I have mixed feelings about how to review this book. I wish I had read it without knowing anything about the author or about her story. If I hadn’t known anything, I might have been willing to suspend my disbelief and follow along without any expectations. However, I was already quite prejudiced about the author beforehand.
The author spent seven years as a top sales sales leader at Rejuvinat. Rejuvinat isn’t real, but it is the fake name for a well-known cosmetics and wellness brand.
One thing I can say about this book that has nothing to do with the author’s choices or lifestyle is that the book was quite boring. The storytelling style was too repetitive and the second half of the book was a slog.
If you are interested in reading it and don’t want to go in with as much prejudice as I did, stop reading now.
For everyone who stayed, let’s get started.
Oh Lord…..
This woman. I just can’t.
I could write out everything that spiked my blood pressure, but that would only spike it even higher and I need a nice, soothing cooldown after slogging through this masturbatory endeavor of self-absolution that attempts to pass itself off as a cautionary tale about MLM’s (multi-level marketing) in America.
After wasting my time reading this, I feel sick, like I’ve been suckered by the spray-tanned, mic’d up, perfectly fit and coiffed preacher of a megachurch. They tell me how they were riding high because they sinned. Then they tell me the gory details of all of the depraved things they did. Then they hit rock bottom and they finally see the error of their ways. And now, they are here, baring their soul to help me see the evil of my own ways and finally let Jesus into my heart.
Hard. Pass.
In addition to that, the book is SO BORING! I wanted a trashy story. Instead I got about one hundred pages of actual juicy MLM gossip, two hundred pages of this women humble bragging about what an awesome mom/wife/leader/bossbabe/life guru/reformed addict she is, and what felt like a thousand pages of random data points sourced from Wikipedia and whatever articles came up in a few cursory searches in LexisNexis.
Did I mention I also needed a cooling ice mask (not from an MLM thank you!) to soothe my eye sockets? I’m surprised I did not get a headache from the eye rolling.
From the beginning, the author tells us that she won’t get suckered. She’s just in it for the perks. But she’s so freaking amazing so they just keep promoting her. She is better at it than the woman who recruited her, which leads to awkward encounters because everyone is just jealous of her success.
Even though she doesn’t really think the products or the company are all that great, she keeps going along because of the accolades. From the beginning, she and her friends are labeled as troublemakers for questioning the platitudes and half-answers given by management.
But the thing that bothered me the most (and bothered quite a few of the other reviewers) is the author’s bizarre understanding of what passes as normal.
Like many people who started organizing their homes during the pandemic, I spend time purging my inventory of bossbabe paraphernalia. I sell my Louis Vuitton luggage, Convention gowns, and diamond jewelry on Poshmark. ”
― Emily Lynn Paulson, Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing
Really? REALLY???? That’s how you “survived” the pandemic? By selling your designer luggage and all of the spare diamond jewelry you just had stashed in your junk drawer? Really?
I take that back. This is the thing that bothered me the most. I got to the 85% point in the book and she drops this on me:
And I wonder to myself, How did I stay for so long just for money? I don’t have an answer. ”
― Emily Lynn Paulson, Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing
But you have an answer! You knew it was a scam! You wanted out for years. That’s what the second half of the book was about. You weren’t trapped by debt like some of the other women you described. You didn’t walk away for the very simple fact that you kept getting paid. This! This is your answer! You stayed and fed into a failing business model because of the money!
I can’t even recommend this as a hate read. A hate read should at least be a little bit fun.
