Make-up and Mastectomies
Written: Apr 04 '05
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Brilliantly and insightfully written
Cons: None
The Bottom Line: This is a book that no man, woman, or teen should miss.
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| solleks's Full Review: Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy Books |
Those of you who were kind enough to read my work on Epinions several years ago, probably remember I stopped writing shortly after my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Every woman dreads hearing the words, "You have breast cancer," spoken to her or a loved one, but to Geralyn Lucas, author of Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy, the words seem especially cruel. She has a wonderful marriage, a dream job, and she is just twenty-eight years old.
This memoir, which is delightfully feisty and free of self pity, traces Geraldine's unconventional path from it girl to cancer survivor. Confronted with the need for a mastectomy, she flees to a strip club to ponder "what it means to have one boob in a boob-obsessed universe."
She handles her chemotherapy cocktail by pretending it's a real cocktail and by being mean to her mother. When her hair "releases" and falls out, Geralyn bypasses a wig and goes straight for a baseball cap and later a style-setting buzz cut. And when it's time to have a nipple placed on her newly reconstructed breast, Geraldine skips the fine art of plastic surgery and goes for a heart-shaped tattoo.
With a deft hand, she takes the reader through her diagnosis, her arduous treatment, and her slow return to health.
Style
One rarely thinks of humor and cancer in the same sentence, but Geralyn's tell-all coffee-klatch style is bound to raise a couple of laughs. And from the first paragraph in the first chapter, Geralyn lets the reader know that laughter is okay:
I am the only woman in the room with my shirt on at the VIP strip club (except for the coat check girl and she definitely doesn't count.) So I am trying to blend in but it is not working. A preppy guy has already come over and asked if I would spank him….
But of course, Geralyn's story is not all laughs as she worries about her appeal as a woman, her marriage, her ability to have children after treatment, and her fears of the cancer recurring.
In sharing her distress as well as her whacky, hard core sense of humor, Geralyn draws the reader in completely. If laughter is not off limits in this book, then neither are tears.
In the end, it is a hard-hearted reader indeed who will not cheer Geralyn's courageous decision to pose for Self magazine without a shirt, revealing to other women that there is life and sex appeal after mastectomy.
Family Reading?
The language is quite matter of fact. Geralyn may use a few curse words (not nearly as many as I'd use if I were diagnosed with breast cancer), but they are not frequent or gratuitous.
She discusses her sexuality and the way her illness disrupts the relationship between her and her husband frankly but gracefully.
Younger children will not be interested in this book, nor is it appropriate for them. It is very appropriate reading for teenagers (see below).
Final Recommendation
Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy should be required reading for every woman, and that goes double for women with breast cancer. (Yes, I am going to a copy to my mother who has thankfully been cancer-free for almost four years.)
It wouldn't hurt men to read it, either.
This is an especially valuable resource for teenagers, as Geralyn's cancer was diagnosed when she was only twenty-seven years old. Throughout the book, Geralyn emphasizes the importance of breast self-examination, and comments that she is sure she would be dead had she not learned to do it.
Although some people may avoid this book because the topic seems like a "downer," in the end, the story presented is one of hope and life rather than disease and suffering. I highly recommend it.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
solleks
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Member: Debra Stang
Reviews written: 124
Trusted by: 93 members
About Me:
Medical social worker, freelance writer, proud member of the lesbian community.
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