Why Everyone's Talking About Glennon Doyle & Her Memoir Untamed

Debuting at number one on The New York Times non-fiction bestseller list and still holding its place, Glennon Doyle's Untamed has taken the book world by storm. Described as a "testament to female empowerment and self-love" by Publishers Weekly, the memoir has garnered its fair share of celeb admirers. So here's everything you need to know about Glennon Doyle and Untamed.

Who is Glennon Doyle?

After quitting her job in teaching to stay at home with her children in 2009, Doyle set out "to finally introduce the real me to the world" with her blog Momastery. As the Evening Standard notes, she drew thousands of readers to her site after contributing to a Facebook meme at the time called 25 Things About Me, "in which she said she was a recovering food and alcohol addict."

In 2013, she delved deeper into these struggles with her first memoir Carry On, Warrior writing about "how she overcame her addictions and how family life gave her stability." Three years later, Doyle published Love Warrior which covered the discovery of her husband's infidelity and how they successfully came to develop a platonic relationship despite this.

While Doyle's work is very personal, female empowerment is everpresent. "What the world needs is more women who have quit fearing themselves and started trusting themselves," she writes in her latest memoir Untamed. "What the world needs is masses of women who are entirely out of control."

Combining personal experiences with advice, Doyle has become a prominent beacon of self-help for women across the world.

What Is Untamed About?

Untamed is all about listening to your inner voice and tuning out societal standards and patriarchal pressures. "We must untame ourselves and live free from societal confines and ideas about how we should behave in order to bravely find our inner voice," Doyle writes.

"We weren't born distrusting and fearing ourselves. That was part of our taming. We were taught to believe that who we are in our natural state is bad and dangerous," she continues. "They convinced us to be afraid of ourselves. So we do not honour our own bodies, curiosity, hunger, judgment, experience or ambition. Instead, we lock away our true selves. Women who are the best at this disappearing act earn the highest praise: She is so selfless."

"That is the end goal of every patriarchal culture. Because a very effective way to control women is to convince women to control themselves."

While Doyle does dip into how her new relationship and marriage has affected her journey of self-discovery, the main takeaway from Untamed is loving yourself first. "Self-love means that I have a relationship with myself built on trust and loyalty. I trust myself to have my own back, so my allegiance is to the voice within. I'll abandon everyone else's expectations of me before I'll abandon myself," the author writes.

"I'll disappoint everyone else before I'll disappoint myself. I'll forsake all others before I'll forsake myself. Me and myself: We are till death do us part.

Who Are The Celeb Fans?

From that small excerpt, it's no wonder that Untamed has become quite the talking point in celeb circles. In April, the book featured as Reese Witherspoon's pick of the month for @reesesbookclub. "This memoir is so packed with incredible insight about what it means to be a woman today, what did we learn as young girls about how to behave or believe, and why we need to free ourselves from a lot of these ideas that don't work anymore," Witherspoon says.

Adele also praised for Doyle's work, describing it in an Instagram post as a book that "will shake your brain and make your soul scream." The singer goes on to say how Untamed taught her to realise that she is responsible for her own "joy, happiness, and freedom."

"Who knew our own liberation liberates those around us? Cause I didn't!" she continues. "I thought we were meant to be stressed and dishevelled, confused and selfless like a Disney character!"