Love Warrior: A Memoir
Glennon Doyle
Follows Glennon Doyle as she leaves a life built to please others. It shows how stillness, honest questioning of inherited beliefs and a willingness to feel pain helped her build a marriage and family that truly fit.

55 sec
Many people wake up inside a life that looks right from the outside and feels wrong from within. In Untamed, writer and activist Glennon Doyle argues that this feeling is a signal: the life was built to please others, and the person inside went numb to bear it. Doyle knew that numbness well. She was a married Christian writer, about to promote a book celebrating her healed marriage, when she met the soccer player Abby Wambach and felt her body wake up.
Her story makes one case from several angles. Getting free means growing still enough to hear your own inner knowing, then questioning the beliefs you absorbed without choosing them, about motherhood, faith and even race. Along the way she offers a daily practice for hearing yourself, a test for hard family decisions and a reason to let pain in so it can move you to act.
1 min 22 sec
A caged animal at a zoo showed Doyle something about her own life that years of sobriety and success had hidden. The trap she describes is easy to miss because it often looks like a good life.
1 min 23 sec
A married Christian writer, on tour to celebrate her healed marriage, hugged a stranger at a dinner and felt something she could not explain away. What that moment told her matters more than the romance.
1 min 33 sec
Doyle had always told herself she stayed in her marriage for her children. One imagined conversation with a daughter turned that reasoning around, and then her career seemed to be on the line.
1 min 30 sec
When her mother, her church and her community disagreed with her, Doyle needed a way to decide that did not depend on any of them. She found it in an unlikely room of her own house.
1 min 31 sec
A sensitive girl with no sporting record wanted to join a soccer team, and her mother wanted to spare her the disappointment. The outcome changed how Doyle thought about protecting anyone from hurt.
1 min 33 sec
A pastor told Doyle that real faith meant accepting his word without discussion. Her refusal led her back into the Bible, into the history of a political movement and into a different relationship with God.
1 min 37 sec
Doyle believed in racial equality and assumed she would have marched for civil rights. Her older daughter disagreed, and the reason she gave forced an uncomfortable look at what Doyle had absorbed growing up.
1 min 29 sec
Doyle spent years trying to control the story of her family, even writing a book to defend it. When that story fell apart completely, she reached for a different tool and built something she had never pictured.
1 min 02 sec
Untamed adds up to an argument about evidence: the most reliable information about how to live may already be inside you, under the roles and the borrowed rules. Doyle’s numbness, her flawless public marriage and her inherited beliefs worked like the cheetah’s enclosure, and each gave way when she stopped asking others what was true for her. The price was real, from a hurt mother to a church she no longer trusted. What she gained was a family she could not have pictured from inside the old one, with her former husband at the dinner table.
Her practices are small enough to begin tomorrow. Give yourself ten minutes of real quiet each day and listen for the nudge before asking anyone else. When a choice feels selfish, imagine someone you love facing it. And keep a simple diary of your moods, so that on a low day you can see the good days were real, and know when to ask for help.
The wild part of you is still there, waiting for enough quiet to be heard.
Glennon Doyle had built what looked like a model life. She was a sober Christian mother, a writer trusted by millions of women and the author of a new memoir about saving her marriage after her husband's affairs. Then, at a book conference, she met the retired soccer player Abby Wambach and felt her body come alive for the first time in years. Untamed is the story of what followed and what it taught her. Doyle argues that girls are trained early to be pleasing, obedient and small. In her own case the cost showed up as anxiety, bulimia and years of drinking. Her way out was to get still, find an inner voice she calls the Knowing and test every belief she had absorbed about marriage, motherhood, faith and race. Readers follow her decision to leave her marriage, her public coming out, her break with church authority and her effort to unlearn racism. Along the way they get small practices to borrow: ten quiet minutes a day, a test for choices that feel selfish and a mood diary for hard stretches.
Women who built a life around pleasing others and now feel numb inside it.
People weighing a hard choice about marriage, faith or family against what others expect of them.
Readers who believe in equality and want an honest account of unlearning bias absorbed in childhood.
Glennon Doyle, born in 1976, is an American author and queer activist. She created the online community Momastery and founded Together Rising, a nonprofit supporting women, families and children in crisis, which has distributed more than $55 million. Untamed reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list, with more than three million copies sold, and her memoir Love Warrior was an Oprah's Book Club pick. She also founded the media company Treat Media and co-hosts the podcast We Can Do Hard Things.
Glennon Doyle
Listeners find this work profoundly meaningful and full of life lessons in every chapter, while one listener mentions that it reads like a set of connected short stories. The writing is described as beautiful, with listeners overall enjoying the wonderful style. Yet, opinions on its value are split, with some viewing it as a waste of money. Both the story quality and the author receive a range of reactions from listeners.
Wow, this was exactly the jolt to the system I needed during a period of feeling completely stagnant. Doyle’s exploration of her “Knowing” resonated with me on a level I didn't think possible for a mainstream memoir. Truthfully, the prose is stunning and feels more like a collection of poetic revelations than a standard autobiography. I found myself highlighting entire pages about her relationship with Abby and the way she dismantled her old life to find her true self. While some might find her tone a bit intense, I appreciated the raw vulnerability she brought to the table. This isn't just a book about divorce; it’s a manual for anyone who has ever felt like they were living a life designed by someone else. It grounded me and gave me permission to breathe again.
Show moreThe chapter on "Knowing" will stay with me for a very long time because it perfectly captures that internal voice we all ignore. Doyle has a gift for taking complex emotional states and turning them into lyrical, accessible prose that feels deeply personal yet universal. Every section feels like a profound resonance of the soul, urging the reader to stop abandoning themselves for the sake of societal expectations. Not gonna lie, I cried through the parts where she talks about rebuilding her family and finding a love that didn't require her to shrink. The book functions like a series of interlocking life lessons, each one building on the last to create a gorgeous portrait of liberation. It is easily one of the most meaningful things I have read in the last decade.
Show moreLook, I needed a book that validated my own late-in-life discovery of my sexuality, and this delivered in spades. Reading about Glennon’s instant recognition of Abby—that "There She Is" moment—was incredibly healing for me. I love how she reframes a "broken family" as one where people are forced to hide their true selves to stay together. This book is a radical call to self-actualization that refuses to apologize for wanting more out of life than just "fine." Her thoughts on motherhood were particularly eye-opening, moving away from the idea that we must suffer to be good parents. It’s a vibrant, colorful, and soulful exploration of what happens when a woman finally decides to stop being a "good girl" and starts being a human. I will be gifting this to every woman I know.
Show moreEver wonder what it would actually feel like to stop pretending and just exist? This book provides a roadmap for exactly that through the lens of a woman who finally chose herself over her conditioning. The cheetah metaphor at the beginning is one of the most effective literary hooks I’ve encountered in years. It perfectly sets the stage for a narrative about reclaiming the wildness that society tries to domesticate out of us. Doyle’s lyrical prose turns every chapter into an actionable insight, making the reader feel like they are undergoing a spiritual transformation alongside her. I especially loved her take on "the cage" of gender roles and how we pass those cages down to our children. It’s a fierce, brave, and utterly beautiful manifesto for the modern woman.
Show morePicked this up after seeing it on every must-read list for three years straight. I wasn't sure if I’d connect with a former mommy-blogger, but the episodic structure made it very easy to digest. Each chapter acts as a standalone vignette, offering small pearls of wisdom that you can sit with for a few days. Personally, I enjoyed the way she describes the transition from being a martyr for her family to being a model of self-care. It’s a subtle but powerful shift in perspective that many women need to hear. There were definitely moments where the preachiness felt a bit heavy-handed, especially when she tries to tackle massive social issues in just a few pages. However, the core message of trusting your own intuition is solid and beautifully articulated throughout the work.
Show moreFinally got around to this best-seller and I have to say, the structure is quite refreshing. Instead of a linear timeline, you get these modular vignettes that jump around, which actually keeps the pacing quite brisk. It reads like a conversation with a very intense friend who has spent a lot of time in therapy. The writing is elegant and often quite funny, especially when she leans into the absurdity of her own sensitivities. While I agree with the criticism that some of the life lessons feel a bit oversimplified, the emotional core remains strong. She captures the exhaustion of modern womanhood with such precision that it’s hard not to feel seen. It’s a beautiful book, even if it occasionally feels like it was written specifically for a very certain demographic of middle-class readers.
Show moreTo be fair, it’s not a traditional memoir in any sense of the word, but that’s actually its greatest strength. The book operates as a series of interlocking short stories that gradually reveal the author's philosophy on everything from religion to racism. While I didn't agree with every single conclusion she reached, I found the writing to be consistently engaging and often quite moving. She has a way of phrasing things—like the idea that we are "fireproof"—that makes you want to go out and conquer the world. There is a bit of a white lady in a bubble vibe at times, and some of the chapters felt a bit like filler. However, the overall message of integrity and self-trust is one that I think most people could benefit from hearing at least once.
Show moreAs someone who found Love Warrior to be a transformative experience, this follow-up was a bit of a mixed bag. I truly admire Doyle’s journey and her bravery in living her truth, but the delivery here felt a lot more like a sermon than a story. At times, she speaks with such certainty that it leaves very little room for the reader's own interpretation or struggle. For example, her refusal to answer phone calls because it's "aggressive" felt less like a boundary and more like a manifestation of privilege. Still, there are gems of wisdom hidden in the more philosophical chapters regarding body image and setting boundaries. It's a decent read if you can get past the occasional smugness of the "woke" lecturing, but it lacked the raw grit that made her previous work so relatable.
Show moreNot what I expected given the massive hype surrounding this title on social media. While the opening metaphor about the caged cheetah was genuinely compelling, the rest of the book felt like an exercise in self-congratulation. In my experience, the chapters felt less like a cohesive narrative and more like a series of polished blog posts designed to show off how "evolved" the author has become. I struggled with the anecdotes about her children, which felt suspiciously curated and lacked the messiness of actual parenting. For instance, the story about her son happily giving up his phone felt entirely unrealistic and a bit condescending to those of us in the trenches. To be fair, her writing style is undeniably fluid and easy to read, but the underlying tone of white feminist elitism was a major turn-off for me.
Show moreFrankly, this felt like an expensive collection of Instagram captions bound together to profit off the current self-love trend. I found the author's voice to be incredibly grating and out of touch with the realities that most people face daily. It’s easy to talk about “doing whatever you want” when you have the financial safety net and platform that she possesses. The chapters are choppy, the logic is often contradictory, and the tone feels consistently patronizing toward anyone who hasn't reached her level of enlightenment. Calling a friend's phone call an "aggressive act" is where she completely lost me. In my opinion, this is just more bland, elitist drivel disguised as a spiritual awakening. It was a total waste of money and I regret spending my time on it.
Show moreUntamed tells how Glennon Doyle, a married Christian writer, fell in love with soccer player Abby Wambach and rebuilt her life. Doyle argues that she spent years caging herself to fit an idea of a good woman, numbing the cost with bulimia, alcohol and drugs. Getting free meant listening to her inner voice, questioning inherited beliefs about marriage, faith and race, and imagining a new kind of family.
The Knowing is Doyle’s name for a deep intuition she found by sitting in a closet for ten minutes each day and listening. It was hard at first, like withdrawal from constant input. Over time she reached a still place where a gentle nudge guided her when she felt unsure. She used it to test old beliefs, such as the idea that her worth depended on staying busy.
Doyle’s story suggests a few practices. Spend ten quiet minutes a day listening to yourself before asking others. When a choice feels selfish, imagine someone you love in your position and notice what you would want for them. Compare your stated beliefs with where you actually show up. A mood diary also helps, so good days stay visible during hard ones and you can seek help when needed.
It suits readers who feel they have built a life to please others, especially women raised on rules about being good, thin and agreeable. It also speaks to people facing a hard choice about marriage, divorce or faith, parents who want to model honesty for their children, and white readers who want one person’s account of confronting racism she had absorbed without noticing.
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