The main reason why I was interested in reading this book was, as it's mentioned in the book, because of the fact that we don't talk about this topic. Half of the world's population go about their lives knowing almost nothing about something as important as their vagina. And that is mindblowing, but it also seems like no one cares about changing that dynamic.
To do this review properly, I want to first talk about the positives and then the negatives.
For the positives, the main one is that through this book, the author tries to normalize talking about both the vagina and our sexual health. Using normal words, rather than the most academic, helps massively. Some of the things mentioned were worded the same way I could talk to a friend about it. And that made the book a lot easier to read. Medical terms can be tricky for people, like me, who have not studied them.
Another positive, of course, is all the useful information that the book has. I definitely plan on rereading certain parts in the future.
There is talk about menopause. Hurray! Society makes it seem like women who are no longer fertile are not even women anymore. I bet many women can use that chapter about menopause to understand better the changes their body is going through. As women, our body changes so much, yet we know so little about why and how.
The chapter about race was very interesting. I am a firm believer in getting data from both sexes to properly analyze all types of medical stuff. And in the same way we need to talk about heart attacks knowing that the symptoms can be different for men and women, we need to acknowledge that race can affect the way a certain medical thing needs to be studied and treated. There are so many illnesses and similar where the death rate is so much higher for non-white people, and this kind of research is essential to change that.
For the negatives, I first have to mention how food was talked about in a chapter. I understand mentioning healthy eating as a way to, well, be healthy. But demonising food groups with harsh terms is never the way to do it for me. Rather than saying "never drink soda" (and this comes from someone that rarely drinks soda), say that soda is not the greatest drink for different reasons and that drinking more water can help with this or that problem.
Of course, there is pseudo-science and terms related to that in this book. It seems like they need to feature otherwise the book will be "cancelled". Mention "cis" women is ridiculous, especially coming from a health professional. Using gender rather than sex throughout the whole book is annoying. I understand the author is American and that country is where most of these silly (very misogynistic) terms come from, so I didn't really expect any better. I'm actually pleased she mentions women and girls when talking about problems that only affect women and girls. However, it's interesting that one of my favourite quotes from the book is negated by the use of these terms.
When talking about the different words we use to name a vagina, the author says that we use these words because of our "desire to remain inoffensive". I 150% agree with that. That's why I never use terms like "cis" which force me to not talk about any experience that I have because I'm a woman. For the people who obsess over these terms, me talking about my vagina, my periods, etc...is offensive. So, kind of interesting if you think about it.
Despite those negatives, that won't bother a lot of people, this is a very important book. And I'll definitely recommend it to all the women that I can. Because if we don't make an effort to learn about something that is so important to us, who will?
Thank you to NetGalley and Greenleaf Book Group for providing me with an early copy of the book.