Hello Stranger by Lisa Kleypas (The Ravenels #4), read by Mary Jane Wells

Summary from Goodreads:

A woman who defies her time: Dr. Garrett Gibson, the only female physician in England, is as daring and independent as any man—why not take her pleasures like one? Yet she has never been tempted to embark on an affair, until now. Ethan Ransom, a former detective for Scotland Yard, is as gallant as he is secretive, a rumored assassin whose true loyalties are a mystery. For one exhilarating night, they give in to their potent attraction before becoming strangers again.

A man who breaks every rule: As a Ravenel by-blow spurned by his father, Ethan has little interest in polite society, yet he is captivated by the bold and beautiful Garrett. Despite their vow to resist each other after that sublime night, she is soon drawn into his most dangerous assignment yet. When the mission goes wrong, it will take all of Garrett’s skill and courage to save him. As they face the menace of a treacherous government plot, Ethan is willing to take any risk for the love of the most extraordinary woman he’s ever known.

Continuing on my Ravenels read on audio – I really dug this romance between the doctor and the spy from the previous book, Devil in Spring. The medical research Kleypas did for Dr. Gibson – who was practicing at a time when technical advancements in medicine were really starting to jump forward – was excellent. And who could resist Ethan and his sexy Irish brogue? (sorry, Welshman Rhys still wins the sexy accent competition) I loved how they trapped the villain in the end.

A weird note in the audiobook production: Mary Jane Wells is spectacular as usual, but there was an odd moment (in the trainyard, when Garrett is escaping London with Ethan to the Priory) where I would swear the speaker was West Ravenel, who is voiced as a very blustery/jolly-ish English toff, but Rhys’s Welsh accent pops in for about two paragraphs. And he was present earlier in the scene, but I had thought the character left the scene prior to this conversation. I rewound and listened a few times, but I couldn’t figure it out.

The next book in the series is Devil’s Daughter but I’m thinking I might have to pause and jump back to Cold-Hearted Rake because I can’t quite remember how we got to this competent, very capable version of Devon, Lord Trenear.

Dear FTC: I borrowed a copy of this audiobook from the library via Libby.

This Boy We Made by Taylor Harris

Summary from Goodreads: A Black mother bumps up against the limits of everything she thought she believed—about science and medicine, about motherhood, and about her faith—in search of the truth about her son. 

One morning, Tophs, Taylor Harris’s round-cheeked, lively twenty-two-month-old, wakes up listless and unresponsive. She rushes Tophs to the doctor, ignoring the part of herself, trained by years of therapy for generalized anxiety disorder, that tries to whisper that she’s overreacting. But at the hospital, her maternal instincts are confirmed: something is wrong with her boy, and Taylor’s life will never be the same. With every question the doctors answer about Tophs’s increasingly troubling symptoms, more arise, and Taylor dives into the search for a diagnosis. She spends countless hours trying to navigate health and education systems that can be hostile to Black mothers and children; at night she googles, prays, and interrogates her every action. Some days, her sweet, charismatic boy seems just fine—others, he struggles to answer simple questions. What is she missing?

When Taylor brings Tophs to a long-awaited appointment with a geneticist, she hopes that this time, she’ll leave with answers. The test reveals nothing about what’s causing Tophs’s drops in blood sugar, his processing delays—but it does reveal something unexpected about Taylor’s own health. What if her son’s challenges have saved her life? And how can she choose the best path forward—for herself and for her beautiful, unsolvable boy? This Boy We Made is a stirring and radiantly written examination of the bond between mother and child, full of hard-won insights.

This Boy We Made is a beautifully written and executed memoir about motherhood, especially Black motherhood, anxiety, family, faith, and parenting a child with a perplexing medical and neurodivergent condition. One day Harris’s toddler, Tophs, wakes up unresponsive and listless, as if he’s had a seizure or blood sugar issue, and she rushes him to the emergency room. Tophs recovers from the episode, but it happens again, just as suddenly, and other symptoms begin to emerge. Harris chronicles the many hours consulting with medical professionals, education professionals, worrying about how to make sure Tophs is getting the best care she can find but also making sure her older daughter isn’t lost in the shuffle, that her marriage and partnership with her husband isn’t placed on the backburner, that she can draw strength from her faith. Just a heads-up that there are no clear answers in Tophs’s case, no “label” yet that can guide his medical or therapeutic team, so this isn’t that kind of book where his medical condition is solved and everything is just fine. This is a book where Harris is still in the middle of everything, still trying to work it all through, but where she shares the struggles and triumphs her family has faced with us.

This Boy We Made is out today, January 4!

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss.

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

Summary from Goodreads: The highly anticipated portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, by the prize-winning, bestselling author of Say Nothing.

The Sackler name adorns the walls of many storied institutions: Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, the Louvre. They are one of the richest families in the world, known for their lavish donations to the arts and sciences. The source of the family fortune was vague, however, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing OxyContin, a blockbuster painkiller that was a catalyst for the opioid crisis. Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented and ferociously compelling.

Did Bad Blood piss you off? You need to read Empire of Pain then – it will totally piss you off some more! The level of deceit and shady dealing is galling. Plus, you have even more despicable rich people to loathe, like three generations worth of them. This was a riveting audiobook – even at 18+ hours (although, full disclosure, I had the speed kicked up to 2x because while Patrick Radden Keefe was an OK narrator, it was a little slow for me).

Dear FTC: I borrowed the audiobook from my library via Libby.

The Unseen Body: A Doctor’s Journey Through the Hidden Wonders of Human Anatomy by Jonathan Reisman

Summary from Goodreads: In this fascinating journey through the human body and across the globe, Dr. Reisman weaves together stories about our insides with a unique perspective on life, culture, and the natural world.

Jonathan Reisman, M.D.―a physician, adventure traveler and naturalist―brings readers on an odyssey navigating our insides like an explorer discovering a new world with  The Unseen Body . With unique insight, Reisman shows us how understanding mountain watersheds helps to diagnose heart attacks, how the body is made mostly of mucus, not water, and how urine carries within it a tale of humanity’s origins.

Through his offbeat adventures in healthcare and travel, Reisman discovers new perspectives on the body: a trip to the Alaskan Arctic reveals that fat is not the enemy, but the hero; a stint in the Himalayas uncovers the boundary where the brain ends and the mind begins; and eating a sheep’s head in Iceland offers a lesson in empathy. By relating rich experiences in far-flung lands and among unique cultures back to the body’s inner workings, he shows how our organs live inextricably intertwined lives―an internal ecosystem reflecting the natural world around us.

Reisman offers a new and deeply moving perspective, and helps us make sense of our bodies and how they work in a way readers have never before imagined.

The Unseen Body is kind of an odd mix of personal essay and “let me tell you about this body part/system.” A few essays are particularly nice – especially the one where he looked at how extremely high altitude affects the brain. But the “medicine” part was all a rehash for me. The writing and the information didn’t really bring anything new for me, since I’m pretty well-read in medical essays and memoir.

The Unseen Body published earlier this month.

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss.

The Menopause Manifesto: Own Your Health with Facts and Feminism by Dr. Jen Gunter

Summary from Goodreads: Just as she did in her groundbreaking bestseller The Vagina Bible, Dr. Jen Gunter, the internet’s most fearless advocate for women’s health, brings you empowerment through knowledge by countering stubborn myths and misunderstandings about menopause with hard facts, real science, fascinating historical perspective, and expert advice.

The only thing predictable about menopause is its unpredictability. Factor in widespread misinformation, a lack of research, and the culture of shame around women’s bodies, and it’s no wonder women are unsure what to expect during the menopause transition and beyond. Menopause is not a disease–it’s a planned change, like puberty. And just like puberty, we should be educated on what’s to come years in advance, rather than the current practice of leaving people on their own with bothersome symptoms and too much conflicting information. Knowing what is happening, why, and what to do about it is both empowering and reassuring. Frank and funny, Dr. Jen debunks misogynistic attitudes and challenges the over-mystification of menopause to reveal everything you really need to know about:

• Perimenopause
• Hot flashes
• Sleep disruption
• Sex and libido
• Depression and mood changes
• Skin and hair issues
• Outdated therapies
• Breast health
• Weight and muscle mass
• Health maintenance screening
• And much more!

Filled with practical, reassuring information, this essential guide will revolutionize how women experience menopause–including how their lives can be even better for it!

I slept on The Vagina Bible (don’t worry, I’ll get to it one of these days), so I didn’t want to let The Menopause Manifesto get past me. I’m old enough that my insides are clearly starting to gear up for this whole Perimenopause carnival ride, thanks human biology. This is a well-written, very easy to understand breakdown of the menopause process starting with how the reproductive system works, non-menopause reasons that can cause a problem, physiologic symptoms of menopause, what can be done when those symptoms become annoying/out-of-hand, health risks that can come from the change in hormone levels or treatments for menopause symptoms, etc. etc. Plus, Dr. Gunter is really funny. If you don’t follow her on Twitter, go do that because she has no patience for bozos (which is important in these pandemic times). (As a note: the book does focus on cis-women’s biology.)

The Menopause Manifesto was published on Tuesday!

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

Vagina Problems: Endometriosis, Painful Sex, and Other Taboo Topics by Lara Parker

Summary from Goodreads: “With unflinching honesty, Lara Parker, the Deputy Director for BuzzFeed, shares her day-to-day challenges of living, working, and loving with chronic pain caused by endometriosis in this raw, darkly humorous, and hopeful memoir.

I wasn’t ready to be completely honest about my vagina yet, and the world wasn’t ready for that either. But I was getting there. I wanted the world to know that all of this pain I had been feeling…that it was related to my vagina. Thus, Vagina Problems was born. It was a cutesy name. It was my way of taking this pain and saying, “Whatever. I’m here. I have it. It sucks. Let’s talk about it.”

In April 2014, Deputy Editorial Director at BuzzFeed Lara Parker opened up to the world in an article on the website: she suffers from endometriosis. And beyond that? She let the whole world know that she wasn’t having any sex, as sex was excruciatingly painful. Less than a year before, she received not only the diagnosis of endometriosis, but also a diagnosis of pelvic floor dysfunction, vulvodynia, vaginismus, and vulvar vestibulitis. Combined, these debilitating conditions have wreaked havoc on her life, causing excruciating pain throughout her body since she was fourteen years old. These are her Vagina Problems.

It was five years before Lara learned what was happening to her body. Five years of doctors insisting she just had “bad period cramps,” or implying her pain was psychological. Shamed and stigmatized, Lara fought back against a medical community biased against women and discovered that the ignorance of many doctors about women’s anatomy was damaging more than just her own life. One in ten women have endometriosis and it takes an average of seven years before they receive an accurate diagnosis—or any relief from this incurable illness’ chronic pain.

With candid revelations about her vaginal physical therapy, dating as a straight woman without penetrative sex, coping with painful seizures while at the office, diet and wardrobe malfunctions when your vagina hurts all the time, and the depression and anxiety of feeling unloved, Lara tackles it all in Vagina Problems: Endometriosis, Painful Sex, and Other Taboo Topics with courage, wit, love, and a determination to live her best life.”

I picked up Vagina Problems from the publisher catalog because yes, more books about women’s health and how medicine needs to get itself together.

As a memoir, Vagina Problems is very good. It’s not an easy topic to write about in such an open way but Parker does it so well. But I feel like this could have had more science reporting – maybe about current studies into endometriosis, etc. (or lack thereof, because Patriarchy) or some interviews with others who have had similar experiences. But like I said, it’s a very good personal memoir.

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss.

The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care by Anne Boyer

Summary from Goodreads:
Award-winning poet and essayist Anne Boyer delivers a one-of-a-kind meditation on pain, vulnerability, mortality, medicine, art, time, space, exhaustion, and economics—sharing her true story of coping with cancer, both the illness and the industry, in The Undying.

A week after her forty-first birthday, the acclaimed poet Anne Boyer was diagnosed with highly aggressive triple-negative breast cancer. For a single mother living paycheck to paycheck who had always been the caregiver rather than the one needing care, the catastrophic illness was both a crisis and an initiation into new ideas about mortality and the gendered politics of illness.

A twenty-first-century Illness as Metaphor, as well as a harrowing memoir of survival, The Undying explores the experience of illness as mediated by digital screens, weaving in ancient Roman dream diarists, cancer hoaxers and fetishists, cancer vloggers, corporate lies, John Donne, pro-pain ”dolorists,” the ecological costs of chemotherapy, and the many little murders of capitalism. It excoriates the pharmaceutical industry and the bland hypocrisies of ”pink ribbon culture” while also diving into the long literary line of women writing about their own illnesses and ongoing deaths: Audre Lorde, Kathy Acker, Susan Sontag, and others.

A genre-bending memoir in the tradition of The Argonauts, The Undying will break your heart, make you angry enough to spit, and show you contemporary America as a thing both desperately ill and occasionally, perversely glorious.

A vivid and moving work that defies genre. The Undying isn’t a “cancer memoir,” Boyer isn’t interested in giving a blow-by-blow account of her diagnosis and treatment for triple-negative breast cancer. Instead this is a poet trying to describe the experience of being a patient, experiencing a treatment that is often worse than the disease it’s trying to cure, comment on the utter cruelty of our healthcare system and medical leave policies, and place it within a sociological and literary framework. At one point she even says she did not write this book for people who are well.

I haven’t read Boyer’s poetry but I am interested in picking up one of her collections.

Dear FTC: I borrowed a copy of this book from my store.

When Death Becomes Life: Notes from a Transplant Surgeon by Joshua D. Mezrich, MD

Summary from Goodreads:
At the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Joshua Mezrich creates life from loss, transplanting organs from one body to another. In this intimate, profoundly moving work, he illuminates the extraordinary field of transplantation that enables this kind of miracle to happen every day.

When Death Becomes Life is a thrilling look at how science advances on a grand scale to improve human lives. Mezrich examines more than one hundred years of remarkable medical breakthroughs, connecting this fascinating history with the inspiring and heartbreaking stories of his transplant patients. Combining gentle sensitivity with scientific clarity, Mezrich reflects on his calling as a doctor and introduces the modern pioneers who made transplantation a reality—maverick surgeons whose feats of imagination, bold vision, and daring risk taking generated techniques and practices that save millions of lives around the world.

Mezrich takes us inside the operating room and unlocks the wondrous process of transplant surgery, a delicate, intense ballet requiring precise timing, breathtaking skill, and at times, creative improvisation. In illuminating this work, Mezrich touches the essence of existence and what it means to be alive. Most physicians fight death, but in transplantation, doctors take from death. Mezrich shares his gratitude and awe for the privilege of being part of this transformative exchange as the dead give their last breath of life to the living. After all, the donors are his patients, too.

When Death Becomes Life also engages in fascinating ethical and philosophical debates: How much risk should a healthy person be allowed to take to save someone she loves? Should a patient suffering from alcoholism receive a healthy liver? What defines death, and what role did organ transplantation play in that definition? The human story behind the most exceptional medicine of our time, Mezrich’s riveting book is a beautiful, poignant reminder that a life lost can also offer the hope of a new beginning.

When When Death Becomes Life came across my pitch emails a few months ago, I marked it down as a to-read immediately. A history of medicine, specifically transplant medicine? Sign me up.

Mezrich presents a history of solid organ transplantation alongside his own memoir of learning to become a transplant surgeon (mostly kidneys and livers). Each road was long and hard and Mezrich is very honest about his own path as a surgeon. If you know anything about this branch of medicine, it comes with significant risk of failure and he also gets into the ethics of listing patients with significant co-morbidies or addition. Mezrich includes two chapters where he presents the stories of some of his recipients and of the donors and their families. If you are not moved by those stories you have no soul.

This is also a reminder to consider marking “Organ Donor” on your driver’s license and having that conversation with your family. We are unlikely ever to have a “voluntary opt-out” policy in this country, so patients in need of a transplant are reliant on people, mostly their loved ones, consenting to donation when the situation arises.

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss.