Beyond Beautiful

A Practical Guide to Being Happy, Confident, and You in a Looks-Obsessed World

By: Anuschka Rees

Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld

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

“A self-confidence bible that every woman should read.”—Caroline Dooner, author of The F*ck It Diet

Empowering, insightful, and psychology-driven, Beyond Beautiful is filled with proven, no-BS strategies for proactive self-care. This stylish and practical handbook takes a deep-dive into all of the factors that make it hard to feel good about yourself, and offers sage answers to tricky questions, like:

• Why do I hate the way I look in pictures?
• How can I stop feeling like a total slob compared to everyone on social media?
• How exactly does this "self-love" thing work?
• How do I find the confidence to use less make up, stop shaving, or wear what I want?
• Is body positivity really the answer?

Illustrated with full-color art, Beyond Beautiful is a much-needed breath of fresh air that will help you live your best life, know your worth, and stop wasting any more precious energy and mental space worrying about the way you look.

Praise for Beyond Beautiful

“This compact book delves into every aspect of the body-image problem and sets forth feasible ideas for accepting one’s physical appearance to enhance confidence and joy.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“Rees’s emboldening message will surely help any reader struggling with self-confidence.”—Publishers Weekly

Critic reviews

“This compact book delves into every aspect of the body-image problem and sets forth feasible ideas for accepting one’s physical appearance to enhance confidence and joy.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“Rees’s emboldening message will surely help any reader struggling with self-confidence.”—Publishers Weekly

Accessible, quick read; great for young women

Great Xmas gift for the young women in your life.

It’s a contemporary, conversational rewrite of many classics like Naomi wolf’s the beauty myth.

Should be required reading for all women :)

Well-researched, but UNREALISTIC

I really wanted to like this book and do feel that there are so many excellent points the author brought up. The main premise is that societal norms and marketing campaigns have put us in this spiral of painful, expensive, and now “necessary” beauty constructs. The author’s take is that we should just get over it and ignore these things, as the injustice they are. THE PROBLEM WITH THAT IS, obviously that men (who we want to attract either in dating or to keep a husband interested) have also been conditioned by this society and expect these standards. I so deeply wish that was not the case with every fiber of my being — well knowing that the qualities we express are infinitely more important than our physical appearances, AND YET, if you want men to want you, then you need to look at least a little bit appealing by today’s standards. (And no, of course, attracting men is not the only thing that we are good for, but anybody who attempts to say that they are not concerned with finding a loving sense of companionship, is absolutely lying to themselves.)

Generic self help

Generic, no new information. A self help book with little substance. I wanted more from it.

Good for getting into sleep

I have to thank this book for putting me into sleep after struggling with longstanding insomnia. For this purpose, it's great. Otherwise, there were lots of reports of how women experienced their body since childhood, but it wasn't going anywhere closer to deep analysis or methodology of how to cope with the wrong body image.