Reading Progress: 50%
While I wouldn’t exactly call myself a Hincher, this book did call to me. If you aren’t familiar, This is Me by Mrs Hinch is a memoir by cleaning influencer Sophie Hinchliffe. She shot to fame on Instagram with her cleaning videos and at the time of writing has 4.5million followers.
I began watching a few years ago when nobody really knew what she looked like but everyone was familiar with her instagram stories, one rubber gloved hand cleaning her sink, the other recording with her phone. It was a fun way of being reminded to give the house a quick freshen up on a Friday or to give the kitchen sink a quick wash. She makes cleaning cool.
Having previously read Sophie’s book Hinch Yourself Happy which gave cleaning tips and ideas along with a vague intro into her life, I was pleased to pick up This Is Me which is more of a biography.
The style of writing is very casual, just like Mrs Hinch herself is sat down telling you the story over some tea and biscuits. As someone who writes daily blog posts and shares snippets of life, this writing style appealed to me and I would call it a page turner. Since I’ve been reading a lot of non-fiction and business books this is a breathe of fresh air.
This book goes deeper than social media, reminding us that there are actual people on the other side of the phone with real lives and problems, even if they don’t show them on their feed. I was quite surprised to learn of Sophie’s anxiety and even more surprised that Instagram is a platform that seems to help her with that. If you have been following me for a while, you will know I’ve had my battles with IG, deactivating, returning, silently lurking and full on ignoring it as it’s the one social media platform that seems to rub me up the wrong way.
Mrs Hinch has helped a ton of people with her relatable content and underneath all the Zoflora and B and M hauls, is in fact an important Mental Health advocate. Her followers have picked up a cleaning cloth and taken pride in their homes, gotten themselves out of bed and sought help where they needed it as a result of being part of the Hinch Army. As much as I dislike social media sometimes, I applaud this.
One thing that’s not for me is the shopping hauls, but that’s probably because I’m on my journey to minimalism and I try to keep my cleaning products minimal. But of course, that’s everyone’s choice.
Sophie tells how she met her husband aka Mr Hinch and their first date which was sweet. But this was later followed by a rather graphic story about childbirth which I’ll admit I skimmed because as a childfree woman it wasn’t something I wanted to read. She also goes into detail about body dysmorphia and her gastric band surgery which had to be corrected.
While these are not things that I would particularly like to be reading about I appreciate that this is a person’s memoir after all and not just about a social media success story.
There’s a full chapter on trolling which prompted me to watch the Jesy Nelson Odd One Out documentary and it was heartbreaking to see what Jesy and so many others go through with bullying. Why are people so cruel?
I’m still reading the book (my progress is at the top of this post) so I’ll continue to add my thoughts.