Fresh Reads: The Myth of Balance & the Art of Becoming: Amanda Goetz on Healing the Messy Middle with Toxic Grit
What if the problem isn’t that you want “too much,” but that the world keeps insisting you be just one thing? In this A Fresh Story: Book Talk, Amanda Goetz opens the door to the messy middle—those seasons when ambition and tenderness, rebuilding and exhaustion, motherhood and desire, all crowd the same room. She tells the truth about filing for divorce while leading marketing at The Knot, raising three kids under four, and learning to love a life that refused to fit a single lane.
Her new book, Toxic Grit: How to Have it All and (actually) Love What You Have, is a practical guide for anyone trying to reconcile competing parts of themselves. Drawing on her years as a founder (House of Wise) and a marketer, Amanda offers “character theory,” a framework for re-meeting the cast inside you—the worker, the mother, the lover, the friend—and rewriting their scripts. Across three sections—Meet Your Characters, Honor the Imbalance, and Master the Multiverse—she gives language and tools for intentional seasons, “front-burner” focus, guilt-free check-ins, and spin cycles that help you redistribute energy when life shape-shifts without asking.
Why does this matter now? Because life transitions—divorce, career pivots, becoming or unbecoming in motherhood—demand both grit and gentleness. Amanda’s story is a permission slip: set an end date for your sprint, name what’s on the front burner, and communicate the season to your supporting cast. This is a book you can work through with your therapist, your book club, or alone at the kitchen table—a restorative companion for anyone who needs a framework to feel whole again, not smaller. If you are lost, numb, or newly starting over, Toxic Grid offers a map and the courage to choose yourself.
Toxic Grit: How to Have it All and (actually) Love What You Have by Amanda Goetz