, I’m a- I’m a teen librarian, so like parents will come and be like, “Can you help me find, the perfect like after-school activity for my child so that they can get into college or like whatever”. And so I interact with kind of the full range of parents or of children who are just sort of left…left to their own devices at the library for like 12 hours a day in the summer. I’m-I’m in that whole kind of range… and I thought a lot of her parenting advice…seemed pretty legit.
Margaret:
Yeah, I…felt…a little bit, like, uncomfortably read by the section that was about, basically, like owning your ambitions. [Kait and Renata: Mm-hmm.] It’s called, I think, the lie is like…
Renata:
You need to be small?
Margaret:
Exactly. And she talks about being at a conference with other women who are doing lifestyle blog work like what she’s doing and keep referring to it as like a “hobby”. And it’s like uuughhhhhhhaaaa. As somebody who does, you know– like I run a couple of small creative businesses that do not earn nearly enough money to sustain me, but like, are sites of serious thoughtful ambition for me, are like places where I do really, really hard and complicated work. And the discomfort of owning that you work really, really hard at something that is not necessarily considered by society to be serious and isn’t successful enough in a capitalist system to be, like, your whole job, is huge. And I think it probably is valuable to talk about that more and to be m-more honest about how hard a lot of this work is. Like how hard it is to be podcasters. How hard it is to be freelance writers. And like, you start doing it because it’s fun and that is sincere. But, you know, once you’re this deep into a project, it is incredibly hard work all of the time. And that’s true even if you are not, you know, a…a man who gets profiled in New York Magazine for having a podcast like Michael Barbaro of The Daily.
Renata:
[laughs] By the way, she also has a podcast that I never heard of, Rachel Hollis, but a-apparently it’s much more successful than our podcast, but I just thought I should mention that. That I had not heard of it but it exists as part of her media empire. [Kait laughs] Also I misremembered all of her lies are formatted in first person. So Margaret’s, the lie that Margaret was talking about was, I need to make myself smaller. [Margaret hmms in agreement] And yeah, I thought those, were some of the stronger parts, I also…I have mixed feelings, but I-I think there was some good stuff in the lie- There’s only one right to be. [Margaret: Yup.] There’s also some bad stuff where she’s, like, literally, “Well, my best friend is Black” is a line in there.
[all laughing]
Kait:
Yeah, yeaaa-ah.
Renata:
But–
Margaret:
I don’t think she just stops at Black. I think she’s like Black and Mexican.
Renata:
And gay.
Margaret:
And gay. [laughs]
Renata:
Which is interesting because this book is extremely heteronormative–
All together:
So/super heteronormative.
Renata:
–but then in this last chapter, or it’s the second to last chapter, she’s like, “Oh, gay people exist also. Riiight.” So it’s, again, it’s mixed, but I think there’s some good advice especially– also each chapter, like, it has its lie, it has her kind of going through it and then it ends with, like, a bullet point list of things that helped me to deal with this and so one of her pieces of advice to help overcome the idea that there’s only one right to be is to, like, look around at your friend circle and if everyone’s like you, you need to do something about it. And like, you know, and she talks about how sh…– and, again this is such…everything in this is, like, ups and downs and sort of contradicts itself, but she talks about going to a Hip-Hop dance class and being bad about being bad at it, but she’s proud of herself for, like, trying and she’s met people at her Hip-Hop dance class that she wouldn’t otherwise have met. And…[pauses] You know, good for her. I don’t know. [laughs]
Margaret:
[laughs] Yeah, no. I completely agree. I think I feel sort of the same way about the sex chapter.
Kait:
Yeah!
Renata:
Yes!
Margaret:
Right. Like, I don’t think the sex advice is particularly good…I think there’s so much more that she needs to unpack before it’s useful…but like, I’m really glad that she put it in there. I think the pressure’s that she depicts to, like, not speak about those things at all, are very…real and were probably a significant thing to overcome, and that this might be some of the..like realest talk about sex that a lot of, um…women in evangelical circles could have easy and respectable access to. [Renata: Exactly.] And I think she knows that and I think she takes that responsibility really seriously. And while I wish the advice were…better? I’m just so glad it’s there. [laughs]
Renata:
Exactly. And this is kind of what I meant earlier when I said, like, I know I’m not the target audience for this, but it– [Margaret: Right] –but, you know, Rachel, she talks about, like, she was a virgin when she married her husband who is eight years older than her and they– the way that they met sounded…sketchy as fuck. But…
Margaret:
And she actually wasn’t a virgin.
Renata:
Oh, I thought…
Margaret:
She was a virgin when she started dating him. [Kait: Yeah.]
Renata:
Got it.
Margaret:
S-she lost her virginity…while they were still– [Renata: Oooooh.] –in their, like, very garbage-y, undefined state. [Kait: Yeah]
Kait:
Yes. She–it was a last-ditch effort to keep him from dumping her. [Renata: Yes.]
Margaret:
Yeah. She’s like exactly-exactly the way like you most potently shouldn’t lose your virginity is the way that she lost her virginity. God, that chapter was so stressful.
Renata:
It was…a bummer.
Kait:
It was very bad.
Renata:
And she wrote about it in this sort of, like, “twist” way where it seemed like, “Oh, I had this shitty boyfriend and we broke up and now I have my husband who I love. And, he’s like amazing.” Twist, it’s the same guy. And I was like, “I hate you.”
Margaret:
It’s the same guy. [Kait laughs] Yeah, and I mean I think, again to her mild credit, she, like, doesn’t want you to take away the fairy tale– like the toxic fairy tail from that of like, “Oh, if you’re just tough with them one time, they’ll like immediately transform into your future husband.” But at the same time, if you’re telling -this- story, or like, you’ve made a choice about how to tell this story, and if you’re just going to skip over…like, he showed up at my doorstep and now we’re married. And you’re not going to talk about -anything- you and he did between those two points to make your relationship into a…mutually respectful one where your needs were seen and valued and where your feelings weren’t gaslit out of you. Like, you’re not actually telling a useful story. [Kait: Yeah.] You-you want the glamour of the fairy tale, while you’re pretending to be incredibly real. And that is, again, Rachel Hollis, in a nutshell. [Kait: Yeah.]
Renata:
She does like– she throws a little token to it where she says something like, “I almost considered not writing about this because I don’t want, you know, to help convince other women to stay in abusive relationships. And I want to make it clear that…if you– you know, that this is an unusual story”. But, yeah, she doesn’t dig too much into it. She just sort of was like, “No, I know, –but– he’s my husband and I love him.”
Margaret:
Well, everything in her life is an unusual story. And I think the portions of the book where she…acknowledges and engages with that are by far and away the most interesting and valuable. And the book’s biggest handicap is that she can’t decide if she wants to stop being a figure of glamour or be a relatable figure. And..she’s definitely a figure of glamour. [pauses] She needs to own that. [Renata: Mm-hmm] And she needs to stop acting like the women who follow her are her peers because they aren’t. [Renata: Mm-hmm] They are not her sisters. They are not her girls. They are her –fans-. And that means her life is measurably and meaningfully different from theirs. And even if you can reassure people and be like “It’s okay. Because sometimes I wet my pants jumping on the trampoline with my kids in the backyard.” Like, it is helpful, to sort of do a little bit to puncture the image of effortless perfection. But like…what, um– there’s a Laura Kay O’Turner review of this book that I’m sure we’re gonna end up referencing a lot that published in Buzzfeed, that was the first time I’d ever heard of Rachel Hollis. And in that she talks about curated perfection as being a big aesthetic on Instagram. And being kind of…the cornerstone of Rachel Hollis’ whole identity, and it’s just…a very perfect and correct way of describing it. This whole book is like when an incredibly hot girl posts a picture of herself making like a goofy face on her Instagram. And it’s like, “See? Like, I don’t care about what my looks are.” It’s like, bitch, you fucking DO. You know you can only post this picture of you pulling a face because you’re really hot to begin with.
Renata:
This, this book is like, this is an extremely niche statement, brace yourselves… [Margaret laughs] This book is extremely, like, Jeremy Jordan’s response to being told that he’s “too hot” to play Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors. [all break out in laughter]
Margaret:
Niche both in audience and in time of recording, but so apt.
Kait:
This is only tangential to when we were talking about, her story of how she met her husband and the, kind of like, myth of the fairy tale of like, “Oh but, like, it turns out that he was great…eventually.” So when I was reading this, there’s a point where she talks about, having written a novel and having pitched this novel and, I’m sure we’ll talk more about it, but and it was based on her time in LA. And the character– there was no sex in the book, the character was a virgin, and all of the major publishing houses that were interested told her that they needed sex in it to sell it. So she decided to self publish it instead. And when I got to that part, I Googled her to see if that book came up, to see if she did self publish it, and one of the first things that came up was a link to her husband’s self-help book that is coming out this March. [Renata: Mmmmmmm…]
Margaret:
Wow, I am so interested about that. I-I need to know everything about that in a second.
Kait:
The summary of it threw up so many more weird red flags for me about this man who is eight years older than her who was in this terrible relationship with her and eventually married her.
Renata:
And by the way, I just want to interject, that I don’t necessarily…just, I, just to be clear, I don’t think an eight-year gap in a relationship between two adults is necessarily a huge red flag, but when you met and one of you is 18 and the other one is eight years older than that then that’s….eughhhh.
Margaret:
Yes. yes.
Kait:
100% agreement, yes. Like…when you’re both adults it doesn’t matter but when one of you is like literally -just- became an adult and is an assistant [Renata: Yeah.] at a company and someone else is the, an executive… [Margaret laughs incredulously]
Margaret:
An assistant in a company now famous for its culture of sexual abuse and exploitation. [Kait and Renata: Yeee—aah.] Cause she was an assistant at Miramax, folks, during Harvey Weinstein’s reign, which is something we can also touch on at some point. Because when I heard that, I was like I need a 1000% more information– [Renata: Yeah.] –about what you’ve said about that whole situation.
Renata:
Which there’s none in this book. Margaret did some, research and, you, well– yeah, well, let’s dip back into–
Margaret:
We’ll touch on it.
Renata:
After seven derails.
Margaret:
But, PLEASE, Kait, tell me about her husband’s advice book.
Kait:
Dave Hollis used to think that personal growth was just for broken people, then he woke up. [Margaret huffs] When Dave Hollis’ wife, Rachel, began writing her No. 1 New York Times bestselling book, Girl, Wash Your Face, he bristled at her transparency and her willingness to talk about such intimate details of their life. But when a looming career funk, a growing drinking problem, and a challenging trek through therapy battered the Disney executive and father of four, Dave began to realize he was letting untruths about himself dictate his life. As he sank to the bottom of his valley, he had to make a choice: Would he push himself out of his comfort zone to become the best man he was capable of being? Or would he play it save and settle for mediocrity? [Renata: [groans] ‘Kay.]
Margaret:
[loud sigh] So…one of the things that weighs really heavily on me while I’m reading this book, is the dichotomy…in how…self-help and advice towards women is structured versus how self-help and advice towards men is structured. [Renata: Mmhmm.] And this is….this, you know, I’m not as qualified to speak to that as I’d like to be because I actually don’t know…I, I only know like two self-help books directed at men. And they would probably be furious to be categorized that way. But, it’s like, The Game, by Neil Strauss and The Four Hour Work Week and its accompanying [pauses] series. Um…
Renata:
I think a lot of men are into, the Art of War as a self-help book… [Margaret: [snorts laughing] Sure!] And that, that’s not a joke, that is just based on how many men ask me for that that doesn’t seem to be for a class.
Margaret:
Right. No, I think that that’s true and like, Malcolm Gladwell has a whole career because he writes self-help books, but he pretends they’re science books. [Renata: Mm-hmm.] And-and that’s why pop science is popular. PS, everyone listening at home, in case you didn’t know that pop-science is just self-help but…dressed up because of misogyny.
Renata:
Mmmm. He loves to hear that.
Margaret:
All because of the same things Dave Hollis is saying is self-improvement is for pussies, basically. [Kait and Renata laugh] So, but in those books, the framing is very much like “The game is rigged against you, but I’m gonna show you how to stop being a mark and how to start being a player.” Like, “I’ve figured this out and I’m going to show you how to figure it out so that you can, like, dominate everybody.” Like, that’s very much, it seems to me, the approach you take with men, right– is you acknowledge very heavily that like things aren’t fair and you’ve just got to be smart enough to figure out how to work the system. And with women, it’s like, “Well, honey, like, your life is bad because you’re garbage. Like, I don’t know if you’ve realized, hey girl, hey, you’re hot trash and, and you just break promises to yourself constantly, Pam. Weren’t you on Atkins diet a week ago? And you just gave it up? How do you expect anyone to respect you when you don’t respect yourself?” And like, it’s not untrue, people won’t respect you if you don’t respect yourself and you do have a role to play in how these things happen in your life and the way that dynamics manifest. You’re the– you’re the only thing you have control over and I think there is value in focusing in/on how much more power you have in that role than women are usually taught. But I, I hate the…contempt that it’s so frequently conveyed with. You know, Rachel talks about tough love. It’s not tough love, like this is– this is abusive, Rachel. The way you talk to the people who love you is abusive.
Kait:
It’s interesting, so literally right before I started listening to this for the podcast, my hold on the audiobook of Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered, the My Favorite Murder, like, dual memoir/ sort-of-advice book– [Margaret: Mm-hmm.] -came in, so I listened to that literally like, finished that, queued this up and started listening to it. And what is fascinating– and I kept talking to people about, like, the dichotomy between these two books. And how, you know, these two women who basically consider themselves fuck-ups and kind of got to where they are and they’re, they’re very blunt, just like, “This was luck. Like, we did work hard, but lots of people work hard and this just happened to happen to us.” Like… [Margaret: Right.]
And also, the other thing they talk about is how at the very beginning of the podcast…while they would listen to, if you’re unfamiliar with the format they take turns telling each other about different true crime stories, and at the very beginning of it they would throw out like what they thought were like “tips” to listeners and to themselves about like, “Oh, like, well, you know, keep aware of your surroundings” and stuff like that. And listeners would write in and say like, “That sounds like victim-blaming. Like what you’re doing when you say like, you know, ‘stay out of the forest and-and you should, you should know better than to do this and never do this.’ Like, it sounds like you’re blaming the victims.” And they, like, at first were angry that people were…talking like, picking, picking on them essentially, but then they talked about it and they thought about it and they realized that, yeah, like, there’s a difference between like giving advice and…picking at things that actually happened to actual people. And, and putting– the onus shouldn’t be on, on, on the victims in this particular sense, but also they applied that to the larger structure of the book that like…the onus shouldn’t be on you to make everything in your life great. Like sometimes things just happen and you kind of have to roll with it.
Margaret:
Yes! G-Genuinely like all I wanted Rachel Hollis to acknowledge -ever-, ugh. Just so infuriating. So infuriating.
Renata:
Well, why don’t we, formally move into, saying our least favorite. Actually, I have one other half point in favor of Rachel Hollis which I appreciated which I don’t think always comes up in these kinds of self-help books which is she does talk openly about having gone to therapy, about being very helped by therapy. Many times her advice is explicitly “Go to therapy.” [Margaret: Yeah.] It’s okay to go to therapy. And I really did like her acknowledging that and I think– again, especially for the kind of audience that she has normally, I think that is very good advice for them to hear and maybe something that…again, I wasn’t raised Christian so this is just sort of what I understand from like Twitter and talking to people, that often in churches maybe it’s sort of a stigma against going to therapy because you should be able to go and just kind of get it from church or whatever. You know, talk to your pastor.
Margaret:
Right. Jesus should just heal you.
Renata:
Yeah, and so I did like that she did explicitly, many times, give shout-outs to therapy. Shout-out to therapy.
Margaret:
A 100% me too.
Renata:
But that said, what didn’t we like about this book? [laughs]
[34:38]
Margaret:
God, um…
Kait:
This is hard. ‘Cause it’s everything.
Margaret:
Yeah. Well, let’s just start with the fatphobia–[Kait: Oooh, yeah.] –which I think is one of the most unambiguously terrible problems with the book.
Renata:
I know.
Margaret:
Like, it seems like there’s nothing Rachel Hollis can imagine as a worse fate in life than being 50 pounds overweight. And-
Renata:
Yeah, so we were joking about this before we started. Like, what, what would be worse than being 50 pounds overweight? Being 100 pounds overweight? But I truly don’t think she can imagine that. Like several times she sort of offhandedly cites, “Or you’ll be 50 pounds overweight” and I truly think that is the maximum that she can imagine a person being.
Margaret:
Right? And it seems like it’s because she has an incredibly disordered relationship with eating. [Kait: Yesss.] Like you like hugely, hugely like, all we hear about her eating in terms of specifics are…truly like intense binge eating [Renata: Yeah.] when she is feeling miserable. Like a whole package of Oreos. And not even like a whole package of Oreos absentmindedly consumed over the course of an evening as you watch Real Housewives on Bravo. Whomst among us hasn’t? [laughter] But like, but like a fight with her mean pastor father in the wake of her brother’s suicide while her parents were going through a divorce and just like eating an entire pack of Oreos. To hate-eating.
Kait:
Nursing them. Crying as she eats them.
Margaret:
Yes, crying and hate-eating them.
Renata:
Well and when she talks about that, she sort of talks about like, “I did have an eating disorder and now am fine.” And she doesn’t seem like she’s fine now.
Margaret:
No, she doesn’t seem like she’s fine now at all and I think it shows. And that she can’t imagine anyone being 50 pounds overweight without having a similarly disordered relationship with food. And it’s like, “No, sorry Rachel. Like some of us just have hormones that manifest differently on our bodies than you do.” [Renata: Yeah.]
Kait:
Yeah. She seems to have this very cut and dry, like, you know, fad diets don’t work because there’s just one very simple thing about eating and it’s if you eat fewer calories than you burn during the day you lose weight and that’s –science-. And anyone who is fat is because they don’t follow that science and they’re bad people and, you know, they’re undisciplined. And that’s the end of it. And it’s like, no, that’s not, that’s not how that works.
Margaret:
That’s not remotely how that works.
Renata:
And I feel like, you know, shockingly we’re not scientists or nutritionists and I don’t want to necessarily devote a ton of time to like truly unpacking this because it’s not just her. This is a really, pervasive idea and I think if– and I think a lot of our listeners are probably, you know, like how Rachel Hollis’ audience is like her, I think a lot of our audience is like us and that means to me that probably you already are sort of aware of fat acceptance. But if you are not– well, we’ll talk about that a little bit in the reader’s advisory I think. But, you know, if you look into like the health that every size, …movement…nah. I don’t know. Yeah, if you like look into health at every size, if you look into fat acceptance there’s a lot going on and um..Rachel Hollis doesn’t know about it. [Kait: Yeah.]
Margaret:
Yeah. And Rachel Hollis thinks it’s bullshit. She probably just thinks that it’s somebody who’s not brave enough to give you the tough love that you need to actually improve as a person. And it pops up in like the weirdest places like when she’s describing something ungainly, she’s like, “Ya know, we went over like an overweight cat falling off a sofa.” And it’s like come…even cats?! [Kait and Renata laugh] You can’t even leave cats out of this, Rachel? Sheesh.
Renata:
Also, yeah, by the way, I got a– I’ve got a real skinny cat and sometimes he too will fall off a couch. [laughing]
Kait:
I will admit to you guys, I do body shame cats. I think fat cats are very funny which probably I shouldn’t, but I do. I do body shame cats quite frequently. [laughing]
Margaret:
I’m just really glad that you in this season took the time to lift that off your heart.
[laughing]
Renata:
Thank you for unburdening yourself.
Kait:
Especially when they’re real fat and it looks like they got like, a little basketball hanging down when they walk and it just goes side to side…it’s very cute. [Kait wheezes with laughter]
Margaret:
Like, yeah, I think if we could acknowledge that all bodies have humor. All bodies have attraction. All bodies can be embarrassing. You know, then we could get to a place where we could even look at fat humans and just be like, “Aren’t they adorable?” But like, while we’re still in this place where to be fat is like Dickens or Roald Dahl, a mark that you are… a –bad– person. You’re bad. You’re lazy. You’re foolish. You’re dumb. You’ve no self-discipline. Etc. You’ve no work ethic. Etc, etc. Like until we can get… to…a more value-neutral understanding of fat with humans that’s probably not possible. But since we are a lot more value-neutral, most of us, with cats’ bodies, like, this, this heavyweight that’s been on your heart, Kait, I think, I think it’s okay.
[39:57]
Kait:
Eww no. I can’t ever acknowledge fat people as being attractive. That’s wrong. [Renata laughs]
Margaret:
That, that’s impossible. Which–
Renata:
I’m just worried about their health. [all laugh] That’s all.
Margaret:
–which I think then also touches upon, sort of like, the complication in even naming the parts of this book that work, which is the parts that work are so immediately undermined by everything else that you can’t even hold onto them. So, there’s good stuff, for example, in the sex chapter about how Rachel’s issues with her body’s– her body, got in the way of her enjoying sex. And how a huge foundational part of enjoying sex is just coming to accept your body, right? And like, be present in it as a thing that feels and experiences things rather than constantly imagining it as an object as all women are trained to do all of the time. Like, that’s great advice, but, like, Rachel, how is a woman who is a size 14, size 16, the average size of most women in America, like how is she supposed to get to that place when every other page in your book is displaying so much contempt for her figure and doing nothing to unpack the unique privilege you have as a very wealthy woman in Los Angeles, California, right? Like, it is not easy, like having a great body is a full-time job and most people already have full-time jobs on top of the full-time job they have being parents. And so, for there to just be so much, again, contempt for people who are struggling with this, it’s like how…how are they supposed to take away anything sincere from your encouragement that they love your– their body.
Renata:
Also is with the theme of her being all over the place and back and forth and everything, she also multiple times has, you know, the idea of like, “Oh, I’m a skinny person so it’s cute if I joke about eating a whole burger,” except for her it’s cheese. She is obsessed with cheese and will make all these offhand jokes about like, “And then I ate a whole thing of cheese, luckily I’m not fat.” Like, throughout– and she talks about like, “Oh, I’m not good at anything except for, baking cheese-based casseroles.” Just constantly making these jokes about eating a bunch of cheese, which, you know what? Cheese is great. Unless you’re lactose intolerant, sorry Kait. [Kait sighs sadly] But do you know, like, she’s all over the place with everything. Like, she also has internalized that like, “Oh, it’s cute when skinny people do this.” Like– [Margaret: Right] –and I also…I feel irritated a lot of this book, angry a lot of this book…but also bad for Rachel because…like, the ultimate villain of this book is the patriarchy.
Margaret:
A 100%.
Kait:
Yes, yes.
Renata:
She’s trying to make sense of all these– you know, Rachel Hollis didn’t start the fire. [Kait and Margaret laugh] Like, she’s trying to make sense of all these conflicting messages that she has received from our society and she’s sort of has overcome some of them, or is working on it, but others they’re still there and like it sucks that she is regurgitating this and putting this out for like other women to read, but also, like, it clearly has taken a big toll on her too.
Margaret:
Yeah, and it’s also clearly…er, seems like it is sincerely helpful for a lot of women, which I think just speaks to…the level of artifice most of them are accustom to. [Renata: Mm-hmm.] Like to have something like this that is so transparently hypocritical in terms of what it’s saying about how real she’s being and what a beautiful end image she’s actually leaving everyone with. Like, for that to…seem to people, like, real talk and true honesty and true, ah…intimacy, is -so- discouraging. [Kait: Yes.]
Renata:
By the way, Rachel Hollis is on– did appear on Oprah’s 20/20 Vision Tour. Just want to put that out there.
Margaret:
Yeah, yeah. And it’s, it’s also interesting cause like, obviously, I’m not like anywhere near as famous as Rachel Hollis, but, you know, I have plenty of people who consume me the way they would consume an influencer, right? Um–
Renata:
Yeah, you’re an influencer. [Margaret scoffs]
Kait:
You’re an influencer in our particular circles.
Margaret:
It’s a very, very small thing, but I feel like I understand some of the dynamics that Rachel is talking about here, and I just have so little respect for her lack of insight about them, right? Like I love what you were saying that Karen Kilgariff says about how much of it is just down to luck. Like so much of it is just down to luck. So much of it is just down to timing. And, like, if you look at having succeeded in this field where so many people are trying to get a toehold, right? And your take away is “God has perfect timing”… [Kait and Renata hmm in agreement] it’s like, “Go –fuck– yourself.” Right–
Renata:
There is a huge overlap between Rachel Hollis’ underlying philosophy and The Secret which we have, of course, talked about at length, and you know Rachel Hollis straight-up has vision boards, but a lot of her, um– and she also talks a lot about having like mantras and manifesting and just keeping her eyes on her goal in this way that is identical to The Secret. And I think this– I’ve said about the Secret, I think if you are willing to take that with a grain of salt and then, and not commit to it a 100%, I think yeah, of course, like, if you’re able to have a positive attitude, if you’re able to like, identify your goals, I think that can be helpful. But then when you take it all the way and you’re like, “This is the only thing” and if you aren’t meeting your goals it’s because you’re not believing hard enough. At least, also, I guess the thing about The Secret too, is that like, also, you don’t have to work. You really just have to, like, believe in it. [laughter] And she also is saying, like, you have to do the work, and I work so hard, but there is also still this self-congratulatory like, “Well, it worked for me so if it’s not working for you it’s ’cause you’re not doing it right.”
Margaret:
Yes. And just like– there’s a point, I think it might be in the introduction, that I’m going to paraphrase where, you know, she’s talking about how all these people message her and they’re like, “Your life is so glamorous. You’re so cool.” And she’s like what I think they’re really responding to is that I’m just happy. [Kait: No, they’re not.] And it’s like, “No. You asshole. They are responding to the fact that you are extremely rich, you’re very good looking in a way that is really, really luckily appropriate for the field you’ve put yourself in. And like, you happened to come to these platforms at a time when they weren’t as completely developed and so you got to be there and be a master of it, like right when people were starting to understand this was a space they could tune into. Like, like, they’re not just responding to the fact that you’re happy. And it’s like I certainly am someone who gets, attracts that kind of attention sometimes where it’s just like , you know, if you only see my life online, it looks pretty great and big parts of that are totally honest.
Like I, I am really lucky I have an incredibly big network of friends who are, I think, better than most people’s friends. Just gonna go ahead, put that out there and say it. My friends are better than most peoples’ friends ’cause they’re perfect. Obviously, I’m a little biased, but…but, I’m more right than most people who are biased about how their friends are the best. [laughter] Right? And I live in this cool city and I have the income to do all this cool stuff and I’m lucky to have sort of like symmetrical features and look appealing but not like a girl who would steal your boyfriend. And I happen to gravitate towards fields where the skills that I have and the personality that I have are just really, really well suited to what I want to do, you know? She’s like, “Oh, I just happened to be a lifestyle blogger because, like, I really want to research the best way to unload and reload a dishwasher, but I would be working just as hard and just as happy, like, if I were really into macrame or photography.” And it’s like, “No, you wouldn’t.” ‘Cause there isn’t an industry where you could make money as a passionate macrame crafter.
Kait:
Yeah, I think it’s very telling that throughout despite like, being, like, “Here’s the secrets to my success.” She never actually tells the story of how she got to where she is.
Margaret:
Right!
Kait:
She never talks about what her work actually entails and what work she’s actually done. Like, the vague sketch that I gave at the very beginning of like what her career trajectory was, was gleaned from clues dropped in the book and things from other sources. Like she can’t come out and say, like, “Here’s the exact hard work I did to get where I am.” ‘Cause, while I’m not saying she didn’t work hard, it-it’s not — I don’t think it’s as pull yourself up by your bootstraps as she wants people to think it was. [Renata: Correct.]
Margaret:
And it’s also not replicable is the other thing, right? [Renata: Mm-hmm.]
Kait:
Yes.
Margaret:
Right? That’s the thing that she is not owning is this is not success that everyone can access. And it’s not success that, you know, even if there was another beautiful, pathologically hardworking…rich wife, who like, has just the right balance of a sass and cultural appropriation to like really take off as a white person using…African American Vernacular English all of the time.
Kait:
Oh my God.
Renata:
Speaking of, by the way–
Margaret:
Even if she came along right now she couldn’t be Rachel Hollis because Rachel Hollis already exists and that field is maxed out, right? [Renata: Mm-hmm.] It would have to be somebody who iterates on this model…ugh…it just would be so interesting to hear how she actually built her business. And she’s not following the advice that she gives in like, “I, I don’t have to make myself small.” It’s like you’re making yourself small in this book all of the time and you’re doing it so you can bully other women without acknowledging that there’s a power differential in the relationship that you’re navigating right now. Right? You’re doing it so that you can pretend your readers are your peers so that you can be nasty to them. And that is just…garbage. [Kait: Yeah]
Renata:
By the way, I also would like to talk about, there’s nothing in this book about washing your face. [all laugh]
Margaret:
Uh…huh
Kait:
Yeah.
Renata:
There’s a small quote – well, I thought it would be along the lines of, like– there was a Johnathan Van Ness from Queer Eye, um I don’t think it was on Queer Eye I think it was some other interview but it went sort of briefly viral in my spheres. How it was like, “Hey, I know, self-care is hard and, like, you don’t have to have a whole skin-care routine like at the end of the day, like, you just need to brush your teeth and wash your face and that’s like the most important things. And if you– you know, if you don’t have the energy to take a shower, like, just do that. And if you can’t, you know, put on a new outfit, you know, at least this will kind of keep your body going.” And so I thought maybe it would be something along those lines of like, before I read it, you know, like, and I sort of knew basically what this was about and I thought maybe it would be something along those lines. Like, “Oh, you, you’re a busy mom. You don’t have time to do this, but, like, make time to wash your face and take care of yourself.” There’s truly, not until the very like last sentence of the book, cause like “and wash your face.” Like I thought it would be a bigger part of it and it’s truly not. And that’s all.
Kait:
[laughs] Yeah, I had actually never heard of it until Renata pulled it I think from our suggestion forms or somewhere and said like, “Oh, we should put this on our Long List” and sort of implied through her understanding as she just said that that’s what it was. That it was kind of a-a skincare-adjacent sort of thing. [everyone laughs] So I–
Renata:
That’s really…
Kait:
100% also thought that that’s what it was until I went to take the audiobook out and read the summary. And I was like, oh, I think this is different than what we thought it was. [Renata laughing] But also can we take a moment to talk about her use of African American Vernacular English and also the word “tribe.”
Renata:
Also the word “tribe.” Yup. That’s in my notes.
Margaret:
Oh, constantly “tribe.”
Renata:
And I’ll just mention also because again, this is not only Rachel Hollis, a lot of white people casually use the word “tribe” and don’t think of it as being problematic. I mean it really wasn’t until a few years ago that I, you know, read an article or followed someone on Twitter who is like, “Hey, this is problematic.” Like, and if you think about it for two seconds, you’re like, “Oh. Fucking duh.” Yeah, like that has a specific meaning in specific cultures and like it doesn’t just mean your group of friends or like people who are like you.
Margaret:
And like you know it doesn’t just mean your group of friends, Rachel Hollis, because if it just meant your group of friends you would just be like “my group of friends,” right? Like you are trying to communicate something bigger when you say “tribe” particularly in the way that –she– does. And really…grates my cheese. I dunno. I don’t care for it.
Renata:
Yeah, it’s not cool.
Margaret:
But, Kait, you introduced this and might have more you wanted to say about the subject.
Kait:
Most, mostly just that it’s bad. That it’s just constant and bad and it, in addition to it just being, like, “Hey, like I’m like a rich white Christian woman and this is how I’m talking to seem cool and down to earth.” Like it, it also just…adds this level of like…fake– and I’m frequently a fan of people writing books in conversational styles, especially when they then read the audiobook and it’s like, “Oh, like I’m having a conversation with this person.” Probably because we listen to so many podcasts. [Renata: Mm-hmm.]
Margaret:
Sure, same.
Kait:
But it just like, kind of… reeks of this, like, false friendly, awkward– [Margaret: Yeah.] –conversational-esque attitude that she wants the book to take. And perhaps because I’m bristling so much at her concept and at her, the way that she is presenting this information and the things that she wants me to take home, like, it doesn’t sit right with me. But also it, it just feels…
Renata:
It doesn’t feel authentic , which is ironic because her whole thing is about being authentic.
Margaret:
Yeah, it feels, 1) appropriative, it sounds dumb; um and 2) like it’s just…it…the whole tone of the book is -so- condescending. And it’s really, really put me off. And there’s some very, like, sincere stuff in the latter half of the book about dealing with the trauma of wi– you know, discovering her brother’s body after he died by suicide. There’s very real stuff in here about her experiences trying to be a foster parent, but even in those things there’s just…this total unwillingness to, um, to look into whether h-her life has been…special and sort of easier in some ways than other peoples’. She-she has a point where she gets a facial paralysis issues because of —
Renata:
Yeah, she has Bell’s palsy, which I have other friends who have developed this from stress, and like– [Margaret: Right.] For real, take care of yourself, guys. It’s bad. Don’t get it.
Margaret:
Right. And like it sounds bad. It sounds stressful. And there’s a point where she talks about, like, not realizing until she experienced it…how much vanity she had. [Renata: Mm-hmm.] Um and, like, I don’t have Bell’s palsy, but I had a sort of similar thing happen where I have this, condition where, like, my eyelids swell. And so, like, I had like a puffed eye for like a fucking month in 2017. And I really didn’t think how m– I didn’t think I valued my physical appearance until it wasn’t…good. Right? Until it wasn’t what I wanted to be and then I was like, “Oh, fuck.” I wish it didn’t matter this much in the world and to me, but like, being even this iota of alienated from the privilege of just being, like, functionally fine looking, like, fine-to-good looking without really putting much effort into it…it made me realize, just like, again, it made me realize how privileged I am. It made me realize how lucky I am to have a face that functions in the world the way that mine does. Like, people are really inclined to be nice to me. Like, I’m a big drive-by complimentor. I go up to a lot of strangers and I compliment them their clothing constantly. And I– on one hand,, it’s like an ethic thing for me, but on the other, like, I can do that because I’m confident they’re going to look at me and be like, “Oh, it was great to be complimented by this person.” [Renata: Mm-hmm.] Right? Like, if I wasn’t like a moderately, conventionally attractive, femme-presenting woman, you know, I-I don’t know that I would have that confidence, right?
[58:05]
Renata:
Yeah. I think there’s some, like, very, interesting and relatable kernels in here where I think– who among us has not felt, like, on one hand, you want to be like, “Yes, everyone is beautiful and everybody is beautiful and whatever.” But then when I put on this outfit and I look at myself and I don’t like it even though, like, I wouldn’t…you know I would tell my friend, “No, you look great.” But when it’s me, maybe not. Maybe we all…we all have this, basically, and there’s not, I don’t think, an easy way– [Margaret: Right] –to get into it. And maybe that’s why she doesn’t get into it, ’cause it’s really hard to solve because it’s such a…big societal issue. It’s so many messages that we’re all receiving. Even if you are, you know, doing fat acceptance or like disability acceptance, like maybe you still– when it’s you, like, it’s a whole different thing. And… [Margaret: Right] And I don’t have anything, ummm, insightful to say about it, just that like, yes, there’s a little bit in here where she can’t really engage with that because it’s too much. And that’s kinda how I feel too, is, it’s like, it’s too much.
Margaret:
Well, when you–
Kait:
Should we…
Margaret:
Oh, oh yeah. I was gonna say, when you incorporate that much nuance into advice, you dampen some of the impact, right? [Renata: Mm-hmm. Yes.] It’s less rhetorically effective, but it’s so much more honest. She’s just constantly choosing rhetorical and superficial efficacy over…valuable insight. And it’s -really- frustrating and I’m very sad that the state of the world is such, that -this- is something that speaks to so many people. And I-I’m sad that she’s frozen in this place when it seems like she does have the curiosity and insight to do better.
Kait:
On that note, should we perhaps move on to dramatic readings to– [Margaret: Yes!] Perhaps expose some other folks to what we’re talking about?
Renata:
Yeah, let’s just give you a full, undiluted dose of Rachel Hollis in the face.
Margaret:
Yeah. Should I go first because mine is the intro?
Renata:
Absolutely.
Kait:
Yes.
Margaret:
All right. Strap in, guys. because this is gonna be fun. This is Rachel talking about what she wishes she could say to the women who show up in her Instagram dms, being like, “How, ya know, how can I survive and thrive when I’m dealing with all of this stuff?” And she says, “You know, like, you’re so great, like, you-you’re gonna do it,” and then she says this is what she wishes she could say. [Margaret does dramatic reading] So…-that’s– Rachel.
Renata:
Ugh. Could there be a worse fate?
Margaret:
[laughs] Truly I can’t possibly imagine it. Um-
Renata:
By the way – just ’cause this is an audio medium and maybe you don’t know what I look like – I haven’t weighed myself in a while. I’m probably 50-pounds overweight, depending on whatever guideline you’re going by. And, uh–
Margaret:
Same.
Renata:
–and, doing great, to be honest. [laughs] [Margaret: Yeah.] Okay. So now I’m gonna dip into the sex advice chapter. Which I think we’ve all said we….thought was okay. Again, again, for the audience she’s going for versus our audience, we know it’s different. But, ummm, the way this is formatted, Margaret read from the introduction, and then each chapter is a lie and then kind of a few pages of narrative and then a bullet point list at the end. And so I’m going to read you some of the bullet point list at the end of “Things That Helped me Overcome the Lie that I’m Bad at Sex.” [Renata does dramatic reading] Now, straight up, I’m sure I’m not reading this right. I’m sure someone who studied theology that this actually means something different. Side note from me: I read some reviews and some people are mad about this because this is not at all what it means. [Margaret laughs] Personally, unoffended, what I read. Back to Rachel [dramatic reading continued]
Renata:
So, you know.
Margaret:
[sighs heavily] Such a mix of– mixed helpful and bad.
Renata:
Yeah. And-and shockingly…ughh….I don’t even know what. Just, Kait, you read your thing. I can’t process this right now. [Margaret laughs loudly]
Kait:
Okay. so this is from chapter 17, “The Lie: I am defined by my weight.” Strap yourselves in, guys. [Kait does dramatic reading]
Margaret:
[heavy sigh] I really do want to know the science on drinking half your body weight in ounces of water everyday. [Kait: Yeah.]
Renata:
Yeah, cause she mentions that elsewhere–
Margaret:
So many times. It comes up like five times in the book and it…I’ve never heard…anything as wild in my life. [laughs] That would be so much water every day.
Renata:
Yeah, I don’t…
Margaret:
I don’t understand it. If you’re listening to this and you have any insight into that metric for hydration, please, at me. [all laughing] [Kait: Yeah.]
Renata:
A-And I have such– also such whiplash from reading, like, the sex advice part to that, where it’s like, “Oh, like, love your body. Your partner is just happy no matter what you look like.” [excitedly] Unless –you’re– fat though! [all laughing] [Margaret: Right.]
Kait:
Yeah. And even like that part in there, “There’s not a particular size or shape you need to be unless your shape or size is fat. Then you shouldn’t be that.”
Margaret:
[laughing] G-iirl!
Renata:
Oh boy. All right. Let’s keep moving along, although I would love to scream about this for hours. Anyway, would you rather marry the emotionally abusive Disney executive who took your virginity at age 20 or never have enough capital to start your own event-planning business?
Margaret:
I mean, I think I’m living the never have enough capital to start your event-planning business, like, every day.
Renata:
Right, I’m already here. [Kait: Yeah.]
Margaret:
I’m here. I’ve already chosen it. Granted, I haven’t had a Disney executive emotionally abuse me and then offer to give me the seed money to start my imaginary social media consulting firm. Don’t tweet that just text me. [Kait and Renata both giggle] However, um…I-I think I do know that I would choose to continue struggling in this 9-to-5 life over being married to Dave Hollis, who sounds like [whispers] garbage.
Renata:
Sounds like garbage.
Kait:
Yeah, same.
Margaret:
Mm-hmm.
Renata:
I guess we just all don’t have enough hustle.
Margaret:
Yeah. [deep inhale] I guess not. We just aren’t committed enough to wanting to change our lives.
Renata:
All right. Well, ummmm, while we’re feeling emotional. Would you rather eat one of Rachel Hollis’ cheese-based casseroles or eat at Steaks and Cakes, which is of course the fictional restaurant from Christian Mingle the movie that only serves steaks and cakes.
Kait:
Well as a person who’s tragically lactose intolerant…I would not be able to successfully eat one of Rachel Holliss’– or not be able to feel good after eating one of Rachel Hollis’ cheese-based casseroles, even though I generally am in favor of cheese for other people. So I will stick with our beloved sponsor, Steaks and Cakes.
Renata:
Yeah, I mean, I think I’m too fat to like whimsically joke about eating cheese. Since then I’ll whimsically joke about eating an entire cake, please.
Margaret:
Yeah. I’m on my period right now, so like Steaks and Cakes is literally just my whole diet. Like that’s the dream diet. [Renata: Mm-hmm] So, Steaks and Cakes sounds incredible right now. [Kait laughs]
Renata:
Yeah. Get that iron, get that sugar.
Margaret:
Yeah. [all laugh] Exactly. It’s perfect.
Renata:
[laughing] All right.
Kait:
What are we doing after this recording? We should go ahead and get some Steaks and Cakes.
Renata:
[laughs] I…I’ll meet you there. All right. All right, let’s move on to Reader’s Advisory, which we’ve sort of liberally sprinkled throughout, but, what are some other books or podcasts or whatever that we might recommend instead of or in addition to Girl, Wash Your Face? I’ll start and say another book, podcast By the Book, has an episode on Girl, Wash Your Face. I haven’t listened to it. I found it when I was looking into this and then I didn’t want to listen to it first, lest it, alter what I might say. But in general, I do like By the Book and so I’ll probably check that; it’s probably good. Also, the ladies of By the Book, Jolenta Greenberg and Kristen Meinzer, have written a book called How to be Fine, which is sort of a distillation of all the many self-help books they’ve read for their podcast. So that seems helpful. [Margaret: Mm-hmm.]
Kait:
I already…mentioned that I just finished, Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstock. I do recommend that as an antidote for t-this. Just another note is that they both talk extensively about, their eating disorders and how they have dealt with them over their lives and how they have managed to get into recovery from them. And, I don’t think it was…through listening advice– to advice similar to Rachel Hollis’. [Renata: Mm-hmm.]
Margaret:
My recommendation is an episode of the podcast, Bullseye, where Jesse Thorn interviews Rosie Perez. Kinda a slam recommendation here, little bit out of left field. But what I would say about this, is that I think Rosie Perez actually displays the sort of like grit self-insight and uh…integrity that Rachel Hollis likes to imagine that she has. And that it was just an incredibly fun thing to listen to. I didn’t know that much about her life and it’s super, super interesting. And I have thought about it often in the last two months since I’ve listened to it.
Renata:
I-I remember seeing that going around when it first came up and I, haven’t listened to it yet but it does sound good.
Margaret:
It’s great.
Renata:
One other one I want to toss out is is a problematic fave of mine who is Ru Paul, who also has a sort of self-help book called Guru. And I think Ru Paul also has, honestly, some of the same issues that Rachel Hollis has, where Ru Paul has internalized a lot of like, fat negative and like body-shaming things. It took Ru Paul a long time to…understand, like, trans rights – and I think probably still some progress still to be made there – but, nevertheless, I-I think…I think some of the things Ru Paul says are very helpful. And Ru Paul also is very into like “I pulled myself up from my bootstraps and like why can’t you.” And, again, Ru Paul I think legitimately did do that… to a greater extent than Rachel Hollis did, if we’re going to like measure in such things. [Margaret: Yeah.] But all the same, I think a lot of the kind of like catchy mantras that Ru Paul tosses out, and honestly one of them Rachel Hollis almost quotes, were “What other people think of me is none of my business.” I find that really helpful. [laughing] I find a lot of the shit Ru Paul says really helpful. And funny. [Margaret: Yeah.]
And so with that caveat, you know, if you’re looking for someone to say like pithy, self-help things at you, I don’t know, maybe Ru Paul. [soft laughter from Margaret] All right, sooo we’ll have all of that and some other stuff up on our website which is worstbestsellers.com. Now since we are emotionally eating ladies, what are our candy pairings for this book?
Kait:
My candy pairing is an Oreo, but you have to cry while you’re eating it.
Margaret:
My candy pairing is the, uh, Christmas candy presently by my laptop because…God has perfect timing [all laugh] and must have left it there for me.
Renata:
Ah, thank you, Jesus. [laughter] Mine is a cheese plate, just kidding. Imagine being fat. [louder laughing] Oooh-kay, how about, the Rock Paper Snikt, the game where Kait will say who Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson would be if he were in this book, and I’ll say who Wolverine would be if he were in this book. And Margaret can choose which most enhances this book or she can choose paper which is to leave it as is. [Margaret: Mm-hmm.]
Kait:
All right. Let’s be honest. It’s surprising that the Rock isn’t in this book in some sort of like charming tangential anecdote, but if the Worst Bestsellers version of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was in this book, he would throw the book in the garbage and give you a hug and tell you that you are actually, yes, okay, as a person the way that you are. And that any personal growth should be driven by what you want out of yourself and not what society wants out of you.
Renata:
Wolverine would rip several pages from this book to use as a napkin while he was eating BBQ ribs and drinking several beers. [Kait laughs]
Margaret:
So, this is tough, umm, because I love the contempt that Wolverine is showing for the book. And I think that’s about the level of attention that it deserves. But, I really am just, like, hurting for women who came to this book looking for…uh, support and advice and were instead bullied and treated with contempt for hundreds and hundreds of pages and it’s very nice to imagine the Worst Bestsellers version of the Rock, just givin’ him a big hug. A-and providing some of that love and support and validation…in-in sincere communion. So in this season, it’s on my heart to go with Rock over paper and Snikt.
Renata:
Yeah, you know what. Hugs from the Rock for all.
Kait:
Yes.
Margaret:
Truly.
Renata:
I mean, that would be a pretty good moral of the story but what else do we think the moral of this book is?
Kait:
I would say the moral of the story is that you can build an entire business around talking about how hard it was to build your business, I guess.
Margaret:
My moral is, everything about your life is completely in your power except for the parts decided by God, who has perfect timing. [Kait and Renata laugh]
Renata:
My moral of the story is just cherry-pick whatever advice seems helpful to you personally and throw the rest out with the bathwater after you wash your face….girl. [laughter] Now it’s time for Duarte’s Corner where my Duarte will share his opinions about the books.
Duarte:
[meows loudly and passionately]
Renata:
You know, Duarte, I think you’re right and she really doesn’t mention having pets, and I think that can be really strong for her brand. Especially, we all know cats are beautiful, photogenic creatures at any size and I think just that if she had one to, to put on her Instagram, I bet it would help.
Kait:
Yeah, but I think that, honestly, Duarte, you should take the hole in the market and get yourself on Instagram and become an influencer ever bigger than Rachel Hollis. I think you have it within you.
Renata:
Hmmm. If that’s what God wants.
Margaret:
We have faith in you, Duarte.
Renata:
All right. Well, Duarte, thank you for joining us. Do any humans have any closing thoughts?
[everyone sighs tiredly]
Kait:
This was bad.
Renata:
This –was– bad though.
Margaret:
Yeah. This was bad and discouraging. It was really good talking about it with you guys, though, and I hope that the people listening at home…I just got dragged on my podcast for constantly saying “listening at home” when like podcast listeners could be anywhere. They may not be at home. [Kait and Renata laugh].
Renata:
“To all the listeners on their commutes.”
Margaret:
I wasn’t dragged badly enough to stop saying “listeners in their homes” but now I-I have to qualify it immediately afterwards. So…listeners, wherever you may be, I-I-I hope you got something out of the deep well of exasperation…uh..I– we tapped into in me, while recording this. [Renata: soft Mm-hmms]
Kait:
Yeah. I guess also I’ll say, I meant to say at the top and then forgot because I was so filled with anger at this book, I very clearly have a cold and sorry for sounding like I have a cold the entire time. I tried to mute my coughing as much as possible. [Margaret laughs]
Margaret:
You did great.
Renata:
You know what, maybe if you took better care of yourself and drank half you body weight in water….
Margaret:
Every day. [all laugh] Oh, and I do want to say, I hope that you guys can put in the show notes the podcast interview that Rachel Hollis did, where she was asked real softball questions about the whole Weinstein situation. And talked about experience of workplace sexual harassment that she had and it’s just like 1000 times more interesting and more important than anything she actively chose to include in her book.
Kait:
Oh, seriously.
Renata:
Co-rrect.
Margaret:
Rachel Hollis, if you ever write an-an honest and demonstrating sincere self-insight memoir about how you built your lifestyle brand, I would probably be sincerely interested in reading it at this point because of Stockholm Syndrome. [Kait cracks up]
Renata:
Giiiirl, I’ve checked my privilege. [Kait and Margaret laugh loudly]
Margaret:
–Exactly-!
Renata:
All right. Well, if you would like to talk to us about Rachel Hollis or, um any kind of lifestyle advice, you can like us on Facebook. We’re facebook.com/worstbestsellers. We’re on twitter at twitter.com/worstbestseller with NO ‘s’ because, you know the ‘s’ just wasn’t really fitting in with our brand, so we had to get rid of it. And, ummm, we have a GoodReads group that is most easily accessible by going to worstbestsellers.com and clicking on the GoodReads link.
Kait:
You can subscribe to us on Stitcher, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, all the regular podcast places where you find podcasts.
Renata:
Yeah, wherever in your home you’re listening to your podcasts. [Kait laughs]
Kait:
If you do subscribe, please take a moment to rate and review. When you rate and review it moves us up a bit on the charts and makes it easier for new people to find us. If you don’t rate and review, we’ll have to send, like, belligerent, berating advice to you until you change your life to include rating and reviewing podcasts as part of your routine. You can also subscribe to us on Patreon– or pledge to us on Patreon at patreon.com/worstbestsellers. Patreon is a service where you pledge a small monthly recurring donation. It goes to us to do things like keep our website functioning, pay our editor, pay for new equipment, and, in return you get some perks like postcards and newsletters and the occasional bonus episode before they hit the regular feeds. So you should check that out. Umm–
Margaret:
It’s pretty dope.
Kait:
–you can also check out our website at worstbestsellers.com and click on Merch where you can find a store where you can purchase things from our podcast to wear on your body, whatever size it may be. [laughter]
Renata:
And finally if you just want to come talk to me, personally, or look at photos of Duarte, who is very important to my personal brand, I’m on Twitter and Instagram: @renatasnacks.
Kait:
And I am on all the social medias: @fourteenacross.
Renata:
And Margaret, where can we find you?
Margaret:
If you would like my personal brand, you can find me @MrsFridayNext on most social media platforms but most markedly, Twitter. If you want to listen to me be exasperated about things at length, my podcast, Appointment Television, did a TV book club where we watched the entire first season of the News Room. And, -WOW- did that bring out my ranting side. [Renata laughs] And if you would like advice that is not laced with hideous, unacknowledged toxicity, sometimes my newsletter, Two Bossy Dames, gives advice. And, we really do our level best to leave the toxicity at the door. Not gonna say that we succeed all of the time. We’re all works in progress, but we all do a lot better than Rachel Hollis.
Renata:
Like a 1,000%. Uh-, Margaret, thank you so much for joining us.
Margaret:
Thank you for having me and making me read this horrible book. But I feel really much more informed about the world.
Renata:
And you know what? That’s what we aim for, first and foremost. [deep inhale] Ahhh-, we’ll be back, with this podcast talking about Machines Like Us by Ian McEwan. I’ve never realized how hard his name is to say. [Kait and Margaret laugh] Ian…McEwan? You know, that guy. Thanks for listening. Bye-eee!
Kait:
Bye!
Margaret:
Bye!
[closing theme]
*
This transcript was provided by Benson (@ydnsm1)
