The Insatiable Quest for Beauty

by Tiffany Dawn

A young woman's guide to overcoming our culture's obsession with perfection

Genres: Nonfiction

167 pages, Paperback

First published May 21, 2012

Reviews

[Lindsey (Books for Christian Girls) · Rating 4 out of 5]

About this book:

“At 17 years of age, Tiffany was willing to pay any price to be "good enough." Her attempts only led to hating herself, drowning in disordered eating, and deciding she was not the kind of girl that guys fall in love with. Join Tiffany for twelve "coffee dates" as she spills her heart onto these pages, sharing the steps that helped lead her to freedom.”


Series: No.


Spiritual Content- Prayers; Over 60 Scriptures are referenced, mentioned and/or quoted; All about God, our relationship with Him, confidence & trusting; ‘H’s are capital when referring to God; Mentions of talks about God; Mentions of prayers; Mentions of Bible reading, Bible classes & singing; Mentions of those in the Bible; Mentions of Church, Sunday School & sermons; Mentions of Christian homes; A couple mentions of missionaries; Christian authors & singers are mentioned and/or quoted;
*Note: A mention of a Buddha statue.


Negative Content- Minor cussing including: a ‘heck’, an ‘idiot’, ‘jeez’, an ‘oh my word’, and two ‘stupid’s; A mention of drugs;
*Note: A few mentions of brand names (Abercrombie & Victoria’s Secret); Mentions of Starbucks.


Sexual Content- a barely-above-not-detailed kiss; All about The Insatiable Quest for Beauty; four forms of ‘sexy’ and six forms of ‘hot’; Many, many, many mentions of eating disorders, losing weight & binge eating (the author talks about her past struggles with disordered eating); Many, many, many, mentions of boyfriends, girlfriends, dating, exes, breakups, & all that drama; Many mentions of boys & being boy-crazy (and mentions of the author’s other book which is all about “boys, singleness, sex, and dating”); Mentions of kissing & kisses; Mentions of flirting & winks; Mentions of guys checking girls out; Mentions of the woman in the Bible (Ezekiel 16) who “gave her body to pretty much every guy man she met, sleeping with so many guys she probably lost count a long time ago.”; A mention of David from the Bible knocking up some chick; A mention of girls rescued from sex trafficking; A mention of human trafficking; A mention of pornography;
*Note: Mentions of girls’ figures catching the attention of guys; A few mentions of outfits that show more leg & a hint of cleavage; A mention of super short-shorts & a guy leering at her; A mention of a pair of jeans that felt like they made her butt look bigger, hips wider, and legs thinner; A mention of some guys only noticing girls’ chests or butts when looking at them; A mention of a booty call; A mention that the author wishes her butt was a bit bigger (but that she “will resign to the flat butt life. Or wear padded underwear.”); A mention of marching a butt someplace; A mention of a baby falling on its butt; A mention of a period; A mention of a used tampon.

{Non-fiction}
198 pages

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Pre Teens- One Star (and a half)
New Teens- Three Stars
Early High School Teens- Four Stars
Older High School Teens- Four Stars
My personal Rating- Four Stars
{Add 1-3 stars for girls dealing with self-worth, disordered eating, and/or beauty.}
To be honest, I was afraid that this would be a type teen girl inward beauty book. You know, the books published by moms basically saying: Don’t sleep around, God loves you, focus on inward beauty when you don’t feel beautiful. I can honestly say I have read so many non-fictions for teen girls about those topics, that I can usually list the bullet points for each chapter before starting them. {Don't get me wrong, that's all great and good, but it gets tiring after the fifth book.} Now, “The Insatiable Quest for Beauty” was completely different. And let me just say, when I read this part, I literally set the book down and just started clapping.
“The more I thought about it, the more I realized that both the Christian and secular parts of our world place a huge emphasis on beauty. In our culture, we’re told that we have to be beautiful outwardly to be confident. In Christian circles, we’re told to take confidence either in our inward beauty or in believing God says we are beautiful.
I started to realize that in all of those situations, we are still focusing on beauty. We are still acting like we have to feel beautiful in order to feel good about ourselves. But now I’ve come to realize: That’s just not true.”
Can I just--?!*praise hands emoji* Just, yes! Yes, yes, yes! I truly enjoyed Miss Tiffany Dawn’s {it’s so weird for me to put a Miss in front of Tiffany, since that’s my sister’s name. She’s Tiffany Sharee, not Dawn though. ;) } voice & quirky personality. (Being a spy for God & His mission? I’m all in!) By reading all these coffee dates with Miss Tiffany, I couldn’t help but feel connected to her by the end. All the bonus stuff on her website for the end of each chapter was really neat. The prayer for the woman reading her book at the very end of “The Insatiable Quest for Beauty” was so sweet and very touching (and a wonderful surprise. I always feel special when an author thanks the reader for reading in the acknowledgments, but a super touching prayer over the reader? Now that takes the cake.) And when the author says she went to China on a mission trip at age 15, well, that just sealed her spot on my women-I-look-up-to list. ;)


Link to review:
https://booksforchristiangirls.blogsp...


*BFCG may (Read the review to see) recommend this book by this author. It does not mean I recommend all the books by this author.
*I received this book for free from the Author for this honest review.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was beauitful! And a perfect read for teen girls. Not every aspect that she addressed I have experienced, but there were a lot of good reminders and encouragement to girls struggling with being beauitful. As I was reading this book I was reminded of Ps. 139:14, "I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are they works; and that my soul knoweth right well."

I haven't read many books that really focus on the issues of "wanting to be beauitful," and it was a huge reminder of where our focus needs to be--in Jesus Christ!

[Amanda Beguerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5 Stars.

The Insatiable Quest for Beauty was a worthwhile read for me. It addresses questions and problems we all face from time to time, regarding not feeling beautiful or valued and trying to find the answers to those questions in all different places, including in relationships, disordered eating, obsession with appearances, and more.

Cutting to the heart of the matter, Tiffany does not discredit wanting to look good at all. Looking good is a good thing, but only if it doesn’t become an obsession or addiction. If we go to destructive habits like dating toxic people for attention or trying to lose excessive weight when it’s totally unnecessary, it damages us.

Additionally, looking in the mirror and telling yourself “I’m beautiful” every day isn’t changing the problem. The issue is being so self-absorbed that you cannot think of anything else but yourself, whether positive or negative.

Tiffany makes the point that we must keep our eyes on God. We must look to Him to remind us that we are unconditionally loved, and not just physically attractive. We must take the focus off us ourselves and realize the One who truly matters – our Lord.

The Insatiable Quest for Beauty is about more than finding confidence within ourselves, but about being confident in how God sees us. He sees us as blameless and pure because of what Jesus did, and not because of what we do.

I don’t particularly struggle with my appearance, but it was a good read and I am glad that I read it.

The format and writing were not my favorite, but they did not take away from the content and impact of the book. If I were writing it, I would have done it differently. The “coffee date” style and the chapter organization, along with the broken-up format made it unique enough to stand out, and perhaps other people will like that aspect of it more than I did.

Lastly, I didn’t agree with completely everything that was said (more on a theological aspect than anything else), but the message of the book was definitely valuable enough for me to read the whole book and enjoy it.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own and I was not influenced in any way.

[Lydia Howe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodness! Where do I even start? This book was one of those fantastic books that you want to hand to everyone and then sit back and watch them read it. (Okay, maybe not everyone as this book is seriously focused on girls for the audience.)

I bought this book after listening to Lindsey from BFCG (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCasr...) read a quote from it in one of her vlogs. Yes, that's right: One quote and I was hooked.

When I sat down with the book the story drew me in completely right away. I rarely get so into a nonfiction book, because as much as I like them, they're just a wee bit harder for me to connect with for some reason. But this book was an exception. I read the book in one *one* sitting. That's how amazing it was.

Miss Tiffany is incredibly honest in the book, but in such a way that I didn't feel like she was dwelling on her past mistakes or making us feel sorry for her. Instead we got to learn from what she went through.

I never dealt with the issues that Miss Tiffany dealt with, but the principles she learned, and how she worked through her problems were spot-on for helping me with what I *have* gone through in life.

This book is one of the best I've read this year, and I'm about to buy her other book so I can read it to. I highly recommend this book to girls of any age, and happily give it five stars.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

For the last month or so, I've been doing a lot of self-reflection. This book has been one of the ways in which I've attempted to look at things differently. I don't want to go through my entire testimony of self-discovery and discovering my own self-worth (I'm still working on it, to be honest), but I feel like I've come a long way and a lot of how my thinking and perspectives have changed has to do with this book. It's made me realize that I'm not alone in my struggles with beauty, or being good enough, or struggling with the fact that I had no "real" testimony. The entire point of this book was to help young women discover their "insatiable quest." What is it that they keep striving for but will never be happy with the outcome? In my case, it's perfectionism--feeling let down when I don't do something perfectly the first time around, feeling sad when I don't feel perfect. It's become something that has eaten up my mind. Letting go of your insatiable quest is difficult and letting God take over is even more so. But to be truly happy with yourself, God needs to have a say.

I really enjoyed Tiffany's voice in this book. She feels like an older sister who won't judge you because of things that have happened in your life because she's gone through some of the same things and only has your best interests at heart. She's real and openly admits that she has struggled with the concept of beauty (as most young women have). It's always, "am I pretty enough?" or "I think I'd be more lovable if I was prettier." It's always the comparison game to someone prettier and "more fit" than you. I'll admit that sometimes I struggle with this, but Tiffany is right there saying that she understands and was able to overcome those doubts with God's love.

And then the testimony thing...I've struggled with this for so long. I've had to provide a testimony for different religious organizations and people have asked me what my testimony is and I've always found myself staring at a blank page or struggling for words because if I've been a Christian my whole life, how can I have a testimony? It was so funny because as I was reading the section about testimonies, Tiffany said the exact same thing that popped into my mind while trying to get some words out. "Should I just go out, do drugs, and sleep with multiple people to give me a way to come back to God? This is how a testimony is supposed to be, right?" But she shut that down! Some of the most amazing words I have ever read came from this book because it opened my eyes to a power I didn't know I had. Even though my testimony is "boring" like I always tell people it is, Tiffany said, "God spoke to my heart...and showed me that I had the opportunity to testify of God's faithfulness, because I'd walked with Him my whole life. Whatever your story, whether you've made a ton of mistakes of whether you've walked with Him your whole life--either way, He wants to use the things you've experienced to bring life to others." And honestly, this meant so much to me. My testimony may not be grand and filled with mistakes that brought me closer to God, but because of my faith in him, I could testify for his love.

And in a lot of ways, I think this book had brought me closer to understanding God's love for me. And it makes me feel...I don't know...light, I guess.

Honestly, it's more like 4.5 stars because I think some of what was said felt "too good" to really make any difference. Tiffany made things sound like God is the only one able to satisfy us, when really there are many things that can make us happy and satisfy us--maybe that's God's will?

"As long as I was living for myself, what other people thought of me would continue to matter more than anything else. I would never be free from my quest for beauty. But when I started living like my heavenly mission was the most important thing...that's when freedom would come. Because freedom doesn't come when Jesus is just part of our lives. It comes when He is our life."

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely a recommended read to ANY woman. This book is phenomenal. Not only for those struggling in a quest for beauty, but for anyone on any quest. Also, it might show you you are chasing beauty more than you might think. Interesting, funny, conversational, and very very helpful. Pacing was great. Content was amazing.

[Morgana Burgee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love love love this book! Tiffany shares totally relatable stories that have really been an encouragement in my life. This book is so amazing. I couldn't put it down!

[Edie · Rating 4 out of 5]

We all have something that drives us. Some search that we've embarked upon. Maybe you are seeking marriage, money, a career, children, travel, or excitement. You might be in a place where you throw your whole life into that search without abandon. You think of that goal from the time you wake up until the time you lay your head down at night. Every task you perform throughout the day is done with consideration to its effect on your quest. Tiffany Dawn was on a quest. Her goal was beauty. She gave everything she had in an effort to attain what she considered a beautiful exterior. Her desperate search overcame her. When she was at rock bottom, broken, unsure what to do, God spoke to her heart. He reminded her that she was His beloved. And her healing began......

Tiffany Dawn bravely takes us through her journey in her new book The Insatiable Quest for Beauty. She opens her heart and lets us in through "Coffee Dates", passages from her old journals, and a special CD of songs she wrote and sang to accompany the book. Her story is familiar. Which of us has not struggled with insecurity? As women we seem most affected by the thoughts of others. I too easily recall the feelings of being ridiculed by others and by myself for my weight, my clothes, and my makeup. Even as a grown up I dealt with those issues in the workplace. As women we tend to be the most critical of ourselves and others. You would think we would band together to remind each other of our inward and outward beauty but instead dissatisfaction with ourselves leads us to be cruel to one another, even those we call friend. As Tiffany Dawn points out, "Our entire culture has become perfection-driven. The people we are seeing are not real people. They're all made up to look perfect, when people are not perfect." (The Insatiable Quest for Beauty)

I was just discussing that with some friends a week or so ago. I noted the change in television shows and movies from the 80s until now. In the 80s, movies showed houses that we could imagine were our own. There were dishes in the sink. Clothes in the basket. Food all jumbled up in the fridge. If you pay attention to most shows and movies now all the homes look like showcases. They don't look as though people really live in them! There are no pictures off kilter or books on the tables. That's one reason I like the television show The Middle. I can relate to them. They are like real people. The kids' rooms are dirty. There are chip bags on the counter. The dishwasher is always broken. That's real life. How hard to we strive to force real life to look like most television shows though? I want to run around and sterilize my house before anyone comes in. I want to hide all the food and dishes and crumbs as if people don't know we actually have to eat. It's so silly but it's an easy trap to fall into.

So if you are a young woman (or a middle age woman or an old woman) and you find yourself in the unending quest for beauty or perfection, I encourage you to read Tiffany Dawn's story. I think you will feel refreshed by her honesty. You will enjoy the coffee dates with her, the tips on footholds that she will give you, and the extras available online for each chapter. You can find her CD entitled This is Who I Am and you can check her website for information on her live events. I'll leave you with a parting word from the book for any of you single ladies out there:

"Don't date to find your worth, because you already have your worth. You are already valuable, and you are too precious to throw your heart at guys who don't treat you like a daughter of the King. Your worth is wrapped up in the love of Jesus Christ, not in boys." (Tiffany Dawn, The Insatiable Quest for Beauty)

I received a copy of this book and the CD from the author for the purpose of review. All opinions are my own.

[Karina (Karina's Christian Reads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Number of pages: 197

Genre: Non-fiction

Series: N/A

Age recommendation: Teen girls (15+)

Summary: The Insatiable Quest for Beauty is a retelling of Tiffany’s own life. She shares her quest for “Beauty,” thinking that only it could bring the joy, peace and affirmation she so desperately wanted.

My thoughts: I enjoyed this book quite a bit, although I think it probably would have been a lot more useful for people who have actually struggled with eating disorders and toxic relationships, because those are the main topics in the book. I mean, she does delve into the insatiable quest for anything; i.e. she mentioned getting good grades and being a ‘good enough’ Christian; just comparing yourself to others in general. That spoke to me a lot more than eating disorders. I definitely care way too much about needing to be perfect (grades and actions) rather than looking to please and bring glory to God. There’s nothing wrong with getting good grades or being a kind person, just like there’s nothing wrong with looking pretty. The problem is when those become your all-consuming passion. It’s unhealthy, and this book really made me stop and think about how awful it is to live this way. These quests are ‘insatiable’ because we can never live up to our ideal, and it’s not even something that God asks of us. All he asks is that we give ourselves back to Him by accepting the gift of His son for our sins, and then following His path.
One thing that started to get on my nerves is the way Tiffany Dawn likes to insert sarcastic comments in brackets all throughout her book. (I know, coming from me who does exactly the same thing 🙄). I guess I can’t really explain to you why I’m definitely funny and she’s not particularly amusing. Anyway, that’s more of a style thing that I just personally didn’t like.

My personal rating: 3.5/5 stars.

Link to blog: https://karinaschristianreads.wordpre...

[Diana Montgomery · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Insatiable Quest for Beauty
By: Tiffany Dawn

I loved this. I don’t have any young girls but I know how I felt growing up. We tend to let society tell us what is beautiful. Beauty to me is in the heart. You can have all the looks in the world but if your heart is ugly and vain. It is not pretty at all. I love how look at beauty in a godly way. The world looks at like we all have to be Barbie dolls. Have to have the most popular of clothes and things. I for one never got caught up in this and I still don’t. I always had the attitude like me for who I am or leave me alone. I see so many young teen girls who get so hurt over this. I think this book should go to all church’s and study done with the young girls there. Great book. Great how Tiffany told how she went throw it and how she overcame.. This book will help many young ladies.

[Lorri · Rating 3 out of 5]

A easy to understand 'guide' to help women overcome their obsession with looking perfect. It is geared more towards young women in my opinion. It has activities to do at the end of each chapter, along with a music cd that can be used along with the book. Perfect for teens and groups!


I received a complimentary copy in exchange for my opinion.