(3.75 stars)

This book is perfect for teenagers and young adults, it's clear that I'm not exactly the intended audience for it. The language was a bit juvenile and obviously catered towards this demographic. Maybe too much so.

However, the information presented in this book is incredibly important. I hope that all teens to read this.

This is an informative and educational book. I learned a lot and recommend this book for any female wanting to learn and understand more about her body.

I am no longer interested in the content of this book. So, I'm DNF'ing this book for now. I may circle back around to this book one day.

A book that is entirely about a woman's menstrual cycle and is both fascinating and educational. Yes, please. When I was a teenager, this was a topic that wasn't talked about openly, and any literature that was available featured antiquated information, so I'm glad to see more accessible literature on the market. This book was loaded with up-to-date science, interesting facts, pie charts and graphs to help you better understand the female reproductive system. Some of the topics covered at the history of menstruation, a detailed look at the hormones associated with a woman's cycle, and how best to take care of yourself during the different phases of a cycle. Hill puts equal weight in the emotional/mental health of a woman as her physical health. Some other sections I found to be important were the ones on period poverty and the need for period leave in the workplace, reproductive disorders, a look at STIs, and menopause. Many other readers have complained about the amount of "woo-woo" in this book, but I didn't find it distracting and felt Hill balanced it well with the scientific facts she shares. One frustrating thing I found was because this book was written in the U.K., some of the medications and tests Hill refers to aren't things that are available or approved for use in the States. Other than that, I thought this was a great reference for anyone interested in learning more about the female reproductive system. *Advance copy provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

This was interesting but a lot of it wasn’t necessarily grounded in truth. I was hoping for a more scientific read rather than another person’s advice. Just not what I was looking for.

"Period Power" is a women's health book focused on our menstrual cycle and reproductive hormones. It has some really useful scientific information plus her ideas about how to deal with the ups and downs of your cycle. It gets detailed and technical (which I wanted!), but it's not difficult to follow. You can understand the author's points even if some of the technical terms are new to you. You can jump to a section that interests you and start there. She usually gave a detail explanation in one spot with a brief explanation in the other spots that needed it. The mild repetition helped me to remember the information, too.

The author started with some basic (but detailed) information about your reproductive organs and hormones and what's normal during different parts of your cycle. She teaches a simple method for tracking your cycle so you can spot patterns in your energy, attitude, etc. She also suggested things you can do to work with these different parts of your cycle (when different hormones are increasing and decreasing). She talked about concerns and changes that happen during different times in your life (your first periods, trying to conceive, pregnancy, perimenopause, after menopause, for transgender, etc.). She also talked about things you can do to improve your cycle (involving diet, exercise, etc.) and covered potential problems you may experience (long or short periods, light or heavy flows, long or short cycles, no periods, PMS, PMDD, cramps, ovarian cysts, etc.) and what you can do about it. She also brought up period poverty and some other activist issues, but I felt like she was trying to increase awareness rather than force the reader to share her opinions.

Really informative. It felt really good learning things about my own body that I didn't already know, and was equally sometimes mindblowing to me that I didn't already know certain things. At times I got a little bogged down, parts that weren't as high interest to me, but overall I really enjoyed this.