"Our mind and our thoughts are so powerful. When we focus on something that we don't like about ourselves or when we hone in on it too much, we start magnifying the negative versus the positive. We lose perspective. But the reality is, it is not as bad as think. But because we get so consumed by it, that's all we think about, and it seems worse."

Accurate!

An extremely short memoir and quick read that focuses on the author's struggles with her insecurities, toxic relationships and marriage, and body positivity. Although heartfelt and occasionally relatable, I feel like the book lacked depth and seemed more like a series of blog posts. There was no much insight into Japanese beauty standards unlike what the title suggests. It was also quite forgettable despite reinforcing body positivity, such that I had to flip it open again in order to write this review.

To sum it up, the author is likeable (an integral component of memoirs) but the book is not very well-written or polished. However, I appreciate learning about the author's journey of strength, courage and overcoming adversity.

This was a very short and rather heartbreaking book to read. It's not so much a self-help book as a memoir of a resilient woman who successfully made her way through the stumbling blocks that life tossed at her and came out on the other side just fine. It does offer some nuggets of advice here and there on the way through, so it's a useful teaching tool for anyone who is on that same journey. When I first began to read this, the opening sentence threw me for a loop. It said, "When you were a neighborhood children appearance?" Say what?! I remember thinking, if the whole book is like this, I'm in trouble and so is the author, but after that one sentence, it was fine. The author, aka T-mo, sure as hell speaks English far better than I will ever speak Japanese!

To me it was interesting to learn that an Asian society like Japan - typically considered a polite one by we in the west - isn't any kinder than we are in when it comes to childhood bullying and body-shaming. Because the author did not conform to the 'norm' she was made to suffer for it by being called names. While she never let this get her down, such an onslaught of abusiveness, even when relatively mild, will without a doubt play tricks on the mind and leave its mark. That's a stain on the soul that can be hard to erase, but this author did it. You can too.

All of my negatives on this book were about production issues, not about the actual content. Talking of which though, the content list was messed up. On my phone in the Kindle app, each entry stretched over two lines, making it look truly messy. It was all in light blue text except for the photo credits at the end, which was in red for some reason.

There was a foreword and an introduction, both of which I skipped as I routinely do in every book I read that contains them. I have no time for stuff like that, or for prefaces and prologues. For me, if you want me to read it, put it right there in chapter one, otherwise I don't consider it important enough to spend time on, but this isn't a problem with the book per se, it's just a personal preference.

There's a section around 92% in that lists some reminders the author wanted to reiterate. These were formatted oddly, I suspect through Amazon Kindle's crappy conversion process into their proprietary format, which will mangle anything that's not plain vanilla text. The section was supposed to be a bulleted list, I guess, but rather than bullets, the list had little question marks each contained in its own tiny square! The third item in this list (beginning 'Eat, move, and find...') was in red text, whereas all the others were normal. Dunno what was up with that. Again, I blame Kindle.

Some of the gray-scale photographs included were split (again, I assume by Kindle's crappy conversion process) into two or more sections. Why Amazon doesn't fix this ongoing issue I do not know. This is one of several reasons why I refuse to do business with them. The last photo, which would have looked quite charming, was split into two sections, and the bottom half - so to speak! - had a black line through it, thereby ruining the impact of the photo.

That photo though pretty much summed up the issue. In my opinion - and not that I consider myself a judge by any means - there is literally not a damned thing wrong with the author's physical appearance, but this just goes to show how much ridiculous pressure is put on women by our society to conform to certain so-called 'norms' and physical templates that are all-too-often not set up by the women they exclude, but by old white men telling women how they should look, what they should put on their faces, and what they should wear. Here's a quote from my just released novel Shiftless in Galveston:

The CEOs of L'Oréal and Procter & Gamble were old white guys these days. Even Estée Lauder isn't a woman any more. As for Johnson & Johnson, it's right there in the company name. "It ought to be called Penis & Penis!" Crystina had joked.
Anyone who doesn't follow those rules endures what the author evidently endured and I'm sorry that she - or anyone else, male or female or anywhere in between for that matter - had to go through this.
As far as this book goes I commend it as a worthy read.

ME AND THE JAPANESE BEAUTY STANDARDS by Tomomi Tsuchio The author shares her life experiences and transformation from the influence of social media and traditional cultural standards. She shares a different perspectives and exercises to a help gain confidence and acceptance for one's self. An inspiring book.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book.

A book with a difference. A well written book. It certainly interesting. Thank you to both NetGalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book

A wonderful book, very interesting, eye opening as it makes you see things all around that you hadn’t considered before, the media and society. Very inspiring to read, it lifts you as you read it and I couldn’t put it down. This is so motivational and helps you accept the wonderful person that you are, that you can be happy with your life exactly as it is, because on the whole life is what you make it. If you are brave enough to try, this book is a great place to start.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion