I found this book fascinating. The effect of the delicate hormonal balance on mood is well documented, but this goes more into depth about the other roles hormones play.

I heard Dr. Martie Hazelton, a world leading researcher on ovulation and sexuality, speak about her experience writing and promoting Hormonal at a recent psychology conference and decided to pick it up. As someone critical of evolutionary psychology (not evolution) I was pleasant surprised by this provocative book. In an entertaining and accessible manner while presenting rigorous research, Dr. Haselton sets out to make the case women are “hormonally intelligent” and to call for more information on female’s brains and bodies. Presenting much of her own research, she argues that women possess estrus, and she examines the effects of ovulation on women’s desires and social behaviour. In sum, while I did not feel empowered after reading this book and it did not change my thinking on the subject, I had a new appreciation for evolutionary psychology and great respect for the ground breaking work being done by Dr. Haselton and her students in the UCLA evolutionary psychology lab. At times, I did start to find the book repetitive and so skimmed some parts of it, however, I recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about evolutionary psychology, especially from a self-proclaimed Darwinian feminist.
Thank you to Dr. Haselton for this fascinating book, and to Netgalley and Little, Brown and Company for an ebook advanced reading copy.