Repetitive and not much in the way of prevention explained except for 'look out for symptoms' and 'don't dismiss pain' - which only works if you know what the symptoms are to begin with.
These chapters, aside from the anecdote of patients in there, read a lot like a 'see your doctor if this or that is a concern' type of pamphlet you can find in doctors' offices on the table in the waiting room.
Not very informative, and can even veer into some sort of suffering porn from all the examples of real-life cancer and living with it

This is an important book that every woman should read. Very eye opening and enlightening reading. You won't be sorry you put the time into this book.

I’ve always been a big advocate for women’s health, particularly when it comes to self-advocacy. My mother had cancer and passed away at the age that I am now, so I try to read everything I can get my hands on about the topic. Unfortunately, this particular book was a little hard to get through. Many of the stories and narratives and examples felt a little doom-and-gloom. While I appreciate a warning about the risk of ignoring symptoms, it felt redundant and depressing. Additionally, I came away with a lot of “don’t”s and very few “to do”s. I prefer to read actionable, prescriptive advice rather than something designed to scare. Still, I’m rating it fairly high because this is a topic that needs to be talked about more, and I’m glad there’s a book to open up this discussion.

Since it's something we aren't really taught, I'm always looking to learn more about women's health. I think that this book has a lot of valuable information for women.

Each chapter is a case study about a woman's health and what was wrong, the symptoms, how she reacted, and the outcome. Then it draws some lessons from it and advises what we as women should know or how to respond to our body's signals.

The topics are broad and I learned a lot from it.
It really makes the point that with information about what our body's health should look like we can catch cancer early on.

Great read!

WOW, did this book open my eyes, I am a female in my late 20s and I can relate to the scares this book mentions, but also it helped me understand my condition a bit more. found this book very informative but it was also different that it was based in the US and i am in the UK. But definitely a book for young women to read. Get your cervical tests done girls

I was initially drawn to this book as I lost a loved one to ovarian cancer, so I've done a lot of work to help educate myself and others about prevention. While everyone's body and story is different, I think it is helpful to hear about other's experiences to know what things to look for, and just learning to know your body and family history in general. I did appreciate all the different individual's stories in the book, though some were repetitive. I think this book would be especially helpful for someone who doesn't have a personal connection to a cancer and is now more aware of what to look for.

Loved the idea of the book, but the tone was condescending a lot. Also the writer constantly talked about weight which was off putting at times since it was excessive.

I was so excited to see this title, as I've long been frustrated by the lack of information for the public about things that make a real difference in cancer prevention like diet and lifestyle choices. For instance, did you know that every month of breastfeeding lowers your statistical chance of breast and ovarian cancer? Every live birth also dramatically lowers your risk (not that anybody should have children just to lower their cancer risks, of course). Well, you still won't know it after reading this book. It does give some good information, but most of it is centered around the same points again and again -- don't ignore pain or abnormal bleeding, have well-woman checks, advocate for yourself and get HPV vaccinations. Wright uses short chapters with stories about women she treated to drive home her points. There are about three dozen chapters but most of them repeat the same basic points. She does let the reader know fairly often that excess weight is a risk factor (not just for getting cancer but because it can make it harder to detect) and there's a small amount of mention about diet and exercise, but mostly her expertise is in diagnosis, surgery, radiation and chemotherapy and that's where we get the most focus. I was shocked to read that hysterectomy has such a terrible effect on life expectancy (especially with heart disease) but most of the information is also more centered towards women of reproductive age.

I read a digital ARC of this book for review.

I found this US centric book to be incredibly important. More often than not Women's health is overlooked or undermined in the industry and also within our own communities. Dr Valena Wright tells the stories of various women who have been impacted by Cancer and what we can learn from this. At some points it felt a little repetitive, but I understand why it's important to drill this message home. The other concerns for me were about how accessible medical care is for everyone particularly in the US - this book didn't really mention this.
However overall, this book is a great reminder of why women must listen to our bodies and always get checked out to ensure we can prevent Cancer from progressing.

Dr. Wright's It's Time You Knew provides an excellent reminder of just how in change of our health we can be. Using poignant stories of women who both survived and succumbed to their cancer diagnoses, she gives us timely clues to look for when examining any abnormal symptoms we may be feeling. I think a lot of the focus has been placed on breast cancer and its awareness, but this book is an excellent reminder of how complex women's bodies are and the many other instances of cancer that can attack our systems. Using a clear and communicative style, Dr. Wright relays this important information, which includes a helpful glossary of medical terms at the conclusion. These stories are not easy to hear and many will break your heart (she begins the book by honoring her sister's death from cancer), but will ultimately give you hope that a diagnosis is not necessarily a death sentence and there is plenty we can actively do for prevention.

Thank you to NetGalley and Irish Moss Press for providing a copy of this book in exchange for a review.