It's Not Hysteria: Everything You Need to Know About Your Reproductive Health by Karen Tang

 genre: science, non-fiction

Now that I’m getting older, I find I’m definitely more interested in, not just my own female body, but in the history and current state of female healthcare. I never fully appreciated how complex our bodies are, how many ways the female reproductive system can cause problems that are not only painful but potentially life-threatening. Also, it’s crazy discouraging to think about how far behind the science is in prioritizing the research of female issues.

This book was a slowish read for me - it is a heavy kind of nonfiction in that it doesn’t read like a novel, it’s more like a textbook with few to no pictures. Each body part is explained before going into detail about all ways things can go wrong. While often dry, I found it very strongly written and I saw in the author a true advocate for gynecologic healthcare and I learned so much. There is compassion here and a true desire to help us understand our right to bodily autonomy and to help alleviate pain and suffering.