📷 Finding Beautiful 📷 (2019) - Book Review

MY REVIEW

Hardcover: 224 pages

Publisher: Baker Books (April 30, 2019)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 080109383X

ISBN-13: 978-0801093838

“Americans spend millions on beauty products, weight-loss programs, and age-defying medical interventions each year. We set impossible standards and feel bad about ourselves when we don't reach them. Is beauty truly that difficult to attain? Or could it be that our idea of what's beautiful is simply too narrow?

With engaging personal stories and dramatic before-and-after photography, filmmaker Rebecca Friedlander uncovers the true beauty of 12 women from various ethnicities and backgrounds, empowering us to shatter the lies of rejection, doubt, and low self-esteem. Utilizing compelling biblical truth and questions for personal reflection, Friedlander helps us identify our own personal battlegrounds, celebrate our uniqueness, and embrace God's definition of beautiful.

Anyone who loves a great makeover story or who wants to explore their unique identity will love this eye-opening book. Let's stop letting the world define beauty and start being a voice that tells the world what true beauty actually looks like.”

Thank you to Just Read Tours for selecting me to be part of the tour; and to the publisher Baker Books for sending this inspirational book. A positive review was not required. All words and thoughts are my own.

[Small, compact, and gorgeous hardback]

[Finding what true beauty is]

This is a Christian Living/Women’s self-help book by worship-leader, film-producer, and award-winning photographer Rebecca Friedlander. Additionally, this was the first book of this genre I’d ever read. These books are not really my “thing”, but this was truly amazing.

This book explores the search for “true beauty” and highlights the best of the stories from “Radical Makeovers”.

Friedlander got the idea after hearing a model’s story about feeling like a piece of meat and Friedlander’s comparison of how butcher shops discarded unwanted carcasses vs. the “meat-market” of today’s society.

The book tells about the various women and their beauty, along with their spiritual intervention with God. The “themed” chapters are told about the subject – their history, explaining the photo shoot, the author’s story relating to the theme, God’s (bible) story relating to the particular chapter, a “true beauty tip”, along with questions for reflection.

Traveling the world; from Paris, Hawaii, England, California, Israel, Ireland, places across the US and Mexico; Friedlander teaches us to not define beauty from outward appearances. She instead has us rely upon uses God’s definition to discover what true beauty is and where our transformation can begin.

Admittedly this book was outside my genre and I really don’t do the “self-help” type of books. But, something about this book seemed to reach out to me.

If you enjoy an inspirational read with Christian inspiration as well as biblical quotes, you will definitely enjoy this read. I honestly couldn’t put it down once I got it! I had to force myself to stop so I could soak it all in and really receive the messages in it. I definitely felt myself changed by it and do feel better about myself after reading it.

I’ll definitely be re-reading it again – especially for the reflection questions.

5⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rebecca Friedlander has been in full-time ministry for 17 years, ministering both locally and internationally using creative arts and music. As a worship leader, she has copyrighted more than three hundred songs and released thirteen CDs. She is also a film producer and award-winning photographer, her productions include Seeds TV, Girl Perfect, Pioneers, A Southeast Alaskan Odyssey, Spiritual Warfare 101, Celtic Pilgrimage, and Thin Places. Her newest production, Radical Makeovers, is a TV series about beauty, featuring makeovers and testimonies of thirty women around the world who have overcome image-related issues. The author of eight books, Rebecca lives in San Diego, California. Learn more at www.rebeccafriedlander.com for more information. 

You can follow her on the following social media accounts:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RebeccaFriedlanderProductions/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rebeccafriedlander/ 

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