Read the Face by Eric Standop

Read the Face by Eric Standop with Elisa Petrini ISBN-13: 9781250217059 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: St. Martin's Essentials Released: Oct. 1, 2019

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
We are born face readers—knowing to seek out human features and faces from the moment our eyes open. We all have the intuitive ability to read and interpret the feelings and expressions of those around us.

In Read the Face, master face reader Eric Standop unlocks the power of this innate human ability, sharing his own journey to become a face reading master, along with stories that illustrate the power of this unique language. Using a combination of three different schools of face reading, along with a scientific accuracy to detect the most fleeting microexpressions, Standop is able to read personality, character, emotions, and even the state of a person’s health—all from studying their face.

The book is divided into sections focusing on specific ways that face reading can offer insight, such as Health, Love, Communication, Work and Success. The stories are accompanied by black and white illustrations of faces, allowing readers to observe the same features that Standop interpreted. The final section of the book outlines the meanings of dozens of facial features and face shapes, so that readers can recognize their own innate intuitive powers and develop them.


My Review:
Read the Face is about face reading for insights into personality, character, life purpose, love, and health. (Reading, as in, a vertical wrinkle on the bridge of your nose between your eyebrows means that you're determined or stubborn.) The author started off by explaining how we're all born able to read faces. He also talked about facial recognition software (the pros and cons) and how face reading systems have been developed throughout the world and throughout history. He talked about how he got into face reading and learned several methods (mainly European and Chinese).

Then he told many stories about different clients that came to him for readings and what he told them. While reading these, you pick up some face reading information about the different face and hand shapes and what they indicate about personality, what wrinkles in different locations mean, and so on. The last 20% of the book gathered all of this face reading information into one spot. There were some drawings of faces to illustrate the different face shapes or what a client's face looked like, but (on a Kindle, at least) it wasn't always easy to see what he was pointing out.

While I did find the Health section interesting and the stories were entertaining, in the end, I felt like this was mostly a book about the author rather than practical application. Perhaps I'm not understanding his descriptions of what to look for, but it didn't seem accurate when applied to myself or my family, so why try to learn the information?


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.