A review by ashleyholstrom
Gross Anatomy: Dispatches from the Front by Mara Altman

5.0

To be a complete woman, I felt as though I had to get rid of a part of myself. But why? Why does there have to be all this shame and angst about something that's a natural part of being woman? The pressure to be hairless has driven me to feel like I have to hide something from my fiance, to spend thousands of dollars, to feel less worthy than my female peers.

Mara Altman takes a very Mary Roach approach to the questions she has about the human body—Why do women have to shave their legs and armpits? Why do dogs like sniffing crotches? What makes people faint?—and hunts down experts to answer those questions for her. She’s hilarious. I love Gross Anatomy, especially the bit about the butthole having two sphincters that tell you whether it’s a fart or a poop.