Review: Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster's Daughter by Shoko Tendo

4 stars for Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster's Daughter by Shoko Tendo.

I am blessed to be gifted a copy of this book in July 2017. I have finally read it. Two years late. But better late than never.

Seriously, this book is not what I will have expected, even though I did not really hold any expectations prior to reading it. Still, I do not expect it to be such a heart-rending story, a true life story that is filled with bullying, delinquency, drugs, imprisonment, love, violence, marriage, divorce, debt, eating disorders, attempted suicide, sickness, and death.

Though this is a memoir by a Yakuza's daughter, bulk of the story centers on herself and her downward spiral to drug abuse rather than that of her family and especially her father, the Yakuza. Yes, this book is a very brave end product of the baring of truths, of a life lived in the pit of despair and misery, but I will gladly welcome more shedding of light about the life and inner workings of a Yakuza.

Wisdom comes with knowledge.
Knowledge comes with experience.
Experience comes with age.
Age comes with time.

With knowledge, experience and time, I hope that Shoko Tendo is finally living her life the way she wants it and is now at peace with herself and her family.


Publisher: Kodansha International; Reprint edition
Publication date: 7 Sep 2012

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Yakuza Moon is the shocking, yet intensely moving memoir of 37-year-old Shoko Tendo, who grew up the daughter of a yakuza boss. Tendo lived her life in luxury until the age of six, when her father was sent to prison and her family fell into terrible debt. Bullied by classmates and terrorized at home by a father who became a drunken, violent monster after his release from prison, Tendo rebelled. A regular visitor to nightclubs at the age of 12, she soon became a drug addict and a member of a girl gang. At 15 she was sentenced to eight months in a juvenile detention center.

Adulthood brought big bucks and glamour when Tendo started working as a bar hostess during Japan's booming bubble economy of the nineteen-eighties. But among her many rich and loyal patrons there were also abusive clients, one of whom beat her so badly that her face was left permanently scarred. When her mother died, Tendo plunged into such a deep depression that she tried to commit suicide twice.
Tendo takes us through the bad times with warmth and candor, and gives a moving and inspiring account of how she overcame a lifetime of discrimination and hardship. Getting tattooed, from the base of her neck to the tips of her toes, with a design centered on a geisha with a dagger in her mouth, was an act that empowered her to start making changes in her life. She quit her job as a hostess. On her last day at the bar she looked up at the full moon, a sight she never forgot. The moon became a symbol of her struggle to become whole, and the title of the book she wrote as an epitaph for herself and her family.

*Blurb from Goodreads*

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