Breasts: The Owner’s Manual

I would like to thank the publisher, Thomas Nelson W Publishing and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This is my first book on the topic of breast cancer and I have to say that the author has packed a lot of information in this perfectly titled book, but she managed to make it feel like a light read.
I think that this is a major strength of this book as none of us want to really think about breast cancer or read about and be traumatized.

I think that this book is a great starter book as the information about breast cancer and breast cancer prevention is not readily available one resource. Her goal to teach prevention is in my opinion a very a noble one as there is not enough emphasis on prevention. The focus is more on raising funds for
“ The Cure”. Education about prevention or risk reduction is key!

The book consists of 10 chapter, sectioned into 4 parts; Breast Health basics, Reducing Breast cancer risk, Learn your Risk Factors and control what you can Making Medical Choices and Living with Risk.

This book is very comprehensive from teaching the reader about breast anatomy to self breast exams, myths about what causes breast cancer, breast cancer screening methods and diet and lifestyle habits to reduce the risks of getting breast cancer.

She also breaks down the basic facts for those woman that are already diagnosed with breast cancer and the available treatments and explain some basic pathology test results and provides advice for life after cancer.

I really liked the book because her writing style is easy as if she is having a woman to woman conversation with you and it is understandable for the majority of women.
I also appreciated her clarification of the important statistic some of us may have heard before, 1 out of 8 women will be diagnosed with cancer”, by presenting the statistic by age group and demonstrating that the risk goes up as we woman get older past 50.
Her use of tables to summarize information and visuals (anatomy of the breast and what breast cancer can look and feel like) are very effective.

If you are diagnosed with breast cancer, this book is a great complementary to the information you will find on website such as cancer.org or Susan G Komen or other reputable websites. The difference is that friendly female voice that speaks to you when you read this book. I bet you that it will be comforting to many women.
I highly recommend this book to all woman and those that want or need more information are directed to other resources.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advance copy for my honest review.
Breast: The owner Manual was a well organized book and while there isn't anything new when it comes to treatments at least for this reader I did find the author was well aware of the issues facing women.

I enjoyed the book and found some great discussion points I will bring up with friends, family and my girls.

This is a very informative and interesting book, but I didn't think the information was anything too groundbreaking. The best thing about this book was that the information is all layed out in a very organized and easy to understand way so it feels for accessible to anyone. As someone who works with women to explore every single option available to them, even if those options are a bit "alternative", I was pretty disappointed that thermography was not explored further. Although the research has not been done yet, this is an option that I personally have seen many, many women choose and have great success with. So it would have been nice to at least see the pros and cons of this option discussed since this is an option that is the only one many women are comfortable undergoing.