Book of the year 2024 to me, honestly. You'd think reading one book from the genre "history of women patients and female doctors" would have taught me every fucked up thing there is to know about it, but you do wonder how many more vile treatments women have been subjected to in the past now that, thanks to Helen King, I discovered I had only breached the surface of medical malpractice. Similarly to Elinor Cleghorn's Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World, Immaculate Forms is a never-ending well of medical anecdotes (in the broader sense, since few of them are funny) to tell my healthcare coworkers on the job and hopefully teach them a lesson. Besides the enjoyable writing, this book boasts an
astonishingly gorgeous cover and title that I don't get tired of gazing at. Bravo!

I’m always fascinated to see how history represents women across the ages and immaculate forms did an amazing job representing the four body parts that define women (the breast, clitoris, hymen, and womb) in tracing their history.
I appreciated the inclusivity author Helen King included in her narrative, representing female forms in all shapes and variations from the traditional to transit non-binary representation.
I found this book not only to be very informative, but highly entertaining and something I could easily listen to and be fascinated by.
Narrator Elaine Claxton had a great reading voice and articulated. The information clearly will still being very engaging. This is a great book to you experience through audio.
Overall is very impressed with the book. It’s taken on women and femininity throughout history and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the subject or expressing themselves as women.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an ARC of this audiobook for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

A very cool sociological/medical look at the history of women's bodies. Truly wild to see how much of our current and past understandings come entirely from men. I really appreciated that this author took the time to dissect the idea of the gender binary and how it just isn't substantiated by medicine. I also very much enjoyed the narration of the audiobook!

There are two main takeaways from this book. The first is that everything we know – and think we know – about our bodies must always be viewed through a cultural and, by extension, a historical lens. The second is that there really is no such thing as a true sex binary, and that any attempts to define one will always come up short.

Both of these points are argued consistently and well across the book. King spends a lot of time looking at classical and early Christian ideas, many of which shaped – and still shape – our understanding of the human body. She also includes approaches from other cultures where appropriate, often striking a delicate balance on some of the more controversial topics discussed.

I really liked the structure of the book, focussing on particular body parts that are associated with womanhood. That being said, I think it would have been better if the order had been reversed; so much of the first three body parts discussed also involved discussion of the womb, so by the time we got to the final section there wasn’t actually all that much more to discuss.

The thing that sticks out the whole way through is that the overwhelming majority of the opinions and research presented were from men. Of course this is the nature of historical records, that white male voices were not only given priority, but often were the only people given access to the tools and resources needed for research in the first place. It still would have been nice if there had been more acknowledgement of that, or more discussion into where the gaps in the research are.

Even so, this was a fascinating and insightful read, and very timely given the current challenges facing both trans people and women’s reproductive healthcare around the world.

I received a free copy for review.

A very well-written, well-researched and quite extensive overview of the history of the human body. I liked how the book was structured into four different sections, outlining the history of four different body parts while referencing their contexts and relationships to each other throughout. Despite the rather academic approach this work takes, it’s very accessible and easy to follow, especially as an audiobook (I imagine it could’ve been a bit harder to get through as a physical book, due to the sheer volume of it). I also appreciated the book’s inclusivity of trans identities: the language around gender identities was chosen very carefully and King constantly questions binary interpretations of gender.
My main question about this book, though, is who it’s aimed at. As someone with a general interest and some limited previous knowledge of the history of the female body, I found it very interesting but also way too lengthy to completely hold my attention. Therefore, I think it wouldn’t be particularly suitable as a non-fiction book for readers who are simply hoping to learn something about the topic in their free time. As a source of students of women’s history or sociology, though, it would certainly be a great asset. It’s actually a bit of a shame that it’s length means that it probably won’t be read by a wider audience as there’s so much great research in it, which is presented in a way that is understandable for readers with little previous knowledge on the topic, too. In fact, it’d be great to have an additional, shorter edition that would appeal to readers who are interested in learning more on the topic, but mightn’t want to dive into it quite as deeply.

IMMACULATE FORMS: A HISTORY OF THE FEMALE BODY IN FOUR PARTS by Helen King was a fascinating journey through history, medicine, psychology and sociology. Thank you to the author, @netgalley, and the publisher @hatchetteaudio for the #lrc. This title came out at the end of January 2025 and is on shelves now!

♀️♀️♀️

This carefully constructed albeit academically argued reclaiming of the female body from history's myths was well-researched and well laid out. Separated into four parts, the book focuses around the breasts, clitoris, hymen, and womb as the author reveals the ways that these body parts have been perceived by society, ignored or misunderstood by the medical establishment, vilified and commercialized by pop culture and advertising, and gatekept and mythologized by religion, the male gaze and power.

The history of the way the female body has been viewed, abused and misunderstood is an abysmal journey but King weaves history with contemporary medicine, historical archives, and academic research and even though I have dug into some of this information before, there were SO MANY data and references that I had not come across.

I appreciated the discussion of the history of the inconsistent definition of the female (and male) body over time and how it has fluidly changed depending on the notions and trends of the day which challenge the idea of a gender binary. However it was pretty clear this area was not the author's bailiwick. I find this kind of deduction fascinating but I am not certain this is a book for everyone.

Pick this one up if you are interested in the myriad ways the human and specifically female body has been misinterpreted and are okay with a presentation-style structure.

Thank you Netgalley and @hachetteAudio for the Advanced Listener’s Copy!

This book explores how breasts, the clitoris, hymen, and womb have shaped cultural definitions of “woman” from classical Greece to today, highlighting how myth, medicine, and religion have influenced debates over the female body. While the topic is compelling, the dense, academic tone didn’t fully captivate me—I prefer nonfiction that weaves facts into a narrative. Still, it’s an eye-opening read for history buffs and those interested in women’s studies.

A very well written piece of work. It went way more into depth than I thought it would. I liked having the book divided into four parts: breast, clitoris, hymen, womb. The author has done extensive research and the historical aspects were very interesting. It was a bit too in depth for my general personal reading and interest, although I found it interesting. It would a great reader for a feminist course focusing on the body or a medical sociology class.

Immaculate Forms is an incredible work and an obvious labor of love. King comes at her "four parts" from a societal and linguistic lens- diving into how society (almost exclusively men in power) viewed these specific areas.

The Breast portion was probably some of my favorite academic writing I have read this year. It was funny, and informative and set the book up with very high expectations. Unfortunately, this is a VERY LONG book, and that momentum started to wane halfway through the clitoris section. While, everything continued to be interesting, I noticed a lack of modern-day knowledge and thought... I STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HYMAN IS AFTER READING THIS. Which is a huge oversight in my opinion. She is very aware that past people having different notions of our bodies don't make them "wrong", or "dumb", but I'd like to know what we as modern people know.

For a book that is critical of the cis-male lens, western religion, and western culture- it was pretty much focused on that and could have used some more outside sources. There is also the use of an outdated term for Inuit peoples, I'm unsure if it was in a quotation or not.

Despite these shortcomings, this is still an incredible work that is important historically and honestly taught me a whole lot. King is respectful of gender identities and transgender individuals as well. As an agender reader who just had an ovary taken out, I never felt uncomfortable with her portrayal of our bodies :)

I listened to the audiobook, and narrator Elaine Claxton freaking nailed it. She spoke clearly and knowledgeably. I though the author was reading it for a moment!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review :)

This is a wonderful history on the various parts of the female body, as constructed by various parties through the ages. What's clear is that a lot of men, many hailing from religious and (pseudo)scientific and (pseudo)medical backgrounds more or less made up what female (and other) bodies are and how how they work.

While king covers some biological matters (as we think we know it now and thought we knew it then), her focus is less about the inner workings of the female body and more about how it was perceived and demarcated by various societies and cultures and mythologies. Yes, there's a lot of sexism. The mysteries of the feminine just always seemed to be less than and/or derived from men ... hmm, funny how that is. I was hoping for more on how this still guides modern though, including in the medical and professional spheres. I also found that there was a preponderance of Western and Western-adjacent material. I was pleasantly surprised to have coverage of trans and intersex topics, although the former was clearly out of the author's depth. For instance, at one point, she comments on how there's no need to bind chests to be masculine, coupled alongside a discussion on how all people have breasts and men can even breastfeed under certain conditions. Okay.

The narration was superb. Frankly, I don't know if I would've gotten through this dense text in text form.