Taboo Topics

Period: Twelve Voices Tell the Bloody Truth by Various Authors

This popped up one day on my Facebook feed saying that some of the proceeds of the sale of this book would go to help girls and women around the world have the menstrual supplies they need. I am a sucker for things that I perceive to be a good cause, and this was a good cause as far as I was concerned, so I pre-ordered it. I wasn't sure what to expect when it came in, and fully intended to wait to read it, as I had already started another book, but something kept drawing me to this.

I read this for about an hour before I went to bed last night. In that time, I read four of the stories. One was about an intersex woman who so wanted to start her period, but never did. One story was about two friends discussing how women could be more open these days about their periods with their friends than in generations past. One story was about a woman who started her period the day she was running a marathon, and made the decision to free bleed. And the last one I read last night was about a woman who is paralyzed from the waist down, and discussed how she deals with that time of the month. I went to bed feeling emboldened.

This morning, I had hall duty while the juniors took state exams, so I read this. I read the last seven stories, which included period firsts, male periods, periods of black girls, periods when a person is homeless, really bad periods, politics and periods, and periods in pop culture. Again, I felt enlightened and empowered. In fact, I nominated this book for the TAYSHAS list, which is a young adult book list in Texas, because I was so taken with this book.

I highly recommend this book.