Authors: Cheryl O’Donovan & Tom Wolferman

Publisher: A Better Be Write Publisher

ISBN: 0-9767732-7-9

Admit it – there was a day, once, a long time ago, that when you walked down the street, heads turned. Cars actually honked, lusty guys hung out of windows to offer catcalls in your favor. Now. Well, now cars only honk if you’ve sat too long at a green light. And guys only hang out of windows to tell you that you’ve left your gas cap open. Somewhere in the murk of your thirties, you became invisible.

According to Cheryl O’Donovan, co-author of THE ESTROGEN UNDERGROUND, you’re not really experiencing anything new or remarkable. Says O’Donovan of middle-agers, “Unless you are rich, powerful or wield Zeus’s Bolt-O-Lightnin’ that zaps people to attention – or you’re really, really LOUD…you’ve become invisible” (p. 6).

It’s a phenomenon that’s sweeping mid-life women everywhere. And if O’Donovan and her co-author, Tom Wolferman, have their way, they’re going to stop it dead in its tracks.

Give them your saggy, your weary, your droopy, sleepy, and wrinkled. Give them your ladies who remember when The Carol Burnette Show was on prime time TV. With a little humor, advice, and a cartoon or two thrown into the mix, O’Donovan & Wolferman will empower middle-agers the world over, and have some fun in the process.

But you have to want it. You have to want to be transformed. To be willing to take an oath to the cause. The Estrogen Anthem, they call it, and in part it is a promise to:

“…rail against ageism, youth narcissism, and sneering underfed sales clerks whose cognitive skills are limited to the folding of ultra low-rise jeans” (p.2).

THE ESTROGEN UNDERGROUND is divided into seven snappy sections, ranging everywhere from exercise advice to new careers and hobbies to plastic surgery and (sigh) dieting. Quirky cartoons (drawn by O’Donovan herself) add to the humor of the book, and the photo art gives the book an irreverent, trendy feel.

The humor is at times hilarious and at times understated, but always fast-paced and light. I have to admit that occasionally I found it a little difficult to digest a man’s opinion on such a strictly feminine subject; however, Wolferman does a nice job of sympathizing with the cause without trying to disguise the fact that he is introducing a man’s point of view, and his humor is nicely complementary to O’Donovan’s. I could only imagine the two of them together, writing this book, O’Donovan launching erasers at his head every time he says something totally male.

I read this book in one sitting, partly because it is such a fast, easy read, but also partly because it was entertaining and insightful. I laughed out loud more than once. A great gift for the invisible woman in your life, I’d recommend THE ESTROGEN UNDERGROUND.

The above review was contributed by:  Jennifer Brown : Click Here To View Jennifer Brown's Reviews