DNF at 22%.

As an eating disorder clinician, I am really disappointed by this book. The author’s testimony from lived experience describes disordered eating behavior in enough detail to trigger someone with an eating disorder or in recovery but leaves the details of why and how he decided to make a change unhelpfully vague. He is also weirdly confident that he didn’t have an eating disorder. Since I am not his clinician and don’t have all the details of how he was eating during this period, I can’t say for sure he did, but what he describes really sounds a hell of a lot like an eating disorder.

His advice is frequently contradictory and really suffers from the absence of an eating disorder-informed lens. He correctly points out the danger of categorizing food as “good” or “bad,” but only after describing some foods are “healthy” (so, good) and “unhealthy” (so, bad). He makes sweeping, pseudoscientific claims about the dangers of ultra-processed foods and the longterm viability of dietary weight-loss interventions. He recommends people with body dysmorphia (who are at high risk of developing an eating disorder if they don’t already have one) start by focusing on things like “portion control” and cutting out sugar and only later go on to address trauma or the impact of minority stress on mental health.

If you are a gay man struggling with body dysmorphia, I would strongly recommend looking into the work of Aaron Flores, RD, instead.

O’Shaughnessy struggled with body image for years, especially within the context of the queer communities he was part of and where he sought approval. In "Letting Go of Perfect", he details some of the lessons he's learned from lived experience and his work as a nutritionist.

I'll go ahead and qualify this review by saying that I'm not a gay man and I don't have personal experience with body dysmorphia, so I'm not the target audience for this book. I read it because I've read quite a bit about eating disorders and body image, and I'm always curious about different perspectives. O’Shaughnessy comes at it with a lot of compassion, acknowledging the internal and external factors that can contribute to body image issues and dysmorphia.

As much as I appreciated the intent here, though, I struggled with the book. The structure is a bit "everything but the kitchen sink", with a lot of lists that feel like something of a rapid-fire overview rather than in-depth experience or advice. Because of the lists, I ended up doing quite a lot of skimming, which is extremely unusual for me and books.

There's a lot of generalization here ("particularly significant for gay men"; "especially when it intersects with body image within the gay community"; "for many gay individuals, especially those [...], life often becomes"; "in many fitness spaces, particularly in the gay community, there is often"...), and I wasn't sure what to make of that—I think I would have liked to see more hard research worked in, because although I have no doubt that gay men face different body image considerations than other populations, it was never clear to me whether O’Shaughnessy's many "particularly"s and "especially"s were meant only relative to straight men or something else. I'm not here to put body image struggles on a scale (no pun intended), but if you're going to tell me that something is particularly difficult for a certain group, I want to know who the comparison population is and what research this is based on.

A lot of the advice here is basically solid, if broad. Some of it gave me pause, though. I am still not sure why one of the first topics in the book is blood sugar balance, which to me felt like another set of food rules on top of whatever internal rules someone who might be struggling with food might already have, and before any other real discussion of those struggles took place. And while I can imagine some readers finding value in O’Shaughnessy's journal exercises and so on, some of the tasks felt appropriate only for those in a very specific place. "Try setting your strict dietary rules aside and eating whatever you want once a week" (not a direct quote), for example, would be manageable for some people, but for others it might lead to bingeing. I suspect (just a guess, mind) that the things O’Shaughnessy chose to put in here are the ones he found most useful in his own journey, which is of course fine, but it's worth remembering that everyone's path is different, and there are a lot more experiences and resources out there.

So where does this leave us? There's value in validation and seeing some of your own experience in a book, so I can imagine parts of this one being useful to folks with body dysmorphia or body image difficulties (two different things, but though the book officially focuses on the former I think the latter is more applicable for a lot of it) who feel more heard by resources aimed specifically at gay men or even more specifically at gay men who are part of a particular scene. But I'd approach it with caution and suggest using it only in conjunction with other resources, therapy, etc.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

As a gay man who has lived with body dysmorphia for as long as I can remember, I came to this book with high hopes but also with a degree of caution. So often, books that touch on eating, body image, or health either simplify the story or leave me feeling erased. What Daniel has done here is something completely different. He manages to honour the full messiness of lived experience as a gay man, while also weaving in research, reflection, and compassion.

What struck me most is that he doesn’t claim to have "the" answer. Instead, he opens up a conversation, one that acknowledges complexity, contradiction, and the fact that no single framework captures the whole truth of how queer men live in and with our bodies. That humility is powerful, because it leaves space for readers like me to locate ourselves in the narrative, rather than feeling told what we “should” be doing or thinking.

The writing is generous, thoughtful, and brave. At times it’s raw, but it never feels sensationalist. Daniel’s willingness to share his story without presenting it as a universal blueprint is precisely what makes it so resonant. It reminded me that healing is rarely linear, that science and lived experience can coexist, and that it is possible to find gentleness even in places marked by shame and struggle.

If you are a gay man wrestling with body image, or someone who cares about the intersection of identity, food, and self-worth, this book is a treasure trove... not only for insight but also for solidarity. It is a wonderfully affirming read, one that left me feeling less alone, and more hopeful.

A really well thought-out and sensitively handled book, O'Shaughnessy brings a personal and academic look at the difficulties of body image issues and their prevalence among gay men. This was a book I wish I had had when I was a teenager and is still helpful now, twenty years later!

I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

4.5⭐️
A must-read for any gay man who's struggled with how they look and feel in their skin ❤️

Thorough, honest, and balanced. There are plenty of books that deal with body dismorphia, but this book captures the intersectionality of chasing a certain body type, never accepting how one's own body behaves, and learning to be at peace with one's own health. This was a fantastic analysis and workbook to get in touch with your body and love it whole-heartedly.