Published By: Fourth Estate
Pages: 256
Released On: 13/08/2026
Evelyn was just a teenager when she first began suffering with the symptoms of endometriosis – a reproductive condition that affects one in ten women. For fifteen years, she endured constant, agonising pain. Where she was desperate for clarity and support from medical practitioners, she was instead met with cold dismissals of hysteria and irresponsible misdiagnoses. Her pain left her completely isolated – until sharing her story revealed to her that countless other women were suffering the same fate.
A Bloody Scandal is a personal and shocking account of this gynaecological neglect. Weaving her own experience with those from women all across the globe, Evelyn examines the medical, political and educational failures that are causing preventable harm to women with reproductive conditions everywhere. Unflinchingly honest, this book is both a forceful reckoning with broken systems around the world and an urgent call for empathy-led care. Above all, it is a bold, compassionate show of solidarity with the women whose bodies are still being failed today.
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Fourth Estate for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I was just 12% in and I had to have a breather because it made me so angry. Not at the book itself, but at the topic and the fact that women are still having to advocate for better healthcare – particularly gynaecological healthcare.
This is another one of those books that I will not review as I would a novel. I think the subject matter is more important than whether the pace is right or the “characters” are believable.
I had just written a Substack actually about women’s pain and healthcare so I felt this was very timely.
The chapters are about 30 pages each, which for me is too long. It’s not quite as important in non-fiction books to have short snappy books because you’re not trying to pace a story. But I still prefer short chapters.
I can’t believe a book like this is still needed in 2026 but it’s amazing how much women still have to go through in regards to gynaecological health. This whole “periods are meant to be painful” belief…no they’re not! They’re meant to be uncomfortable but not enough to interrupt your day. And it irks me that people still believe that.
I particularly liked (and was dismayed at) the discussions around how boys are not taught about periods and girls are led to believe they are unhygienic and not to be talked about. Now, things might have changed in sex ed at schools nowadays, but my experience was very similar to Evelyn’s – boys and girls separated and only taught about the body parts that affect them, and periods are almost mentioned as an afterthought. In fact, looking back, I cant remember ever being taught about them. I learnt everything I knew from reading older women’s magazines in the hospital waiting room.
And if you take boys…they become men, and if they end up in a relationship with a woman, periods WILL be a big part of that relationships so it’s vital they learn about them.
And I don’t get it. Periods are natural. As far as I’m aware, all (or most) females of all species have a menstrual period. Without which, babies cannot be conceived. Without periods, the men who brush anything related under the carpet and think of as dirty, would not be alive to think those things.
After doing some googling I found that there is roughly THIRTY TIMES more funding per patient experiencing male pattern balding than there is for endometriosis patients, and that’s just incomprehensible.
There’s a good balance between her own experiences and other case studies, and with scientific information and stats. Some of it is a bit technical and went over my head but that’s not a hugely big problem.
Books By Your Bedside 