Genre: Non-Fiction/Self-Help/Feminism
Publishing Date: 14 May 2019
Date Finished Reading: 29 October 2019

The ultimate guide to building confidence in your body, beauty, clothes and life in an era of toxic social media-driven beauty standards.

This book is honest. Too honest that you will be defensive while reading it. And people don’t like too much honesty. We like our truths – partial truths packed with sugar-coated lies simply because it makes us feel better, you know… not hearing raw facts, most especially when the topic at hand includes body image.

Beyond Beautiful proves how we always focus on the negative things about our appearance instead of highlighting our assets or the things that make us proud and attractive. Wala naman atang taong walang insecurities sa katawan.

Insecurities begin at home…

Most of the responses included in this book starts with:

My mom…
My parents…
I have 3 sisters…
My family…

So I would safely assume that a person’s perception of herself/himself starts at home. If the child grows up in a secure environment, the child will grow up confident (but hopefully not Miranda Sings level, tho) But when raised in an environment where they see the adults are very concerned about weight & appearance, most likely they will do the same and give importance on external beauty.

ON BODY IMAGE

According to Joel Kevin, a psychologist, body image consists of three components:

1. PERCEPTION - the mental picture you have of the way you look
2. INTERPRETATION - your emotions and thoughts about that picture
3. BEHAVIOUR - actions in response to it (anything you do to improve/maintain the appearance - dieting, makeup)

And these components reinforce each other.

This book is supposed to help the readers overcome body shaming or show the correct way of handling body image-related issues which include ageing, social media, beauty standards, cosmetic surgery and a lot more. Very interesting and insightful, if I may say.

But I like my PRETTY…

The message of the author is this:

It’s great if you do all those things (shaving your legs, putting makeup, etc.) for yourself and because you enjoy & like it and not because that’s what the society expects from you. Pearls & diamonds on your 30s? Sure! Wear it! Use it because you love them and not because  you want to portray a certain image to be accepted by the better part of society.

Self-love was presented in a thought-provoking, straightforward manner. There were times when I disagreed mainly because I feel attacked. Yes, I was guilty and defensive, but then I try absorbing the content & analysed and hey! Anuschka’s right. We need to focus on our assets than always pointing out our flaws.

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I’m giving this 3 stars because while reading it, I didn’t feel that I want to finish it right away.  This is the kind of non-fiction book that I move away from but I picked it anyway out of curiosity and well, the subject is very timely and everyone can relate. However, this is like a book of facts and while there were stories shared, they are more of collected statements from people and as a reader, I did not feel that kind of connection that I was looking for where I can say “YES, GIRL!” 

About the Author

Anuschka Rees is a writer, ex-serial-dieter, and former beauty-fanatic. Despite growing up in the era of female empowerment and body positivity, she spent much of her twenties trying to fix yet another imagined “flaw,” researching diets, and comparing herself to attractive people on Instagram. Eventually, she decided to put her INTJ mind to good use and see if she could find concrete, applicable advice for women like her, whose insecurities are keeping them from living their best life. Anuschka’s first book The Curated Closet was a bestseller and has been translated into five languages. She lives in Berlin, Germany with her cats, books, and boyfriend.

Find the book here:

GOODREADS | BOOK DEPOSITORY

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