"Fu solo quando tutta la mia libertà mi fu sottratta che cominciai davvero a comprenderne l'importanza."

"Guardando fuori dalla finestra della mia camera, in primavera, vedevo i petali del ciliegio danzare nella brezza tiepida come fiocchi di neve, e il mio cuore danzava con loro. Se posavo delicatamente l'orecchio sul tronco dell'albero, mi sembrava di sentire un piccolo battito cardiaco, come se il ciliegio stesse parlando proprio con me. All'arrivo dell'estate, quando aveva ormai perso tutti i fiori, mi sdraiavo sotto le fronde e osservavo il cielo, chiedendomi come potesse essere il mondo al di là delle nubi fluttuanti. Da piccola, solo a casa potevo sentirmi davvero felice."

"Per la maggior parte del tempo venivo ignorata in modo talmente radicale da essere indotta a dubitare della mia stessa esistenza." ( )

This misery memoir is a catalogue of poor decisions and domestic abuse. The author offers no real insights into anything she does and there is little self reflection or analysis of her situation. Despite using Yakuza in the title, there is no insight into the yakuzas other than a string of violent boyfriends, and her father quits being a gangster in the second chapter.

The afterword, by Manabu Miyazaki, offers more context to the account we have just read, where he explains how the brash lifestyle of yakuzas and easy access to credit invariably leads to debts and financial ruin. This afterword slightly redeems the book and means it is not a total waste of time. ( )

I will keep this short as my review has been removed multiple times due to phone errors

I read this book in only a few hours and enjoyed it very much

This book may prove to be one in a long line of books that is not meant to be inspirational and yet proves to be so for me

A long hard life of bad decisions and hard times leads Shoko to reinvent herrself many times, each time with more and more difficulties... Although obviously her difficulties are more difficult than most of ours I think we can all relate to this


And though in the end we don't know how things turn out for her, at the end of the book at 32 years old she has reinvented yourself again and seems optimistic... The implied outcome is that even at this age we can all still reinvent ourselves and find happiness


As a 34-year-old woman, I read this and hope for the future ( )

This is Shoko Tendo's first book and it is well written. I'm sure it must have been painful for her to relive so much of her past. It's a very interesting bit of history into what the Yakuza are like and being raised around that type of environment. ( )

Shoko Tendo grew up as the daughter of a Yakuza boss in 1980’s Japan. Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster’s Daughter is her story of those years. While not a particularly well written book, I did admire her brutal honesty and the fact that she doesn’t make any excuses for herself, she simply tells us of her life.

Unfortunately this is not a book that supplied much detail about the Yakuza. Her father managed to run himself into tremendous debt and had to get out from the protection of the mob while she was still quite young. Her memories of her early age are of being bullied and called names due to her father’s connections, her father’s violent rages, and his time spent in prison while her mother had to run the businesses and his gang.

Shoko’s story is mostly about her own downward spiral, starting with running with a wild crowd at the ago of twelve, getting into sniffing paint thinner, advancing into speed. Rebelling against her parents, she instead fell into one abusive and controlling relationship after another.. She finally found personal empowerment by having herself vividly tattooed and changing her lifestyle.

I found the closing chapter of the book rather strange. It appears to be a rambling declaration asking for her parents forgiveness. I think she was actually accepting her past and forgiving herself. Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster’s Daughter is certainly far from the best book I have read this year, but I think it will be one that I remember. ( )