YOU ARE WORTHY

A guidebook that aims to help women revamp their relationship with money.

Financial coach Holland notes at the beginning of her nonfiction debut that most women, according to a 2018 survey by Merrill Lynch, would rather talk about death than money and that this silence can have many real-world consequences. Not only does it prevent women from sharing information with one another, she says, but it also helps to keep structural inequalities, such as pay gaps, from being addressed. Holland draws on her history as a Wall Street securities analyst and financial journalist for the New York Times and other major venues, as well as her psychological expertise as a coach, to encourage her readers to change the stories they tell themselves about money: “Money is a constant in our lives, like it or not,” Holland writes. “We need to stay on top of our finances, even if we are not the primary financial decision-maker or bill payer.” Holland lays out a series of encouragements for her readers to help them reach the financial future they want, including many quotes from various women she interviewed over a two-year period about their experiences with money as well as quotes from a wide array of authors, including Annie Dillard as well as several finance writers. These encouragements are accompanied by practical advice about creating personal balance sheets, analyzing business expenses, dealing with the financial demands of divorce, and much more; all are phrased with a common-sense tone and with an approachability that makes the sometimes-intimidating subject easier for laypeople to grasp. Throughout, Holland takes the tone of a calm, knowledgeable expert, which will appeal to many people struggling with money issues. “You will know that you have landed on your accurate money story when you read it and think YES,” she writes, and many of her readers will have that same reaction to the advice in this book.

A cleareyed and narrative-driven approach to rethinking one’s financial story.