Book Report: Eve

Hey, look, I finished a book that I like enough to write about! I’d would wager (if I did that kind of thing) that any like-minded friend of mine would love Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, by Cat Bohannon, as much as I did. It has footnotes and endnotes, too, which hints at some thorough documentation, yet there’s lots of humor scattered throughout, so it’s not boring one bit.

Bohannon tells the story of “Eves,” who are archetypal women of the past whose developmental firsts made big impacts on the evolution of humans. All my La Leche League friends will love the chapter on breastfeeding, though perhaps some more intense fans of this method of feeding might find flaws. I didn’t, and I even learned a little.

You learn a lot about the history of hominids, as well as how mammals developed, told charmingly through example animals. You get all wrapped up in their little lives as you see how traits we still have made a difference millions of years ago. The book is a lot of fun.

I also have to hand it to Bohannan for being “woke” in the best possible sense. That woman doesn’t put down anyone, even inadvertently, and she navigates our world of gender dysphoria and sexual choices like the consummate professional she is. I was duly impressed, and if I were trans or XXY or whatever, I’d feel like I’d been talked about respectfully. But she doesn’t make things awkward–if she chooses a typical example, she always acknowledges possible exceptions. I hope her terminology holds up now that there’s a (scary as heck to someone who fought for women’s rights) sudden devolutionary trend in women’s rights and roles in the US.

My only criticism, if you can call it that, is that Bohannon doesn’t talk about the effects of hormone replacement therapy in post-menopausal women. I’d be interested to know if the current trend of using bioidentical hormones has a positive or negative affect on women’s health and longevity. Maybe that will be in her next book.

This is a hefty tome, for certain, but remember at least a third of it is end notes, bibliography, and index. You’ll wish it kept going.