Ikigai for Teens: Finding Your Reason for Being by Hector Garcia Puigcerver

Ikigai for Teens: Finding Your Reason for Being Reviews

• 
  Vanessa

  I read this book just after the adult version by the same authors. This was much better. The other was a list of good things to do in life to have a good life. This was much more about finding your path.
• 
  Rie Hama

  I liked the adult version of the ikigai book a lot so I read this version too, thinking a “for teens” book may have more simple directions.
  
  I think it is a good book for teens , I would like to gift this to my nephew and my child later on when she’s older, but for adults’ reading, this book is a bit “not enough”. The author has some good topics and shares some real person examples, but it’s so short and simple - made me wonder if it is done purposedly to suit teens’ still growing patience? For an adult it was just a bit lacking.
  
  There was a topic about how to make friends. The author start by describing the type of friends. As to “how to make them?” It was… uhh… quite lacking. The one phrase instruction maybe enough for some teens, but come on, if I was a teen who had difficulty making friends and saw that one phrase about how to make friends, I will get angry at the book.
  
  Overall, as general pointers for kids, the book is good. Just don’t expect anything deep.
• 
  Rich E. Vander Klok

  I read this to see if I wanted to add it to my high school classroom library. It would be a better fit for a junior high or freshman classroom. It's too simplified for juniors and seniors. There are parts of it that would make good excerpts for quick reads, and I plan to read the book it's adapted from. Maybe older teens will relate to that book.
• 
  Ayushman Bhattacharjee

  The book which I needed for such a long time. Ikigai is a broad concept followed by hundreds of millions of people, knowingly or unknowingly, and it has reminded me of "creating" and "actually living" my own life. This book has constantly urged about following your motives, purpose and passion which is very important to create a significant difference in today's world, while it is also true that things must be accepted and done at slow and observing pace. Learning about Ogimi is a big plus in the book, that demonstrates there is more to life than just work. Oh, props for the Namek example for giving me a new perspective to my career and life-decisions. Great book, and if you are another teen like me who needs practical guidance and reminders about life and career, this book should be the first and finest choice. :)
• 
  Evie

  First and foremost, I appreciate a secular book for teens guiding them on how to find their purpose in life. I wish I had this book when I was a struggling teen.
  
  Yes, this is a “teen edition” of a popular adult book that already exists; therefore, my critiques about this edition may be non-existent or “solved” in the “adult edition,” but as they are systemic societal issues, I doubt they are addressed in there as well.
  
  1) I know that the authors have lived in Japan for many years, but it still bugs me that it’s essentially white guys educating 60 countries worth of potential readers on Japanese cultural concept rather than a native. That does not diminish the value of their work, but rather that we need to increase opportunities for minorities in publishing so that they can write their own lived-experiences and culture. I’m white bread so I can’t say if they were offensive or not to Japanese culture for reducing down most references to pop culture, but I digress.
  
  2) The writers frame this book through a painfully abled old cis straight white male perspective. Sure, they mention inspirational people of color throughout, but their lens is painfully limited to middle and upper-middle class teens. No acknowledgement that structural, systemic issues sometimes thwart the “search for meaning” for a majority (yes, a majority) of women, poc, and other minorities (compounded by the more minority groups an individual identifies with). The authors were also anti-technology with their sentiments through The Nightingale story that “virtual reality” is responsible for making youngins’ lives less fulfilling. For a book published in 2021 with the benefit of living through a global pandemic, they grossly undermine the profound benefits and conveniences of technology on modern-day society. Para-social relationships were paramount to weathering the pandemic, something neurodiverse and other marginalized people have known for decades. And although they did mention neurodiverse people like Tony Hawk and Greta Thunberg in their inspirational examples, that’s a low bar considering how famous and “buzzy” their names are, especially when this book was probably getting sanitized.
  
  3) This book is fat-phobic when it lists a key tenant of an ikegai life as “not eating too much food, especially junk food.” For the love of God, they don’t have to be fat positive, but could they at least be body-neutral? Licensed nutritionists know that the key to a good diet is not “avoiding eating to excess” but rather eating a BALANCED diet with lean proteins, unprocessed carbs, fats, and veggies. To minimize excessive weight as being solely from “eating too much—especially junk food” is regressive, ignores the complexity of the obesity crisis even our best doctors and scientists in the world can’t solve, and completely out of place in a book that’s supposed to be about finding your purpose in life. Why does self-actualization, arguably “nourishing your soul,” have to have anything to do with the physical body?
  
  4) The last chapter on finding love was completely unnecessary. Attributing romantic and xual relationships as an integral human experience excludes a currently estimated 1% of the human population that identifies as asexual and/or aromantic. They feel no desire for X or romance and they should not be made to feel sub-human due to society’s obsession with one very particular type of “superior” love. Familial love matters and so does platonic love. And neither romantic love nor xual attraction are “above” these other forms of love.
  
  5) Some of the “inspirations” they chose have been known problematics that the school system still pushes (for some reason). Edison stole experiments from other inventors and conducted horrific experiments, Steve Jobs was the talking head of Apple whereas Wozniak was arguably the brains, and Arnold Schwartzanegar had any number of affairs and had absolutely no relevant experience whatsoever to become a mayor of a town let alone a governor of the most populous state in the US.
  
  6) They reduce success down to “personal responsibility” when we really need to be holding corporations and industry responsible for the worldwide issues THEY have caused, not individuals. When 80% of pollution is done by industry, personal recycling can only account for a maximum of 1/5 of the problem. Corporations have repeatedly used marketers and lawyers to circumvent accountability for their actions to give as many opportunities for loopholes and dodging their ethical responsibility to stop killing our planet and exploiting the workers to increase their bottom line.
  
  They reduced everything down to sanitized, camouflaged chunks of “wisdom” on how truly easy it is to succeed in the world as long as you have the guidance and vision to achieve it—the world is a lot more complex than that, but this could again be pressure from the publishers on excluding nuance in nonfiction books for minors (and/or resulting in fewer localization content censorship jobs).
  
  TLDR: this book is almost every bad “ist” in the book for not acknowledging and challenging the frameworks of our broken society. But so is the American education system.
  
  
  *This was supposed to be a lighthearted book yet I somehow turned it into a critical theory dissertation with a social justice emphasis. My review is basically ranting at society, but since this book is enforcing those norms to children (like the public education system) I got mad, I guess. I used this book as a proxy for the American education system, oops.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Sonakshi

  Though I am past teen age I thought that I can try to read this one to see what I need to do or think differently. This is an amazing reminder of what you wish to do and what you didn’t do early in your life.
  I love the examples presented in this from life. It’s written with very simple language and should be a great tool for teens.
  I found it a great read.
• 
  Abby Crow

  Inspiring book. Picked up for my teen and enjoyed reading (and learning) myself.
  
  “That oracle stuff is just a myth—it’s never worked. Neither the oracle nor anyone else will ever be able to tell you for sure what you excel at. Only you can discover that, with a modicum of experience and a smidgen of observation.”
• 
  Johanna 🍓

  A cute book with some easy exercises that make ya think. My favorite was writing down all the jobs I’m NOT going to have 😅
  
  “Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.“
• 
  Arminzerella

  Finding/discovering a meaningful (to you) purpose for your life is important and ikigai has much to offer folks who are on that journey. Some teens may appreciate this guide as a starting point. I didn't like the framing (as a second person POV expedition).
• 
  Pankaj Mishra

  Trash. Below average book. It feels to me that the author is just cashing name of his already famous book. Explained(poorly) random famous quotes from other people without any value addition. Not recommended.
• 
  Nopadol Rompho

  Great book for parents and teens. Do what you love, what you are good at, what you can be paid for, and what the world needs. That's your Ikigai.
• 
  Rohit Mewada

  Ye book Aap ikigai book read karne ke bass read Kare.
  
  Iss book me ek story ke thorough bataya hai kaise ham apni ikigai Khoj skate hai.
• 
  Meet Samdani

  A great book for teens to improve their vocabulary and to reach their goals
• 
  Tamanna Sethia

  It truly changed the way I look at life and that makes me more confident in who I am. Since the font is BIG and the page are LESS, it was FAST to read! Fast paced AF?!
• 
  a chia seed

  very
  very
  *thought provoking*.
  reread material for sure.
• 
  Ellen

  Ikigai For Teens - Finding Your Reason for Being is a quick and easy read, well written and insightful. Originally purchased for my daughter (there is an adult version translated into 56 languages), I did enjoy the authors’ inspiration, tips on work ethic and examples for young people to find their ikigai, translated into “life goal” or “a worthwhile life.” It didn’t focus on how to get into college, score well on exams or make a lot of money. It was about being happy in what you do, purpose. Your ikigai can change throughout your life, and that’s okay. Finding what you love, what you are good at, what you can be paid for and what the world needs will give you passion, mission, profession and vocation, in turn, your ikigai. I would recommend it for younger readers as it is written.