Book Review: What’s Up Down There?

I first learned about Lissa Rankin because of her work in creating and writing for Owning Pink, which is a community of women dedicated to celebrating all things feminine, successful, sexy and pleasurable. Needless to say, Rankin’s writing was insightful, funny and downright wonderful. I learned from the site that they were giving away review copies of Rankin’s book ‘What’s Up Down There?: Questions You’d Only Ask Your Gynaecologist If She Was Your Best Friend’ and leapt at the chance to get a free book – not just any book, a book by a woman I was already a fan of.

I did not realize until the book was physically in hand that the foreword was written by none other than Christiane Northrup (and most appropriately so), an internationally-known visionary and author for empowering approach to women’s health and wellness. Dr. Northrup was a practicing physician in obstetrics and gynecology for over 25 years, while Lissa Rankin left her full time medical practice in 2011 to focus on being an author, public speaker, media personality, entrepreneur, coach, artist, and healer. 

Northrup credited Rankin as “picking up the torch that I struggled to light back in the 1980s and ’90s” and commended Rankin’s writing as having “a unique brand of cheeky, girlfriend, hip warmth that tickles me pink”. Northrup could not have said it better, because I discovered as I delved into the pages that Rankin was exactly that. In fact Rankin’s rightly calls herself ‘Your Girlfriend M.D.’ on Owning Pink.

Over 16 chapters, we get the inside scoop on what being a gynae and a woman is like. She was so refreshingly honest that I blushed at parts (I know! Fancy, a sexologist blushing!) and then laughed, amazed at the gall of this woman in bearing her funniest moments and most embarrassing memories with her patients, not to mention private thoughts! I especially love the blow-by-blow account of what not to do when waxing that had me in stitches. Yes, laugh I did – even whilst on public transport. On more than one occasion did I find myself looking up momentarily from the book on the MRT train, wistful – wishing that I could share this with all the women in the world! This woman has wit, personality, and spunk.