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baibake's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
As the writer states: “death heavy, feminism heavy, whale heavy…” I can agree.. For me language was tad bit too raw and straight, where I would have wished more romantical and humor clad approach. Overall insightful and almost like a scientific research about Menopause through ages and cultures.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content
Minor: Death
chelse34's review
I rarely don't finish a book that I don't like. But there comes a point where it is just awful enough that I can't stand to read anymore. This was this book.
First off I read to page 116, about halfway through. They were five f-bombs at that point. It's all about menopause, so there's a part where she talks about how people going through menopause are neither man nor woman with their sex. I completely disagree because I feel gender is eternal, and we don't get to just pick what we are no matter what our hormones are doing. She also gets to a point where she basically says that because of our hormones during menopause we have the right to feel rage and be angry. I feel like anger is a choice, and we can control that if we choose to. Nothing should force us to be angry. And the last thing that broke the camel's back was her describing a naked man coming into their "massage parlor" and an orgy. Didn't stick around to figure out the point of that. It probably had to deal with the fact of her sex drive decreasing with menopause.
So didn't finish, no official rating, but if I did it would be a 1. Read because it was on the Bloody Buddy's bookclub list.
First off I read to page 116, about halfway through. They were five f-bombs at that point. It's all about menopause, so there's a part where she talks about how people going through menopause are neither man nor woman with their sex. I completely disagree because I feel gender is eternal, and we don't get to just pick what we are no matter what our hormones are doing. She also gets to a point where she basically says that because of our hormones during menopause we have the right to feel rage and be angry. I feel like anger is a choice, and we can control that if we choose to. Nothing should force us to be angry. And the last thing that broke the camel's back was her describing a naked man coming into their "massage parlor" and an orgy. Didn't stick around to figure out the point of that. It probably had to deal with the fact of her sex drive decreasing with menopause.
So didn't finish, no official rating, but if I did it would be a 1. Read because it was on the Bloody Buddy's bookclub list.
eamwilliams504's review
2.0
2.5
I didn't like the style of the book and really way too much about whales
I didn't like the style of the book and really way too much about whales
terrimarshall's review
3.0
I really wanted to like this book. It's hard to find anything written about menopause that's not some medical book about hormone replacement. I really just wanted to read a memoir by another woman who was struggling like me. Darcey is definitely struggling, and I respect her for putting her thoughts down on paper. She had many thoughts that resonated with me, like how our culture devalues older women, how body changes are hard to adjust to, the weirdness and discomfort of hot flashing all the time, etc. But Darcey is a little more intellectual than me, and some of her writing was a little over my head. And I really couldn't relate too much to the whole tangent with the whales. I understand where she's coming from in admiring whales because older females are leaders in their pod, but I just wasn't into all the whale stuff that much. So as much as I want to support and encourage Darcey in her own struggle to come to terms with menopause, I didn't relate to a good bit of what she says here.
pjgal22's review
4.0
No great revelations here, although I did find the sections about the whales fascinating, but how wonderful to find someone out there that’s feeling a lot like me. This passage, in particular, blew me away:
“As I moved through menopause I often felt death stalking me, just behind my shoulder like a particularly belligerent ghost. Rather than push death away, as I had for years, I was forced to learn to live with her, to accept my body’s limitations, accept that the earth’s cycle played out not only in the outer world but also inside me. Call it decay or change, I am, like everything else in nature, recyclable.”
Recommended reading for any woman making this passage.
“As I moved through menopause I often felt death stalking me, just behind my shoulder like a particularly belligerent ghost. Rather than push death away, as I had for years, I was forced to learn to live with her, to accept my body’s limitations, accept that the earth’s cycle played out not only in the outer world but also inside me. Call it decay or change, I am, like everything else in nature, recyclable.”
Recommended reading for any woman making this passage.
valouis13's review
4.0
Not sure what I expected but it definitely wasn’t this narrative. However, I appreciated her cultural narrative and weaving together various concepts central around our cultural understanding of menopause. 3.5 stars
wanderaven's review
4.0
I've found it difficult to find books or online articles about menopause that aren't heavily weighted for either favour or disdain of hormone replacement. I have my personal tendency about how I would prefer to travel this path, but I've been wanting to read personal experiences about menopause, not enter into the heavily preached (on both sides) fray.
When Farrar, Straus, and Giroux offered the ARC for review, I was impressed by the synopsis because it seemed to be very much what I've been looking for. And on the whole, it is. The caveat here is that because it truly is nearly impossible to discuss this event in women's lives without including some of what is the most currently discussed medical practices surrounding it, Steinke doesn't fail to include her opinion. Not that she shouldn't have; not that I expected her not to do this. Just a heads up to other women who may be looking for the same sort of reading I have been seeking. She includes the fascinating history of how hormone replacement became a standard practice in the United States and statistics/studies of associated risks.
However, this isn't solely about all of that. Instead, this memoir is a wildly hybrid accounting of history, science, spirituality, nature, medicine, folklore, advertising, and, above all, deeply personal memoir.
There's a lot of conflict here; an example is that Steinke relates how her own sexual drive and that of her friends and other women, changed while going through menopause and how the greater (male dominated) society wants them to remain willing and pliable and sexual when they have physical and physiological changes that may make them reluctant. Then she turns around and explains how orcas, the only known mammal on earth that also goes through menopause, remain sexually adventurous within their pods and that "in their culture.... they don't have that human taboo: don't sleep with old women." This feels like a contradictory lament. That's just brilliant to me as a reader, though - if you know someone going through menopause, or have gone through or are going through it yourself, you know damn well that almost everything about the process can be a contradiction - sex drive, physical changes, emotional changes, life circumstances, social interactions, and psychological interactions - moments of simultaneous despair and joy.
There is a general bent here towards the nature/natural/spiritual side of this process and you'll definitely feel akin to her experience if you're already geared that way. You don't need to be, though, as it's quite relatable (with some amazing writing) regardless. The only generally targeted audience I wouldn't recommend it to would be those absolutely, 100% committed to hormone replacement and won't brook an argument otherwise.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher making this one available for me to review. It comes out in the States on June 18th. I just sped through it, horrified and enlightened, fascinated and heartened. It's a fantastic and honest memoir in a category sorely lacking.
When Farrar, Straus, and Giroux offered the ARC for review, I was impressed by the synopsis because it seemed to be very much what I've been looking for. And on the whole, it is. The caveat here is that because it truly is nearly impossible to discuss this event in women's lives without including some of what is the most currently discussed medical practices surrounding it, Steinke doesn't fail to include her opinion. Not that she shouldn't have; not that I expected her not to do this. Just a heads up to other women who may be looking for the same sort of reading I have been seeking. She includes the fascinating history of how hormone replacement became a standard practice in the United States and statistics/studies of associated risks.
However, this isn't solely about all of that. Instead, this memoir is a wildly hybrid accounting of history, science, spirituality, nature, medicine, folklore, advertising, and, above all, deeply personal memoir.
There's a lot of conflict here; an example is that Steinke relates how her own sexual drive and that of her friends and other women, changed while going through menopause and how the greater (male dominated) society wants them to remain willing and pliable and sexual when they have physical and physiological changes that may make them reluctant. Then she turns around and explains how orcas, the only known mammal on earth that also goes through menopause, remain sexually adventurous within their pods and that "in their culture.... they don't have that human taboo: don't sleep with old women." This feels like a contradictory lament. That's just brilliant to me as a reader, though - if you know someone going through menopause, or have gone through or are going through it yourself, you know damn well that almost everything about the process can be a contradiction - sex drive, physical changes, emotional changes, life circumstances, social interactions, and psychological interactions - moments of simultaneous despair and joy.
There is a general bent here towards the nature/natural/spiritual side of this process and you'll definitely feel akin to her experience if you're already geared that way. You don't need to be, though, as it's quite relatable (with some amazing writing) regardless. The only generally targeted audience I wouldn't recommend it to would be those absolutely, 100% committed to hormone replacement and won't brook an argument otherwise.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher making this one available for me to review. It comes out in the States on June 18th. I just sped through it, horrified and enlightened, fascinated and heartened. It's a fantastic and honest memoir in a category sorely lacking.
yasdnilr's review against another edition
4.0
Wow a whole month! I was bogged down in psychoanalysis I think and only got my groove back when she started talking about whales again. Truly interesting correlation between human and whale menopause. And it ends with a great sequence some of which I highlighted, talking about feelings that I thought only I had had, about woman’s relationship to animals and how to be a good pod mate
Whether or not you do your menopause with HRT will be up to you, this book won’t change your mind. But there’s some good arguments here for leaning into it rather than chasing a fountain of youth. I have no issue not being young anymore, it’s a relief to be grown if I’m honest.
I don’t know how many more menopause books I’ll read. Maybe I’ll write my own
Whether or not you do your menopause with HRT will be up to you, this book won’t change your mind. But there’s some good arguments here for leaning into it rather than chasing a fountain of youth. I have no issue not being young anymore, it’s a relief to be grown if I’m honest.
I don’t know how many more menopause books I’ll read. Maybe I’ll write my own
lifeinpoetry's review against another edition
1.0
Another cis woman who equates menopause with becoming less woman. Except this one equates her experience of feeling more androgynous because of looking less feminine with the experiences of trans people on HRT. I was already skeptical because she'd cited Germaine Greer multiple times and though it seemed she was in favor of trans rights and multiple genders appropriating the experiences of trans people is super gross. Her kid kept telling her she didn't get it.
There aren't many books that take on menopause but no thanks.
There aren't many books that take on menopause but no thanks.