Deborah Copaken - Ladyparts: A Memoir

I want every single woman, and every human who has loved (or even met) a woman, to read this essential book. This deeply personal memoir manages to encapsulate in its pages virtually every way society conspires to screw us over, from sexual assault to workplace harassment to the absurd and nearly fatal gender inequities in the healthcare system. And yet it is also warm and compassionate and, yes, hysterically funny. It is a page-turner that makes you scream in empathetic frustration and laugh so hard you have to put the book down. Im honestly not sure whether I cried more because I was laughing or because I was so very sad.

Ayelet Waldman , author of A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life

Ladyparts is a beautifully written, boots-on-the-ground, first-person chronicle of everything that can go wrong with womens bodies and too often does. Deborah Copakens book is an important addition to the field of womens health from the lens of a patient.

Lisa Mosconi , PhD , New York Times bestselling author of The XX Brain

Ladyparts is an unmanicured middle finger to an archaic culture that shames women into suffering in silence. It is a bold love letter to women warriors, championing self-reliance while tackling the societal obstacles unrelentingly thrown in that path. Deborah Copaken shines a light on her scars, bravely helping those who cover their own feel less alone.

AJ Mendez , New York Times bestselling author of Crazy Is My Superpower

Ladyparts is in equal measure raw, unshrinking, hilarious, and heartbreaking. Deborah Copaken has been both a war photographer in Afghanistan and a single working mother in America, but take a quick guess as to which experience has been more dangerous. Lucky for her, she lived through both to tell the tale. Lucky for us, she has transformed her unique traumas into wholly relatable gold. Few people write like Copaken: her ability to translate the workings of her dazzling mind into prose is without parallel.

Donal Logue , actor and co-author of Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood

Deborah Copaken has written an amazing book. She uses her own body as a framing device. But through that lens, shes able to write movingly about everything you can imagine: love, divorce, war, parenting, cancer, gender inequality, dating apps, gourmet pie, you name it. Im sorry that Copaken has had to battle so many Job-like challengesbut Im delighted she is the heroine, not the victim, of her life. We need her to keep writing. We need this book, and many more, from her.

A. J. Jacobs , New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically and Thanks A Thousand

Filled with stories of what its like to be a woman and a writer in America today, and heart-wrenching moments of injustice and redemption, this page-turner of a memoir is harrowing, hopeful, and urgent. If you are a woman, it will change the way you look at the parts that make you and the parts that you play. If you are a man, it will illuminate you. And if you are either, or neither, it will move you and transform you. This memoir is visceral and beautiful. Thank you, Deborah Copaken, for writing this brave and brilliant book. Ladyparts is an absolute must-read.

Ariana Neumann , author of When Time Stopped

Utterly vitalLadyparts enraged and amused me in equal measure. Deborah Copaken shows what it means to barely survive beyond the hallowed slice of privilege, where moving through the world in a womans body can be dangerous, absurd, frustrating, beautiful, and sometimes all at once.A wickedly smart, thoroughly investigated, and elegantly written takedown of the gender discrimination and institutional misogyny we have accepted for too long. This book howls for women in a world that too often only allows us a whisper.

Rachel Louise Snyder , author of No Visible Bruises and What Weve Lost Is Nothing

This book is a must-read for anyone who knows a woman, loves a woman, or is a woman. Copakens sharp wit, heartfelt humor, and unabashed honesty turn what could be a tragic tale into a heroic journey of perseverance. Anyone who reads it will walk away feeling inspired.

Katherine Schwarzenegger , New York Times bestselling author of The Gift of Forgiveness: Inspiring Stories from Those Who Have Overcome the Unforgivable

Every chapter of Deborah Copakens memoir contains information about womens bodies that I couldnt believe no one had told me before. I was constantly outraged at what she had to endure to learn it all, but the book is so funny, smart, and entertaining that Im grateful to have her as a guide. Ladyparts is essential reading for all women, and for the people who love them.

Maile Meloy , author of Do Not Become Alarmed

Ladyparts is a memoir unlike any Ive ever readits quite literally visceral, from the unforgettable first moment where Copaken crawls on the tile floor collecting what she takes to be her own bloody organs. With breathtaking candor, Copaken catalogs the calamities of her body, part by part, spinning out a raw, raucous, often hilarious account of herselfwith so much insight and generosity that I finished the book feeling re-made.

Semi Chellas , award-wining writer/producer, Mad Men and The Romanoffs