Do you ever feel stuck in life? Spinning your wheels, feeling like everything is totally out of your control? Your work stresses you out. You kids work you to your last nerve. You miss the friend group you had launching out of college, but everyone’s so busy–busy without you, at least. Your spouse is a wonderful person, really, but every time you see them continuing that habit you’ve told the to quit over and over again, you can feel your eyelid twitch.

Does this sound painfully familiar? Well fear not. With this bestselling novel, Mel Robbins offers a solution to all your problems with two, simple words…

Let Them.

In The Let Them Theory, Robbins offers a simple, theoretic (and science-backed) answer to all the stress, control hyper fixations, and emotional distress that seems to be rocking our world, relationships, and daily lives.

Let Them, and a much needed partner to the phrase, Let Me.

In Letting Them, you let go of trying to control everybody else’s lives, therefore releasing their control on you. Then, you focus on Let Me–figuring out what you can do to change your own life for the better. Your friends went out without inviting them? Yes, you’re upset. But it’s okay. Let Them go out without you. You can’t change the past. Step back and figure out what you can do to help what your feeling. Maybe that’s extending the invitation next time, because now that you think of it, you haven’t even been active in that friendship, so it makes sense how they could’ve forgotten.

Let Them. It’s ridiculously simple. In my opinion, it could’ve been kept simpler, but for the moment, I digress.

“Maybe you’re doing that right now. Waiting for the right time. Waiting to feel ready or a little less afraid… The problem with waiting is no one is coming. The only permission you need is your own.” – The Let Them Theory

What I Liked

It really is a good theory. In fact, there were several times this week, while I was reading this book, where I was feeling upset over a change of events, or how a certain person was acting–and then I just said Let Them to myself. I felt a weight lift off of my shoulders. Let the event be canceled. Let them be annoying. Let dinner be a little burnt, whatever. Life happens. Don’t cry over spilled milk, right?

“The most important part of the Let Them Theory is understanding that you are responsible for your own happiness.” – The Let Them Theory

What I Disliked

As much as the media, and Mel Robbins, makes it sound, Let Them is not a miracle solutions. It’s very helpful, and a good reminder, but I think there’s definitely a lot more you need to do to really let go of control in your life. For one, realizing you’re not in control of your life anyways, no matter how much you Let Them or Let Me. Realistically, you need to let Elohim lead your life. But it’s not a Christian self-help, so that’s something you have to learn for yourself.

While I do like the theory, I don’t think it was helpfully covered in this book, as long as it was. Let Them, according to Robbins, should be paired with Let Me, so that you don’t go about letting whatever happen in life and thus losing all your connections. You have to make an effort towards it too. But for all the ways she talked to us about using Let Them, I don’t think she talked equally enough about Let Me, the vital piece of the theory, the healing piece of the theory. Maybe this leaves room for each individual to figure this out themselves. Maybe this leaves room for another book on her part. Either way, I didn’t come away from this read feeling moved and inspired and ready, like I usually do from reading one chapter of a good self-help. Instead, I felt like… okay. Let Them. And then what?

I also have some qualms with the book as a whole. And yes, this is a bit rantish, but this is my review, shush. For one, it really felt like it was trying to be the next Atomic Habits–right down to the cover design and title font. Even the little “New York Times Bestseller” heading over top looks the same…

It’s really not the next Atomic Habits, if only for the fact that it doesn’t leave you feeling ready and inspired. Plus, I feel Let Them had the narrator tell-ishness of a memoir, while also trying to be a self-help. It’s something I think Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes pulled off, but this book did not. I didn’t like any of Robbins antidotes–they were all from her own experiences, or a few times, one from a friend, and several experiences from her children (and she mentioned earlier in her book that her children disliked how much she’d put them in her media… and yet she put their stories in her book? I don’t know if they gave permission for this or what, but… I didn’t love it).

And this book, honestly, is far too long. 306 pages–not bad for a self-help, I suppose, but it slogged. It could’ve easily been told in 200 pages. Robbins went into excessive detail for each and every kind of scenario to use this theory in–which is fine, but it was just too much. I had to push myself to finish this, simply because it was due at my library soon and I did not want to get back onto that hold line. It honestly would’ve been a DNF–because once you learn the theory, you don’t need to read past the middle, really–but I wanted to give you a thorough review.

“I didn’t achieve success or financial freedom because of some secret. I did it because I was willing to do what most people won’t–I woke up every day and regardless of how I felt, I kept slowly chipping away at my goals for over a decade, a painstakingly slow process.” – The Let Them Theory

Content Warnings

Light language.

Conclusion

This book is very overhyped. It’s a fine technique, but I don’t think it was good enough to warrant all the fanatics. It felt more like a less inspiring, logic-based copy of Atomic Habits, if anything. If you’re looking for a technique to help you find more peace and lower stress in your life… this works, but you’d be better off reading one of her blog posts or podcasts on it, rather than reading through this. I won’t be rereading this, but I still think the theory’s worth learning about.

I rate this book 3 out of 5 stars, simply because the theory was helpful. If I was rating the book by itself, I’d give it a 2. I recommend for readers 16+, and anyone who wants more self-control for their lives, or who likes buzzy self-help books.

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