Untamed is Glennon Doyle's raw account of dismantling her conventional life after falling in love with soccer star Abby Wambach while married to a man. Doyle chronicles her journey from people-pleasing suburban mother struggling with addiction and an unfaithful husband to embracing her authentic self as a lesbian in a same-sex marriage.

The book works best when Doyle examines specific moments of realization—like watching her daughter's reaction to seeing caged animals at a zoo, which becomes a metaphor for her own captivity in societal expectations. Her writing is conversational and immediate, peppered with moments of genuine insight about motherhood, marriage, and the exhausting performance of being the 'good woman' society expects.

However, Doyle's tone can veer into preachy territory, particularly when dispensing advice about 'untaming' yourself from social conditioning. Her privileged position—wealthy, white, with a platform and resources to completely restructure her life—sometimes makes her prescriptions feel tone-deaf to readers facing more constrained circumstances.

The pacing is uneven, jumping between memoir, self-help manifesto, and social commentary without always connecting these threads smoothly. Doyle's relationship with her children, particularly her efforts to model authenticity for them, provides some of the book's most compelling material. But readers seeking nuanced exploration of sexuality, divorce, or blended families may find her treatment somewhat surface-level.

This book will resonate strongly with women feeling trapped in conventional roles, particularly those questioning their sexuality or marriages. LGBTQ+ readers may appreciate the coming-out narrative, though some might find Doyle's late-in-life realization less relatable. Conservative readers or those uncomfortable with explicit discussions of sexuality and non-traditional family structures should probably skip this one. Fans of inspirational memoirs and self-help will likely embrace Doyle's message, while readers preferring more literary or psychologically complex memoirs may find it lacking in depth.