Customer Reviews

Cycle Savvy: The Smart Teen's Guide to the Mysteries of Her Body

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a physician specializing in fertility, I see a lot of chronic reproductive health problems (and their devastating consequences)in my adult patients that could have been prevented if the patient had been provided with quality reproductive education as a teenager. This book provides the information young women need to make decisions at a young age that will impact their health across the lifespan. Thank you, Toni for making my job easier and for preserving the reproductive health of the next generation.

Dr. Susan Carr

I was so excited when I found Cycle Savvy! I bought it and read it before I gave it to my little sister. It talks all about the female cycle and what to expect throughout your cycle. It goes over the reproductive system, what the symptoms of a infection are, what to expect on your first pelvic exam, general gynecological health, how to chart your cycle, etc... There are cool pictures, games/tests at the end of each chapter so you can see if you learned the basic points, and the personal accounts throughout the book are really helpful. I like that it doesn't encourage charting your cycle for birth control, but it does have information on contraceptives and STD's/STI's. I found that this book is mostly geared toward teens that arn't sexually active but I think that it is a good read for the ones that are.

I bought Taking Charge of Your Fertility before I bought this one for my younger sister. I was astounded with all the information about my body that no one ever bothered telling me. Why weren't we taught this in Health class, or why didn't I find all this out from my Mom or Sister at least!?!? I then realized that they were all ignorant of this information. How could they teach me when they were Ignorant of it in the first place. I wished someone had been knowledgeable enough to hand me Cycle Savvy when I was in Highschool. It would have saved me a lot of confusion and self loathing when all those bodily changes where taking place. I decided to start informing the people around me of this awesome info. I told my friends, mom, and older sister about Taking Charge of Your Fertility, but then I came to a problem when I thought of my 13 year old sister and I knew she needed this information the most. I knew she would get overwhelmed by such a big book and she didn't need to know about achieving pregnancy and menopause. I was so happy to find Cycle Savvy! It allowed me to be a better role model and provide my little sister with the information about her body that she deserves to know.
Let's choose knowledge for our teens over ignorance.

How did teenagers survive before Cycle Savvy? We floundered in ignorance, that's how. No more! Toni Weschler never talks down to her readers as she covers everything from the nuts and bolts of menstruation to the insidious nature of modern advertising to the emotional and physical benefits of delaying sex. Girls will learn how to keep track of the not-so-mysterious-anymore wonders of their bodies, and discover how useful this information will be for the rest of their lives. I am so excited to share this book with my daughter...and my son! Guys need to know, too, you know!

If only this book had been around when I was a teen! Great, solid information shared in a straight forward way that will assist young girls in getting past the hypersexualization that they face today and move into a core of true self respect and self esteem. This book is a blessing.

I bought this for my teenage daughter having read the author's first book and having listened to her on local radio. I did not force the book on my daughter but simply left it on the table. I've watched my daughter pick it up and read from time to time and I can see she is absorbed at times. The book has a huge amount of biological science written into it yet the diagrams are illustrative of the concepts making it easier to read. We don't talk much about the topic but I am certain it is making a difference in my daughter's awareness which can only help me as a parent.

I highly recommend this book as the perfect gift for high school girls. It is a comprehensive guide to everything you need to know about your body, with the biological information entertainingly presented in conversational language, broken up by fun illustrations, charts, and thought-provoking personal anecdotes. After reading it, teen girls will have the vital information they need to make intelligent choices about their bodies, rather than being influenced by peer pressure. With two daughters, I am glad to have this book on our shelf and am recommending it to all my friends! It is the new "Our Bodies, Ourselves" for this generation!!!

As a huge fan of Taking Charge of Your Fertility, I was eager to see how author Toni Weschler addresses the much more delicate issues of teenage health and sexuality in her most recent book Cycle Savvy. I was especially interested to see if this book could "translate" all the essential information on reproductive health and wellness without falling down the slippery slope of pregnancy prevention and achievement. While many aspects of FAM are incredibly important for all girls and women, I saw a potential problem here, especially for families who believe in abstinence-only sex education.
I am pleased to say that Ms. Weschler addressed all these issues with good humor, sensitivity and the utmost discretion. Teenage girls will learn valuable information that will help them throughout their lives, and families can feel comfortable knowing that the information contained in this book is absolutely essential and age-appropriate. I only wish that this book had been written when I was a teenager! Reading this at 16 would have saved me over a decade of suffering due to my own ignorance and inability to understand my body and care for myself.
Cycle Savvy is a wonderful, insightful and enlightening read for teenagers and their families!

I own Toni's first book, "TCOYF" and it completely changed the way I look at my body and my cycles. So I was thrilled that she came out with this book for teens. I purchased it with the intent of giving it to my younger sister, but after reading it; I have decided to return it.

What I loved: The first two parts (Cycle Smart and Cycle Signals) cover all the basics on the female body that I guarentee your kids will never hear about in school. :) Toni discusses the different stages in a woman's cycle, including charting your fertility signs to help understand your body. The book is very well put together with fun illustrations and page layouts. The writing is smart and fun, and very easy to read.

This book does not teach FAM as a means of birth control. In fact, I was hopeful after reading the following in the introduction: "...this book is no more a sex-education manual than it is a primer on tampons."

What I didn't love: The third part of the book (Cycle Solutions) has a chapter called "From Cycle Savvy to Sex Smart" that seemed to contradict this statment in the intro. I will conceed that from a world/secular standpoint, this chapter is presented in a very balanced way. Most of the chapter is filled with stories of teenage girls' experiences with sex. The stories cover the spectrum, from "I had sex as a teen and regret it every day" to "I waited for just the right time with my boyfriend" and everything in between. If you or your daughter are proponents of abstinence, you will definitely want to look over this chapter before buying.

From a Christian standpoint, the information presented in this chapter is completely incongruent with what the Bible teaches. As much as I love Toni and everything she has done to empower women, and as much as I loved everything else about this book, this one chapter was enough for me to return it.

A ton of easy to understand information for teens! My teen also really liked S.E.X. by Heather Corinna. Each gave her different information and covered simliar subjects differently.

I give this book three stars because it is in part excellent (5) and in part terrible (1).

The good part: "Cycle Savvy" gives a good explanation of how the menstrual cycle works and how individuals can understand their own cycle through cervical mucus, body temperature, and other signs. The writing and explanations are clear and understandable, and the sample charts and review quizzes are useful. The descriptions and explanations of cervical mucus are the most specific and useful I've seen yet. I'd give five stars to pp. 46-48 and 61; they are fantastic.

The bad: Directed to teen girls 14 to 18, it does, however, come off a little condescending -- at the very least, trying too hard to be witty and accessible. Less easy to forgive are some messages the author slips in in the chapter on sex. I was disturbed by the victim-blaming in Weschler's advice to girls to try to "prevent" their own date rapes. In a section titled "How will you know when you are ready for sex?" Weschler asks readers to reflect on "What are ways that I can take control to prevent date rape? Do I fully understand that one of the most effective things I can do to prevent getting into such a situation is to avoid alcohol?" Need I point out that no one ever wants or chooses to be raped, and that the one responsible for rape is the rapist? Drinking alcohol does not make a person responsible for being raped.

Furthermore, the take-home message in the chapter on sex is that a woman's "first time" is a crucial and life-changing moment that must be done with the right person or it will cause regrets forever. Weschler describes the decision when and with whom to have sex as "one of the most important decision you will ever make," and this point is illustrated by anecdotes in which women explain how a bad "first time" caused them life-long regrets, or a choice to wait till marriage or True Love earned them respect and "[took] the regret out of sex." By use of similarily carefully chosen anecdotes, the discussion of sexually transmitted infections regurgitates the stereotype that STIs are caused by, and serve as the punishment for, promiscuity (or, as Weschler would put it, a woman who doesn't treat her body "with the respect it deserves").

Besides mentioning "Most of you are straight, but some of you will realize you're gay or bisexual" and a quick note that people define sex differently, the book's discussion of sex is notably heteronormative and PIV-centric.

It's unfortunate and disappointing that Weschler's book, particularly one for teens, contains blatantly sexist and shaming messages, especially as Weschler does a great job encouraging women to love their bodies and feel empowered by them. Indeed, the book ends with the chapter "Growing your power and confidence," which includes the subsection "Resisting the pressure to be perfect and making peace with yourself in a manipulative world." These progressive messages stand in direct contrast to the messages in the previous chapter, on sex.

Overall, it's a useful resource for learning about menstrual cycles and cycle-charting, but the other sections are best avoided. I would not buy this book, but I would strongly recommend borrowing it from the library and reading and photocopying the most useful sections, because they are quite excellent.