Cracking the Menopause: While Keeping Yourself Together

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There are also first-person case studies from a variety of people who’ve gone through menopause, including celebrities, activists, politicians (or their wives), HR professionals… In this no-holds-barred guide, Mariella shares her own journey through the menopause, along with the latest science and advice from leading experts–to provide an informative source of wisdom and enlightenment. This enlightening audiobook is passionately narrated by the authors, Mariella Frostrup with Alice Smellie. A groundbreaking, no-holds-barred guide to the menopause - that combines a passion to enlighten and inform as well as entertain - from inimitable broadcaster, writer and campaigner Mariella Frostrup and award-winning health journalist Alice Smellie.

This is an intelligent, well-researched and comprehensive book that will get you rethinking what the menopause it and what life looks like during and after it. Starting with a fascinating account of how our views about the menopause have been formed over centuries (largely by men), we start to understand why there are so many preconceptions and misinformed views in society. It’s high time we renovated and elevated this life change. Despite the centuries of speculation and propaganda, we are not overheating or inherently cold, we are not hysterics or boiling vats of toxic poisons, we are not dried up or washed up, we are simply menopausal. Frostrup and her fellow crusaders, who are “real women, campaigners, politicians, menopause experts, celebrities and journalists”, are aiming to increase pressure on the UK government to improve access to hormone replacement therapy and promote greater understanding of the impact of menopause.

I was excited – especially when I got the offer of an advance preview to review. Did I want one? You betcha… I did get a copy a few weeks later, which I donated to a raffle for World Menopause Day.) What’s in it?

One of my biggest bugbear with menopause books – especially celebrity menopause books – is that they feel they have to be “worthy” and teach a “lesson”. I don’t want that. I want a book that will explain menopause and have a bit of life and fun about it. You know, like 50Sense… Plus, neither one is a doctor, so this is no dry medical tome that takes the life out of menopause. Nor is it a moanfest or an aspirational read (although Mariella gets inspirational about changing how menopause is viewed). It’s honest, educational and fun. A fun menopause book?And if the authors are right about magnesium spray for calf pain. They will get another 2 stars. (when I went to the doctor her 'helpful' advice was, "we all get aches and pains as we get older"!!!) What I particularly like is that lifestyle is given just as much spotlight as hormone replacement therapy. Mariella talks about how she’s upped her exercise to support the impact HRT has on helping prevent osteoporosis, for example, and like many of us, grimaces when she remembers the amount of partying she’s done in the past when she thinks about the risk now of breast cancer. This meticulously researched book looking at all aspects of the stages of the menopause (before, during and after) is told in a frank and often very sarcastic manner, which took a bit of getting used to, but I enjoyed by the end. Mariella Frostup gives her personal experience in each chapter, but they also include the voices of lots of different women, and some men, and this helped to show how diverse an experience it can be. There is so much information here, that it can be a lot to take in, but I plan to get a hard copy (having enjoyed the audiobook) so that I can use it as a reference book too. Overall I would say the beginning of this book is a helpful exploration of menopause but for details of the full range of symptoms and an inclusive way of managing them, I would suggest you look elsewhere, although our search for that may be continuing. Good taste. But we’re still waiting for a #KnowYourMenopause selfie… Isn’t it just another celebrity menopause book?

You don't have to be without the information needed to make your journey through the menopause, easily and without feeling flustered. In this book, I will enable and empower you to understand the physical and emotional changes you will go through. You will also be able to understand the various stages of the menopause and gain a positive outlook on a natural part of your life. After listening to this audiobook, you will be able to talk to your doctor with confidence and calmly assess the right path to take for your unique journey through the menopause. I will also help you to navigate the best path through the roller coaster ride that is known as "the change".Regular readers will know I’m a huge fan of Mariella Frostrup and I learnt some important lessons from her documentary The Truth About Menopause in the early days of my “journey” (yes, I know. I hate that word too.) So it’s fair to say my ears perked up when I heard she was writing a book. And it does it in a light-hearted way without dumbing down and without emphasising one factor or treatment over others. It is a thorough, complete guide that is a delight to read. Anyone who reads it will come away with new information and a fresh insight into the state of menopause today. The campaigners had called their online women’s health project The Menopause Manifesto, but Jennifer Gunter, the US gynaecologist and author of a book of the same name, published last spring, strongly objected. It is unacceptable that you have used the name of my book,” tweeted Gunter this weekend. “Many people involved with your organiszation [sic] know it is the name of my book. ”