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A review by elizelizelizeliz
What Fresh Hell Is This?: Perimenopause, Menopause, Other Indignities, and You by Heather Corinna
4.0
4.5 stars rounded down.
as a 43-year-old with a uterus, perimenopause is something i have been working to learn about for several years, mostly through conversations with other queer friends who are my age or older. many formal menopause resources are very intensely gendered and implicitly (or explicitly) heterosexist, which has not felt like something that works for me. and since i am (thankfully!) amennhoreic because of my iud, the "you'll know you're in perimenopause when your periods get weird" isn't sufficient info. until 5 years ago, i didn't even really understand the difference between perimenopause and menopause! as a sex educator, i am always interested in new ways to understand bodies and their shifting experiences.
ANYWAY all that to say i am an easy target for this book. i learned a lot from it--less about the how-to-treat-perimenopause part, and more about the what it can look like, history of it, shifting my frame about it. did you know you can get new allergies in perimenopause? i didn't! and i had an anaphylactic reaction to a totally new food last week so it seems like key information! there were a lot of moments like that--where pieces really came together for me. and the hope of giving even less f's as time goes by was a constantly hopeful theme.
as a longtime fan of scarleteen, i am grateful to have heather corinna in this new life chapter! their voice, knowledge, and queer feminist approach are exactly what i want to walk me forward.
as a 43-year-old with a uterus, perimenopause is something i have been working to learn about for several years, mostly through conversations with other queer friends who are my age or older. many formal menopause resources are very intensely gendered and implicitly (or explicitly) heterosexist, which has not felt like something that works for me. and since i am (thankfully!) amennhoreic because of my iud, the "you'll know you're in perimenopause when your periods get weird" isn't sufficient info. until 5 years ago, i didn't even really understand the difference between perimenopause and menopause! as a sex educator, i am always interested in new ways to understand bodies and their shifting experiences.
ANYWAY all that to say i am an easy target for this book. i learned a lot from it--less about the how-to-treat-perimenopause part, and more about the what it can look like, history of it, shifting my frame about it. did you know you can get new allergies in perimenopause? i didn't! and i had an anaphylactic reaction to a totally new food last week so it seems like key information! there were a lot of moments like that--where pieces really came together for me. and the hope of giving even less f's as time goes by was a constantly hopeful theme.
as a longtime fan of scarleteen, i am grateful to have heather corinna in this new life chapter! their voice, knowledge, and queer feminist approach are exactly what i want to walk me forward.