Donald Maass Literary Agency

Kirkus: Science writer and columnist Alkon offers an all-encompassing look at menopause and perimenopause—and how to thrive throughout both.

When the author started waking up multiple times a night, she chalked it up to stress. But when it became hot flashes and night sweats, she quickly realized “at 52, menopause was finally creeping up.” She begins with a deep dive into the current standard medical advice for women going through menopause, much of which is outdated or outright incorrect; she also offers compelling studies showing that many doctors are unable or unwilling to alter long-prescribed courses of treatment, even when presented with new information that directly contradicts them. The next section lays out the overwhelming number of mental, physical, and sexual symptoms that fluctuating and declining hormones can cause before looking at the long-term health benefits of hormone replacement therapies. Lastly, she offers in-depth advice on how to speak to a doctor in order to get care, based on the most current advice, before finally wrapping up with a brief rallying cry to fully embrace this phase of life. Overall, this is a rigorous and meticulous guide to everything related to menopause; a full bibliography, which is available on her website, would have added close to 250 pages to the book. Indeed, it’s so exhaustive that it verges on being overwhelming, but Alkon does a tremendous job of breaking down scientific facts for everyday readers; a chapter outlining the differences between oral micronized progesterone versus the much cheaper synthetic version is especially well done. It does fall short regarding a couple of questions readers may still have: Testosterone, which is frequently prescribed, warrants only two pages, which mostly say that there isn’t enough evidence for its effectiveness, and the recent proliferation of telemedicine companies that specifically focus on menopausal care isn’t covered at all. Still, Alkon’s affable voice more than makes up for any potential shortfalls; her smart, thoughtful accounts of her own experiences lend a feeling of camaraderie to the book.

A thoroughly researched, straightforward, and amiable menopause manual.

Washington Post: I have been exhorting all my friends to read this breathtakingly gorgeous book, but it is nearly impossible to summarize. Two sisters, Myung and Laleh, live inside the whale of babel, which swims through space and contains an entire universe inside its skin — but Myung is determined to leave the whale and see the universe beyond. Myung’s quest leads her to the story of two other sisters, Wisa and Magali, who live on Esi, a shape-shifting island that descends into barbaric chaos once every century.

“The Mad Sisters of Esi,” already an award winner in India, is dreamlike in the best possible way, crammed with haunting images and mind-blowing ideas on every page. In Mehta’s telling, madness takes on many meanings, including an ability to see the past and future as well as a hunger to create worlds, and the fear of it is used to enforce conformity. But when the story takes us to another island where everyone claims to be mad, they are just as conformist and rigid, obsessed with control.

At the heart of the story is the pair of sisters, separated and searching for each other, using time travel, ghost visitations, dreams and storytelling to reconnect. When the landscape changes like water, and time can be reshaped, all people have is one another. “Sister is a careful word,” Mehta writes. “You have to love and hate each other … You have to be slightly mad to love like that.” Theirs is a journey of ongoing loss, and sadness takes a central role: Even unraveling the mysteries of the whale becomes cause for mourning, because, as Mehta observes, things lose their power when you understand them. “The Mad Sisters of Esi” both demands and rewards a second reading, and it is a strong contender for the year’s best novel.