Best for:
Young Gen X-ers and Elder Millenials.

In a nutshell:
People with a uterus will at some point stop getting periods, their hormones will shift, and some things will be a bit different. This book seeks to provide some suggestions, advice, and an overview of the research to help make this time (which can last many years) and beyond a bit more comfortable.

Worth quoting:
“Observe the sentences you say in your head and out loud, and be on the lookout for works such as ‘always,’ never’ and ‘everything,’ because they’re often a sign that you’re throwing around inaccurate generalisations that make a situation more extreme than it actually is.”

Why I chose it:
I am a Xennial woman. So … yeah.

Also, I read Hill’s book Period Power and found it to have some useful information.

Review:
This is a detailed book that appears to be very well researched, and I appreciate that. Until recently there seems to have been a dearth of information available for folks who get periods about that bit of their life (roughly 40ish years), and possibly even less on what happens when folks are no longer getting their periods. I recall ‘The Change’ being mentioned in a couple of films (Father of the Bride II stands out to me), and hot flashes / hot flushes mentioned as the primary symptom. But there’s so much more. Hurrah!

Like Hill’s previous book, there’s a lot of good stuff here, but also a lot that either isn’t relevant or is a bit too … woo-ey for me. The chapter on hormone therapy was useful, and one I’ll probably revisit. But equally interesting were her other suggestions for ways to protect against some of the possible negative issues associated with perimenopause and menopause, like loss of bone density, and sleep issues.

Overall I think we need more books like this that address something that half of folks will experience. I’ll hold onto this so I can refer back to it as necessary, and I’m glad I read it, but I’ll probably seek out other books on the topic so I can have more than one opinion on some of these issues.