The Fountain 360 in 365 is a year-long project for which I am reading one book from every section of my partner indie Fountain Bookstore, selected for me by its booksellers.
If you know me at all, you won’t be terribly surprised to find out that I normally wouldn’t go near a self-help book if you paid me. As much as I love to read, I’m definitely in the Elvis school of thought (read: a little less conversation, a little more action) when it comes to self-improvement (and bacon cheeseburgers, for that matter), and while I get that many people are motivated and inspired by such books, they’ve just never done it for me.
But that doesn’t mean they can’t; it just means that I haven’t found the right one yet. And getting beyond my comfort zone—not to mention breaking down my preconceived notions about genre—to discover new books of all kinds is exactly what this project is about.
I was feeling more than a little trepidation about my adventure in self-help, so I was thrilled when bookseller Heather recommended Kelly Cutrone’s If You Have to Cry, Go Outside. It satisfies the requirements of the project in that it is a book I wouldn’t have picked up on my own, but I *have* heard of Cutrone, and I loved her show on Bravo, and her no-nonsense approach just makes a ton of sense to me. If I have to read a self-help book, I thought, at least it’s this one. We’re going to get along just fine.
And for the most part, we did. Cutrone’s book is basically one-third practical advice for women in the workplace, one-third hippie/new age/Eastern religion philosophical mashup, and one-third how-to for fashion power-bitch wannabes. It’s an odd combination, especially if you’re as surprised to find out about Cutrone’s earth-mother/uber-goddess spirituality as I was, but it works. And Cutrone makes it work, explaining her beliefs thusly:
If you’re going to believe this season’s Prada boots will make you sexy and powerful, you should at least be as open to the concept that you have a soul and that that soul has a purpose as unique as your fingerprint and eye scan.
Cutrone encourages her readers (whom she presumes are young women and gay men) to listen to their inner voices, cultivate a “tribal council” of mentors, and seek meaning for their lives beyond the superficial achievements of work and fashion.
It’s not just about sleeping and fucking and getting the right dress. Let’s hope not.
And she does it all in her trademark take-no-prisoners style.
Go balls out on intuition and follow your dreams.
Now, Cutrone does NOT say that this will be easy or that the path to success is clear-cut. She acknowledges that the pursuit of one’s dreams almost always involves failures and missteps and diversions down the wrong avenues, but that’s all part of the process because “sometimes, if not most of the time, you find out who you are by figuring out who and what you are not.” It is this brand of honesty that makes Cutrone special, and her willingness to point out the lies our society tells us about dreams, success, womanhood, and priorities is remarkably refreshing.
Cutrone recalls leaving home against her parents’ wishes to move to New York and build her life from the ground up, and she doesn’t hesitate to describe the mistakes she made along the way. All-night parties, drugs, failed marriages, and career faux pas are all fair game for discussion, and by airing her dirty laundry and detailing her journey from junkie to fashion power-bitch, she reveals her own humanity and proves that people can change and become successful in spite of (or because of?) our worst decisions.
Inspiring and motivating as the pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps-and-get-on-with-it stuff is, the parts of Cutrone’s book that resonated most with me address the ways in which American culture programs young women to pursue a certain kind of life (read: marriage and motherhood) and punishes them for doing otherwise (by, say, assuming positions of power within their industry and speaking the truth when it is less than popular). Cutrone tells young women not that they should act like men but that they should embrace womanhood and femininity (insert reference to the feminine sacred here) and forge their own way. She calls out the myths we perpetuate with Disney princesses and the ways we attack women for being sexual and powerful (hello, Page Six gossip about Cutrone representing former prostitute Ashley Dupre), and, well, it’s fair to say that she reignited some of my righteous feminist outrage with it.
I’m not much for new age spirituality, and I’ll admit that I rolled my eyes a few times as I read this book, but much of what Cutrone describes as her yogic practices can also be described as practices from cognitive-behavioral therapy, and that IS a language I speak. So when Cutrone says that “the problem with ‘internal talk’ is that it masquerades as intuition,” I get it. And I know she’s right. The fact that we have a thought doesn’t mean that the thought is true (or that it is a message from the divine), and Cutrone provides solid advice for rationally digging through one’s internal monologue to separate real intuition from neurotic negative self-talk.
I loved the feministy parts of this book, enjoyed the fashion insider stuff for what it was, and could take or leave the the spiritual bits (which, by the way, is fine with Cutrone—she’s not suggesting that we should all do it her way but that we should all find a set of beliefs to live by). While I can’t see myself becoming a regular self-help reader, I will likely pick up anything else Cutrone writes because her voice is fun and authentic, and, well, you can’t argue with advice like If You Have to Cry, Go Outside.
Related posts:
The Fountain 360 in 365: Book 1 [Self-Help]Book Review: Supergirls Speak Out by Liz FunkBook Review & Giveaway: The Purity Myth by Jessica ValentiBook Review: The Mighty Queens of Freeville by Amy DickinsonBook Review: Where’s My Wand? by Eric Poole Filed Under Book Reviews, Partnership with Fountain Bookstore4 Comments -->Comments4 Responses to “”
Rebecca Rasmussen onJanuary 14th, 2011 9:56 am Ah, the self-help worked out! Parts of this book sounds really fun actually and I am like you, I usually veer away from that section 
Miss Ash onJanuary 14th, 2011 12:04 pm I’m admittedly a self help book junkie. You sold me on this. It’s going on my list!
Miss Ash´s last blog ..Ambivalent
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Audrey Geddes onJanuary 15th, 2011 4:47 pm This is my kind of self-help book. Sounds like a very down to earth read. Thanks for sharing :}. Reminds me of another excellent book on positive aging I just finished called, 40+ and Fabulous: Moving Forward Fierce, Focused, and Full of Life! by Sondra Wright. The author includes stories that will help women who may be struggling in isolation with the social, emotional, psychological, and physical changes that have been taboo to talk about. Very inspirational and funny at times. Loved it.
Audrey Geddes´s last blog ..audreygeddes- Just finished 40 and Fabulous by Sondra Wright Loved it! Heres her website- http-fortyplusandfabulouscom-
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