This book should be required reading for everyone who owns a vagina and everyone with a vagina-owner in their life! ( )

3.5 Stars

Informative and insightful, this is at times humorous and always interesting. A good read for women from ages 15-100. The Wonder Down Under explores a myriad of information regarding the female reproductive system and in a way that keeps you engrossed. The opposite of what a textbook would do. The synopsis calls it "more than a user manual" and that is the truth. ( )

The authors are young, and this is primarily aimed at young women. No discussion of menopause. No discussion of hysterectomies. While they emphasize that even in their late thirties most women can become pregnant naturally, they don't go on to even touch on what can be done for those who can't. On the other hand, there are four pages on the downside of genital plastic surgery.

If you are younger than the authors you will probably enjoy it and learn a lot that is useful, but they can't yet imagine the topics that older women need to know more about. (Birth years 1987, 1991) ( )

The Wonder Down Under - A user's guide to the vagina by medical students Nina Brochmann and Ellen Stokken Dahl sets out to educate and inform women about sexual health and dispel any misconceptions readers may have. With a clever cover design, The Wonder Down Under achieves this in a relaxed and informative manner although I did have a few concerns with it.

Primarily, I have a major issue with the title. Very early on in the book (page 8 to be precise) the authors point out that the majority of people refer to female genitalia as the vagina, when in fact, it should be referred to as the vulva; as the vagina is only one part of the genitalia. However, the authors then perpetuate the misnomer in the very title of this book. Sorry ladies, but you can't have it both ways!

The medical students are based in Oslo in Norway, and this book is a response to the success of their blog and is translated from Norwegian. The translation was very good, but it's worth noting that many of the stats they refer to are for Norway or the region.

The authors provide many reassuring notions and take a lot of care to point out every woman is different but normal and sexual health shouldn't be embarrassing but they undo all of their goodwill with the section title of: Discharge, Periods and Other Gore. Gore? What the hell? This might have been a translation error or just an extremely poor choice of words, but it definitely bothered me. This offensive section title grouped six chapters together, and therefore featured at the top of the page for 28 pages. Not good.

The book includes chapters on a multitude of topics - including a comprehensive section on contraception - however there is nothing on menopause. I'm not sure why this was left out when there was time for a few pages on genital mutilation and intimate surgery, but I'm hopeful this information will be added in a future re-printing of the book.

An informative read for young women (and men).

* Copy courtesy of Hachette Australia * ( )

Aunque los órganos sexuales no sean, precisamente, un nuevo descubrimiento, hay una increíble cantidad de cosas que las mujeres no conocen sobre su propio cuerpo. ¿Por qué a tantas mujeres les duele la regla? ¿Existe la membrana de la virginidad? ¿Cuál es la razón por la que a algunas mujeres les cuesta tener orgasmos? ¿Hasta cuándo esperar para tener hijos?
Combinando conocimientos generales de medicina con investigaciones científicas recientes, El libro de la vagina trata, pedagógicamente, todo lo relacionado con el aparato genital femenino.