Returning for some book journaling

[rymenhild]

Hi! I still exist. I'm going to try a bit of reading journaling for the summer.

Starting with two books on the exciting things AFAB bodies do at a certain age:

Dr. Jen Gunter, The Menopause Manifesto
Heather Corinna, What Fresh Hell Is This: Perimenopause, Menopause, Other Indignities, and You

So my exciting hormonal fun mostly ended when I got rid of my uterus, but it isn't all over. I'm getting hot flashes (or, as Dr. Gunter charmingly prefers to call them, hot blooms) a few times a day, especially nights, in the summer. I'm forty years old so this is early, but so it goes,
and both writers agree that hysterectomies are likely to trigger early menopause transitions.

I like Heather Corinna's take better, because (1) it's focused on perimenopause and that's what I need right now, and (2) it's funnier and more fun to read. Also, it's very good about not defining people who hit these hormonal and physical changes as "women." Corinna (who may be known to you as the founder of the wonderful sex education website Scarleteen) is nonbinary and very precise about possibilities for gender identity. Anyway, their black humor really gets me right now.

Dr. Gunter's book is more medical and more focused on menopause itself. Gunter carefully uses exact medical terms, but these are very confusing. For instance, she says that "perimenopause" means the menopause transition up to the year after the final menstrual period, rather than (as in common usage) the early stage of the menopause transition. Gunter is a great resource for the questions "Exactly what do we know about what happens to bodies during this process?" and "Which of these symptoms are dangerous and which are just obnoxious?" She's also good at saying which treatments are useful (exercise, CBT, various meds), which are total bunk (various other meds and compounded creams), and which are unfairly maligned but really helpful (hormone supplements in specific circumstances for people of specific ages). I don't love the pressure she puts on exercise for cardiovascular maintenance and preventing bone loss, but I guess that's just what I need to be doing.

Fun reading:

Katherine Addison, Witness for the Dead

Expectation spoilers
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I adore The Goblin Emperor and have been waiting for this book for years. I liked the worldbuilding and the mystery and adventure plots. I did not find the emotional core satisfying, though. Come on, Thara, make some choices to improve your life.

KJ Charles, Subtle Blood

I don't need a spoiler cut here, because all I want to say is that it was a terrific end to the trilogy in every way. Loved it.

Comments

[sophia_sol]

awww I'm disappointed to hear that the emotional core of Witness for the Dead isn't strong! :(((( I too have been waiting for this book for years and really want it to be GOOD.

[thistleingrey]

The temporal bounds of "perimenopause" have confused me, too. By basic arithmetic I am in it (if I use my mother's age upon ceasing to bleed as an index, since my aunt's full hysterectomy at 40 subtracts a datum), but so far there's no real evidence of it. I guess this means I should feel glad I don't notice hot flashes, which are apparently more common amongst folks of European descent. *rolls dice* So many aspects of how perimenopause is discussed seem more art than science.

[highlyeccentric]

Might I request a spoiler for Subtle Blood, or indeed the whole series? I gave up after book 1, because 'oh no the anarchists are threatening society!' was just A Bit Much in 2019-2020, thanks, and I remembered what she did with the Peterloo Massacre (ie, turned it into a background plot point for a cross-class romance). Was I misreading a chance for a Surprising Twist? (if it's 'eh, not that bad' or 'actually, yeah, comparable to the one with Peterloo' i'll continue pretending this series never happened...)

[rymenhild]

The villains aren't really anarchists so much as people who use any number of different ideologies to try to grab all the power for themselves. In most cases, the people who are really running things in the villainous organization are people with power and status who are using everyone else of whatever ideology as fall guys. I don't know if that's satisfying or the opposite.