Reviews tagging 'Eating disorder'

Ask Me About My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women's Pain by Abby Norman

16 reviews

alyssatuininga's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative medium-paced

3.5

 

There were parts of this book that I loved but parts that seemed out of place for sure. The layout was odd, bumping around in time. I did like her humor and her writing style but I feel like this book needed a lot of editing.

I am not sure why she included the long story of her childhood and her mother's issues. I don't feel like it was relevant to the story, especially with the depth and detail it was told.

My biggest regret with this book is that it wasn't what I thought it was. It was marketed as a book about women's pain and the medical community. This book is an autobiography about one woman's journey through complex medical issues.

I really wish there had been more science and fewer long-drawn-out stories that didn't seem to have much to do with the topic. The ending was also very abrupt and felt unfinished.

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Chronic illness, Eating disorder, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Medical content, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, and Injury/Injury detail

sellnow_hannah's review against another edition

funny informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

This was a personal account of a woman living with chronic illness and she weaves elements of memoir, science, and history. I would say it’s mainly a memoir and an emotional glimpse into what it’s like to live with an unexplained illness highlighting the challenges in interacting with the medical system as a chronically ill person. While this was an emotional and heavy topic, I did enjoy the author’s frequent snarky comments and humor.
The downsides of this book were the timeline and the meandering nature of her writing. She seemed to jump back and forth in time in her personal story often and some of the science and history elements (while insightful) didn’t tie in as well with her personal story. Overall an enlightening read and one I’d recommend for people in healthcare. 

(I don’t rate memoirs below a 4 star because I think it takes a lot of courage to be this vulnerable and share your life story. So for me 4-4.25 is good, 4.5-4.75 is great, 5.0 is fantastic.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Eating disorder, Blood, Vomit, Medical trauma, and Suicide attempt

mccalab's review against another edition

emotional informative medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Vomit

idk_indigo's review against another edition

challenging informative slow-paced

4.75

I really enjoyed this book! It was very informative, very enlightening. Some of the book’s Amazon reviews are quite negative, primarily because it’s a very self-reflective book. Norman acknowledges that this book is more of a dive into her personal experience & what research she has compiled in an effort to better understand her illness & her pain. Less of a know-all about endometriosis, which we see towards the end of the book when she is in the diagnosis stages of another chronic illness. The book talks about the author’s journey with chronic illness with an implied, “This is how it was for me. Others may relate, but I am not speaking for anyone else.” I appreciated the physician aspect; most physicians are trying their best, but they are also imperfect. It is a very true phenomenon that women’s pain is taken less seriously; this rings especially true for WOC & for disabled/chronically or mentally ill women. I enjoyed this book; definitely not a medical guidebook on endometriosis, but I don’t think it was ever trying to be. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Chronic illness, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Eating disorder, Sexism, Excrement, Medical content, and Grief

Minor: Child abuse, Infertility, Vomit, and Abandonment

abbystapleton's review against another edition

challenging sad slow-paced

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Eating disorder, and Vomit

Moderate: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Miscarriage

Minor: Infertility, Transphobia, and Suicide attempt

daniellemjoyce's review against another edition

emotional funny informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Misogyny, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Infertility, Miscarriage, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Excrement, and Pregnancy

laureljeanreads's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative sad medium-paced

5.0

I always feel weird rating memoirs but I feel like this is such an important topic explored and done so with a really good mix of some medical research facts as well as personal experience that shines through. The fact that this is not just this authors story, but is the story of so many other people dealing with chronic pain, uterine issues and not being believed by medical professionals is both sad and enraging.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Blood, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Minor: Infertility, Miscarriage, Transphobia, and Suicide attempt

kateped's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness and Eating disorder

sammantha's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

This book is phenomenally written and so much more than I ever could have imagined. I’ve never dog-eared so many pages in my life. Highly recommend, especially to doctors and nurses. “I had never wanted to be right; I had only wanted to be well.”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Miscarriage and Excrement

shewantsthediction's review

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

I didn't expect this book to go so deep into abuse, but I'm really glad it did. Emotional/physical neglect are so hard to put a finger on, but the way she described it made me feel so much less alone in my own childhood. I almost can't believe there's someone out there who had to "grow up" even faster than I did, with her being emancipated so young. Her audio narration reminded me quite a bit of the Youtuber bestdressed. The only thing I didn't really like about this book is she tended to ramble on too long, especially towards the end of the book, and referred to having sex for the first time as "losing her virginity." It was just a strange choice of words since she seemed so feminist in other respects. I was also quite curious about her autistic brother, but he was only briefly mentioned.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Chronic illness, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Medical content, and Medical trauma