What's Up Down There? by Lissa Rankin, M.D.

In What's Up Down There?, Lissa Rankin, M.D. answers "Questions You'd Only Ask Your Gynecologist If She Was Your Best Friend". She uses her personal experiences and stories about her patients to answer those questions you've secretly been wondering about.

I loved this book. Rankin has a great sense of humour and is very personable. Reading this book really did feel like I was talking to my BFF. She answers the questions as a friend would and only puts on her M.D. hat when it's necessary. In answering the questions, Rankin relates stories from her personal life and the lives of her patients. Don't worry, she has changed the names to protect everyone. While her personal stories are perhaps a bit too-much-information at times, it's really what makes this book great. Also, she doesn't appear to shy away from any question. The questions are diverse and plentiful. A few of them made me blush.

The range of topics covered is varied. She answers questions on: being a gynecologist, how coochies look, smell and taste; sex, masturbation and orgasm; discharge and itching; periods; fertility, pregnancy and childbirth; menopause; and others. She even covers other female parts like: Boobs, Pee and Butts.

Some of the stories are absolutely heartbreaking; some are hilarious; most of them lie somewhere in-between. One thing they have in common is that they are educational. For me, the saddest (and strangest) stories were the ones that involved misinformation (the girl who used a potato as birth control), abuse (the woman who used her vagina as a purse) and mental illness (the woman who accused Rankin of stealing her genitals). Some of questions dealt with stuff I've been wondering about myself, while others dealt with things quite new to me. I won't get into specifics because that would really be TMI.

I even learned some new words for my girly parts: yoni and coochie. Rankin uses the proper names in some places, but these euphemisms make the book less clinical and more fun. One fun addition to the book might be a list of all of the euphemisms we use to describe our most intimate parts.

Highly recommended. I think it's a must read for every woman. Some men might also benefit from parts of it.

For more information about this book, please visit the St. Martin's Press website.

For more information about the author and her work, please visit the Owning Pink website.

Thanks to Dana Kaye from Kaye Publicity for this review copy.

What's Up Down There? by Lissa Rankin, M.D., St. Martin's Press, ©2010. ISBN 9780312644369(Trade Paperback), 381p.