I saw someone on instagram talking about being in their late 30's and having noticed changes in their body, but having no idea what to expect regarding aging and menopause and I thought "huh, I also have no idea what to expect" so I picked this up. It's a pretty quick and easy read and it did shed a lot of light on aging regarding menopause. I think it was most useful for dispelling myths and destigmatizing what menopause is and is not, and explaining perimenopause- honestly did not know anything about this. I also had some specific questions about symptoms with an IUD and with endometriosis and this book answered that. It's not a replacement for seeing a doctor, although it does give a lot of nutrition advice so proceed with caution, but it is also helpful in giving you scripts to use to talk to your doctor if you want to learn more about what was brought up in the book. I appreciated just getting this introduction and learning about this as it's something that carries a lot of stigma and is not often talked about positively- this definitely made me less anxious for the future and more positive about aging. This will probably not be the only book I read on the topic, but it was a fairly good introduction.
There are definitely some issues with the book- the non inclusive title and language throughout the book, it is written by a cis woman talking to other cis-women and the language and topics focus on them- I think there could have easily been some more inclusive language and topics. And there is a section on nutrition with some info about certain nutrients to pay attention to, I generally approach this with a healthy dose of skepticism given a lot of science is all over the place about nutrition and is often just super anti-fat or anti-science- and this book does lean into diet culture in some moments, but given there's a whole section on nutrition I do think it does a fairly good job of not focusing on body size, weight, and dieting, (always good to see health professionals saying throw out your scale, don't count calories, and focus on movement that fees good) but it's not completely neutral in that so definitely read with caution if that is triggering.