Menopocalypse by Amanda Thebe

Menopocalypse: How I Learned to Thrive During Menopause and How You Can Too by Amanda Thebe
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Menopocalypse by Amanda Thebe

This book came highly recommended by many of the fitness coaches I follow. It is about women’s menopause. I know many would instantly click away since it is not relevant to you at all, but if you are a woman who is nearing or in her 40s, or you know a woman who is nearing or in her 40s I suggest you give this review a wee bit time.

It is close to impossible to summarise the book, since I find that a single read through is not sufficient and one might have to go through relevant sections again. But I shall try and enlist the core sections and how they can help.

The author is a personal trainer with 20 years experience in fitness industry. This book is her attempt to demystify menopause for everyone, having gone through the worst set of symptoms herself and thrown into huge chaos.

The book first has a good explanation of what menopause is, the role of hormones in a woman’s life, how they change during menopause and what the effects could be. The experience can be so varied with some just sailing into menopause smoothly and some struggling with a myriad of issues and others somewhere between the two extremes. The author then goes through all the medical interventions possible today including HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy).

The second part of the book is about lifestyle changes. Nutrition, exercise, activity, stress management, mindfulness, sleep and recovery - each of these is explained in depth , with doable action items on each front. What makes this book a real treasure is she actually gives a doable workout program, explains each move with pictures and cues. For those uninitiated in strength training, you are not left at sea with the motherhood instruction “Start strength training”.

Most women don’t know enough about menopause, and even peers talk about it to each other in cryptic whispers. This book blew the lid open for me on what it can be, how I can help myself when I encounter a symptom or change. Many things in the book really resonated with me.

Women spend their entire lives putting themselves last in the list of priorities. Whether working or homemaker, its the same. In the book the author really stresses the importance of placing oneself first at least at this stage of life.

The author repeatedly stresses on the fact that as women, we should take agency over our menopause experience and not suffer silently. Things can be better if we try and find ways by medical interventions and lifestyle changes.

She also says over and over again, work on everything we can control. There are things in our control such has lifestyle, and things not in our control such as hormonal swings. The first CAN mitigate the effects of the second to a very large extent.

If you have read till here and decide to check out the book, please don’t get intimidated by the book cover. Please don’t think its for fitness buffs who what to get big and muscular. Trust me, this book is for every woman who wants to have an informed and empowered menopause experience.

View all my reviews

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Persepolis 1 and 2 are the first books into my tentative foray into graphic literature.

This set is a delight! Its a coming of age account of the author in the backdrop of the quickly changing situation in Iran. Unfortunately I do not have much insight about the land, its culture and its history but it is something I shall attempt to correct in the future.

The illustrations are so apt, convey enough depth at the same time being light. The beautiful moments of life whether tragedy or humorous are so well etched. I had a smile whenever I picked up either book to read. Its like a pleasant sweet carriage ride on a summer afternoon, the views outside pleasant and sometimes unpleasant.

Highly recommended.

View all my reviews

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have been putting off writing this review because I honestly don't think I can do justice to the spirit of the book. Nevertheless, I shall try.

This is my first book by Matt Haig. There is something about him, else who will come up with such a fantastical, other-worldly idea to convey something basic, simple but not easy.

We live our lives making choices and these lead us down one path and not another. We have regrets about the choices we made and think that if only we had chosen differently, life would have been oh-so-much-better. Something like 'If only I had done better at college, if only I had chosen a different career, if only ...if only...if only.' And what if we get a chance to see how each choice would pan out, and see the consequences, and then, can choose the perfect set of choices for a perfect life, would that not be wonderful?

'Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices...Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?'

Perhaps this book came at a time in my life when I needed it, but the core learning is something we all would do good to be aware of and live by. Hopefully I have piqued your interest enough to make you want to read it.

View all my reviews

Anxious People by Fredrick Backman

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am in love! This book is like a gust of fresh air after a long time indoors, or a cool dip in water in peak summer. Really!

This is my first book by Fredrik Backman and I really didn't know what to expect. A few pages in, I was like "Wow! This is a delight!!" Only then did I look up and discover Fredrik Backman is a Swedish author and this is a translation. I am left thinking, if the translation is so good, the original must be so much more touching, and also that the translator Neil Smith has succeeded in reaching readers in another language. Hats off! The only other Swedish author I have read was Stieg Larsson whose Millenium Trilogy I have really enjoyed.

The book is about love and loss, normal everyday moments, mental health, gender and sexuality, infidelity and divorce, death, desperation, alcoholism, ambition, and the need to do the right thing, in short - normal human experiences. It's like a goldilocks zone for each character. Just enough depth to feel for each of them and relate to them and without feeling too heavy because each is a human experience. Funny at so many places that I found myself laughing loudly and then at a blind corner comes a human tragedy, sucked the wind out of my lungs. What beautiful balance!!!

Fredrik Backman is my latest favourite author and this book is easily the best I have read in a long time. So much so, his debut book is waiting on my to-read shelf to be consumed very soon.







View all my reviews

The Vanishing Half - Book Review

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Was not too entranced with the entirety of the book. Loved some parts, didn't enjoy many others.

Its about a pair of twins who split and how their lives turn out. The book spans 1968-1999.

The lack of grief and searing loss at the death of a father.
How little the character of the mother is known. You never get to know her.
The twins, its impossible to know one without the other. And as a reader you end up with exactly that. Not knowing either.
The character of the trans man and crossdressers felt like they were added just to make the cast eclectic. They lacked depth and any relevance.

The whole book felt like it was meant to just tick boxes to meet some criteria indecipherable to the reader.

Liked some interactions, some soft moments, and that held me to complete the book. But then I was just wondering all the while, okay, so, what is the meaning of all this!

View all my reviews

Apples Never Fall Book Review

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, was a bit sceptical aboutthis book matching the standard set.

Have to admit I liked this book VERY MUCH. There were some parts that worked for me and some that didn't.

I liked the whole of the Delaneys, how tennis consumed their life and how everything centred around the sport. The character of each of the Delaney siblings is so well etched, you kinda start relating some parts of some character to someone you know. For me, Joy's story was the best part. Her internal monologues, the universal mommy guilt, her seething resentment tempered with reason.

I don't care much for the non-linear narrative. The then and now keeps one hooked, but the material doesn't need this kind of a tool to engage the reader. I would have wished to know more about Savannah. Such a strong character and so little insight. And then there is this outlandish bit about ONE day's tiny events so many years ago impacting a whole lot.

Like with Big Little Lies,this book too can be adapted for screen.


View all my reviews

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the first book I have read in this genre but I do follow the author in her very popular Dear Therapist series in The Atlantic. I love the series and the insights it has to give.

Now that I have finished the book, I am amazed at how honest, transparent and vulnerable the author has been to put out the most raw and potentially insecure parts of her own life. That shows her strength of character and how rooted she is. Another thing that struck me about her was how she shifted her path not once, not twice, but thrice to find her true calling. Starting off as a writer in Hollywood, she then went to med school, and then to becoming a therapist investing years of work in each, excelling at each and figuring out what worked and what did not work for her.

Then there are the lives of her patients. She talks of them from a place of empathy and compassion and is honest enough to say when it is hard to have these with particularly difficult ones. As a reader, I could feel the pain, discomfort, shame that the patients did. There are SO MANY instances where I could relate to something in my own life or something I have witnessed with people in my circle. I shall not mention them all because there are way too many.

There are some things she has written which have stayed in my head. Forgive me for these are not direct quotes, but how I remember them.
- Change and loss travel together. How simple and how so loaded!!
- In the space between stimulus and response, is our choice. We cannot control the stimulus, but can always control the response.
- How we are prisoners in our own minds. Meaningful, positive outcomes come from opening the mind to other possibilities than the narrative we have always taken shelter in.
- How even the world of therapy has succumbed to the instant-results mantra of today. I was surprised though I shouldn't have been.
- There was a part in the book where she went strongly on how we are addicted to our devices. It felt like that part was written for me.

I feel I have to read the book again to understand the technical aspects which she sprinkles throughout in the context of specific instances with her patients or herself. I have to read it again to absorb some more.

Key take away from the book - the answers are within. Or maybe I have viewed it through that lens.
And looks like we could all benefit from some therapy.




View all my reviews