This book was fine! I didn't love the author's writing style, and at time this book was a bit boring, but overall, I do enjoy medical memoirs, especially when they are indictments of biases and structural issues and roadblocks in the medical industry.

If you or anyone you know has ever had endometriosis, you know that everything from diagnosis to treatment is shrouded in questions and uncertainty. There is so much confusion about it, and so much unknown. And yet it has a huge impact on people’s lives when they’re suffering from it. In this book, though, there is camaraderie, insight, information, and above all, hope! This is a powerful story that can help those living with endometriosis or supporting someone who is, and for those who aren’t close to endometriosis, there is an opportunity here for insight and understanding into their suffering.

I received a DIGITAL Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for the chance to review this book, however, unfortunately, I was unable to read and review this title before it was archived.

I am so sad I didn't realize they approved me to read this one. I remember requesting it with no much hope of actually receiving a copy and apparently I DID but failed to check my e-mail on time.

In spite of that, I actually bought the book afterwards and loved it. Then I bought another copy to give a friend as a gift. Truly, you shouldn't miss this book.

This memoir is for every woman who has had her pain dismissed as being "in her head", or dealt with any form of chronic pain, specifically endometriosis. Creating historical and sociocultural context for her situation, Norman describes how her own and other women's bodies have long been a battleground that is controlled predominantly by the power of men. Although some of Norman's background was treated repetitively in the narrative, I do realize it was necessary to tell her story and I felt that it gave me the power to speak for my own body.

I LOVED THIS. As a chronically ill woman, it was incredibly relatable and just incredible, period. Every doctor, every medical worker, ever person needs to read this.

A moving, personal exploration of the failings of the modern American health care system, particularly as it pertains to recognizing women's pain. Abby Norman's tale is heartbreaking and all too common. She does a wonderful job of telling her own story of chronic pain while also weaving in scientific research and tales of other people suffering from endometriosis and other chronic diseases. The story loses its way a bit at the end of the book and I wish the conclusion was a little stronger and more wide reaching. Overall, this book is enlightening and has a powerful message.

Abby Norman tells her often harrowing story with grace in Ask Me About My Uterus. She’s had to make her way through life in pain, and mostly alone. I’m in awe of her courage and fortitude!

Norman spent her childhood with an absent father, and a functionally absent mother who was too sick with her own disease to care for her children. In case that wasn’t hard enough, her abusive grandmother stepped in to care for Abby. Somehow, she survives this and has the unimaginable presence of mind to request emancipation at age sixteen.

As she tells this part of the story, I cheered for her while I was marveling at her teenage grit. Norman moved forward with life, got herself help, and thank goodness, had people who were equipped to offer her safe and healthy shelter.

Amazing as it is, this is only one small segment of Abby Norman’s story. She actually explains her childhood as an adjunct to the excruciating abdominal pain she began experiencing at nineteen. As with many people who experience chronic pain, Norman searches for an explanation. Is it a result of her difficult childhood? Was the neglect an emotional or physical catalyst?

Doctors don’t take her seriously. So finding an explanation isn’t simple cause and effect. Norman begins to do medical and scientific research about endometriosis. Turns out there isn’t much information available, which leads her to examine why women’s pain isn’t addressed effectively or often.

It’s these components—her story and her research—that make up Ask Me About My Uterus. Norman deconstructs each topic with eloquence and care. She acknowledges that each endo patient has a different story, including those from the LGBTQIA+ community. And yet, many pieces of her story are clearly universal to endo and other chronic pain patients.

My conclusions:
As a woman living with chronic pain, I wanted to first bump Norman every page or so. I’m also an adult woman who survived an untraditional upbringing, especially as it related to medical care. More fist bumps for her story and survival.

Abby makes the world of living with invisible illness visible. She puts her uterus, her sex life, her heart and soul on display. And it’s obvious her intention is to help women with endo and other types of chronic pain. She’s a fighter who tells a damn interesting story.

I never felt that Norman was a drama queen looking for sympathy. Instead, her approach was matter of fact and easy to read. She’s solution-oriented and a captivating writer. I’d like to give this book to my doctors. There are also a few doctors in Norman’s story that I’d like to give a piece of my mind. The mom in me wants to charge in and fight for justice. But thankfully, Abby Norman is doing a great job of that in her life and in this book.

Acknowledgements:
Thanks to NetGalley, Abby Norman, and Perseus Books, PublicAffairs, and Nation Books for the digital ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Well written, interesting and much needed in this social climate!

Ask Me About My Uterus is Abby Norman's account of her struggle with endometriosis. It is a heart-breaking story that so many can relate to, considering that half of the world's population have uteruses.
The format of the book is part memoir, part history. I found this distracting at times because there was some repetition and I could not always keep track of the timeline. I also wish Ms Norman had included more narratives of different uterine issues, not only endo.
Abby Norman is determined and intelligent. I like that she takes ownership of her health and tries her best to figure out what the problems are. The book's ending reflects the realities of so many women around the world.

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

The title of this book automatically intrigued me but honestly, I was hesitant to read it. I know what it feels like to go to the doctor, describe my symptoms and walk away with not one clue as to why I feel the way I do. No answers. I feel like as a child we are taught that doctors can fix all of your ailments. If you feel sick, the doctor will give you medicine to make you feel better. That’s how it was for me. It wasn’t until I got older and my body started to change that the answers started to subside. I’m lucky though because none of my symptoms are anywhere near as debilitating or life threatening as Norman’s.

Ask Me About My Uterus is Norman’s journey toward diagnosis and a cure. A journey that has not yet ended. If you are coming to this book expecting to read about a story of triumph where all the problems are solved and Norman gets to walk away cured and happy, then you are coming to the wrong book. This is not that story. Norman is diagnosed with endometriosis, but after suffering through bouts of debilitating pain, gruesome periods, painful sex and numerous doctor visits she still had to fight to understand the diagnosis and what that meant moving forward. But those weren’t the only medical complaints she had and what’s most disturbing about her accounts is how many times she was told that her physical pain was all in her head. That the trauma she had suffered as a child was expressing itself through her pain. Too many people shut her down, as if she wasn’t knowledgeable of her own body and how it functions. Norman had to take the reins and advocate for herself and along the way met many other women suffering through the same pain.

Norman details so much of her struggle and the plethora of ways that she continues to struggle. She combs through years of research and discusses the ways in which past experimentation and diagnoses have shaped the way we view women’s health today. She acknowledges the ways in which she struggled to get the test and treatments she needed. How infertility and numerous doctor’s opinion on her desire to not have children affected her treatment. Norman also discussed the debt that she bears because of all of the testing and procedures she has had to have done and how that fear of incurring more debt would deter her from seeking the help she needed. She is also made note of how communities of color have been or could be affected because of the lack of testing being done to ascertain specific needs.

I’m not discouraged after reading this book, but I am somewhat more aware of how necessary it is to become your own advocate, to not back down when others, even professionals try to coerce your opinions on your pain. This book is so necessary right now. It’s interesting that a book like this is coming out at a time when the debate around healthcare, women’s health and how different communities suffer for lack of care. It’s time these conversations about women’s health and how it’s catered to are openly discussed. We need to make a change and the more voices we have out there, the better. This book is a step in the right direction because it documents her history so well and is thoroughly put together. I thought Norman did a great job compiling the research, including her own experience and merging the two to discuss her journey towards being healthy. She has a long way to go and so do we.

Ask Me about My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctor’s Believe in Women’s Pain by Abby Norman is her own journey through a painful past to deal with a painful medical condition which many doctors do not fully understand. As a young college student, Ms. Norman began to experience painful, stabbing cramps that would keep her bed ridden for days. She is finally diagnosed with endometriosis, a condition which isn’t fully understood even with today’s medical technology and knowledge. Ms. Norman discusses the journey of women’s medical knowledge through the ages and even in psychology as it was thought that women’s pains and conditions were caused by hysteria originating in the uterus. Does she ever get the answers she’s looking for? What can doctors learn by listening more closely to their female patients?
I originally chose this book because I know many women who suffer from conditions with no real explanations or solutions, who still struggle to find answers. I expected this book to be so much more than it was. I thought she would focus on her journey for answers and help other women reading her story to fight for their answers. However, she tended to focus more on her troubled and horrific childhood. There are a few statements Ms. Norman makes which I don’t agree with or question the age of such knowledge. At one point, she makes the claim that women are more likely to be given sedatives after surgery and men are given painkillers. I’m not sure where she got this information, as she doesn’t give any references that I saw, but this has not been my experience with surgery at all. However, it is a disturbing thought to think about if it is true for even one female patient in pain. I recommend Ask Me about My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctor’s Believe in Women’s Pain as a tool, inspiration to help women confront their doctors to listen more closely.

Ask me about My Uterus:
A Quest to Make Doctor’s Believer in Woman’s Pain
is available in hardcover and eBook

cw: assault, eating disorders, attempted suicide, domestic abuse

Spoiler-free Review of an eARC Provided by the Publisher and Netgalley

I knew I had to request this the moment I saw it on Netgalley. The incredibly gorgeous cover drew me in right away and the blurb cemented my decision to give it a try. And I am so, so glad that I did. This memoir follows Abby Norman in her experiences with endometriosis. I don’t know about y’all, but I knew next to nothing about endo before reading this. I had no idea what a difficult, debilitating disease it was or how little is known about it by modern medicine. To say that this book is extremely educational feels like an understatement.

Abby specifies right from the start that this book is meant to be a jumping-off point for readers, and not their sole source of information regarding endometriosis. She makes it clear that this is her story, and not meant to speak for anyone else. This explanation includes acknowledging that she comes from a place of relative privilege and urging the reader to seek out more diverse experiences. She also points out that calling endometriosis a women’s disease is a misnomer, as both trans men and cis men can suffer from it.

Her own experiences are downright heartbreaking to read. When symptoms begin to appear, Abby ignores them as long as possible before going to the hospital, something I can certainly relate to. Her voice is repeatedly silenced by medical professionals, mostly male, who downplay the severity of what she is going through. She is able to intertwine her own story with facts and figures, as well as historical parallels.

Abby’s voice comes through strong and clear in her writing and I found this book difficult to put down. She is a strong, sympathetic character and you’re forced to keep turning the pages in the hopes that things will get better. This book feels like a vitally important read, not only because of the information relayed, but also because it is relayed in such a way that the reader can’t help but take it all in. This is not a dry piece of nonfiction, but the compelling story of a woman fighting for her diagnosis.

My main issue with this book is that it is poorly written and/or edited. The chapters, and writing in general, are meandering and oftentimes baffling as to why certain writing choices were made. Too often, probably most of the time, the author seemed to want to introduce a story/topic but it was done in such a way that the proceeding content just felt like non sequiturs. In many ways it felt like listening to someone speak that took a million tangents and only sometimes completed their thoughts.

The author also makes allusions to her mother's illness and the severity of it but does not even bother to tell us what the illness is until the 24% mark. If you're using it to support your views/statements etc., you should probably be clear on what the illness is. Also, the book summary pretty much gives you the proper information to go into the book that the author does not bother to tell you until well into the book. She does not really make it clear that she is serious about dance until later on and there is no mention of weight loss, gray hairs or a dwindling "dancer's body" until nearly the end. I feel as though all of this should have been clear to the reader from the get-go, sans the help of the book summary, via some sort of prologue or first chapter. The author also spent entirely too much time focusing on her childhood, very weakly trying to tie it into the topic at hand. At the most, the childhood should have been a chapter that could have been alluded to randomly, not large random swathes of discussions dedicated to it throughout. Seriously, where was the editing?

While there was information on the trials and tribulations of being a woman dealing with doctors throughout history, it was minimal IMO and absolutely nothing you have not read if you have read on this topic prior. However, it is the only reason I am (currently) not giving the book 1 star instead of 2. The reason I wanted to read the book was this, which the title implies will be the bulk of the book, but is actually a minimal amount of the pages.

Overall, the book is much more of a rambling, poorly put together memoir than it is a book on "a quest to make doctors believe in women's pain." Bare minimum it was about this particular author's quest, which is quite different IMO than a quest for all women.

In this non fiction/memoir Abby Norman launches the microscope and takes a look at women's health and the author's own personal struggle with endometriosis, Abby Norman explores just how difficult it still remains to have doctors listen to the intuition women possess when it comes to their own bodies.

I do take a star away because there were a few times that my mind wandered during Abby's extensive family problems that sometimes were a bit repetitive in nature. Overall, I appreciated the message and do believe that this is a must read book for March!

https://bookriot.com/2018/03/01/march-new-releases/

I was so looking foward to this book, but was disappointed. I was expecting more about how hard it is to convince some medical doctor's that female pain is real. To me this was more about the author and her experiences with medial professionals. Yes the book was about female pain but it was about the author's pain not female pain in general. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

Beautiful, and difficult collection but all the more necessary for the content. I found this compelling and important.

Reading this book made me wonder if I was being stalked; for over 30 years I experienced the exact same pain and frustration for the same medical issues as the author. Abby does a great job of explaining the years women deal with not being heard by doctors as we continue to suffer and question our own strength. How many times do we have to scream, "I'm not crazy! This pain is real!" before we are taken seriously and get some relief? I wish this book was a must read for doctors, but sadly, I suspect only women who have or had endometriosis will pick it up. Thank you, Abby, for sharing your experience, and for giving a voice to those of us who suffered in silence.