Blurb: In her mid-thirties, Lucy-Anne Holmes still felt like a novice when it came to sex. But when she tried to find out what she could do about it, she realised everything she googled was geared to male pleasure rather than to women’s. Determined not to let this stop her, Lucy penned a list and set out to discover what her sex life was missing. She embarked on an adventure which would change her life. Lucy has written the book about sex she wanted to read. It will make you snort with laughter one minute and weep the next; it is frank, eye-opening and inspiring, and will speak to women everywhere.
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Title: Don’t Hold my Head Down
Author: Lucy-Anne Holmes
Publisher: Unbound
Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoirs, Sex and Relationships
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Review:
Unhappy with her sex life, Lucy-Anne Holmes set off on a journey to discover everything there was to know about sex. Another goal that went hand in hand was writing a book on sex from the female perspective, a book that Lucy herself had wanted so badly to read, and a book that would offer a hand up to anyone who found themselves in her position.
I stumbled across this book rather by accident. I was on the look out for big-sister style self-help books and found this gem when looking for something sex positive. As women, we’re often told that talking about sex is taboo. Everything about a woman’s experience is open to judgement – how many partners she’s had, what she did with them, what age she was when she did them. Was she a young mother? Is she prude? Is she easy? We just can’t seem to win! So when I found a book, written by a woman, that was open and honest and downright funny I snapped it up. Holmes writes with vigour about her experiences, mixing in humour but never dismissing any of her thoughts or feelings. Parts made me jump up with excitement that someone has the same thoughts as me, others had me crying with laughter, and some even had me contemplating them. For me, that’s the best part of books like this, challenging your thoughts and ideals to see if it’s really what you want or if you’d be open to something different. If you’re something who, like me, prefers to read books that could be written by a super cool big sister then this is definitely one for your TBR.
Other than the writing style, I also want to point out that there are a range of topics covered (under the umbrella of sex and relationships) so that most readers with questions will find something of interest. From self pleasure and self confidence to experimentation and different kinds of relationships, my horizons have most definitely been broadened in the best way! With chapters ranging from ‘Learning to Love Myself’ to ‘BDSM’ you can’t say that Holmes didn’t do her research. Also, from a history nerd’s perspective, there’s also a really interesting section at the back of the book about women’s experiences with sex throughout history which I loved.
As for what I disliked, it was personal picky things. Not everything was relatable to me and therefore meant I didn’t get as much out of it as other readers may have. However, as I get older and experience more this could change and while I note this, it didn’t distract from my overall enjoyment of the book because that fantastic writing style is consistent all the way through!
I also want to note here that this book was crowd published by Unbound (meaning that it was funded by regular folk and not a traditional publishing house) – now, I don’t know whether this was because none of the big names wanted anything like this but it makes me a little sad that we could have missed out on this book. Holmes has definitely shown that there’s a market for it!
Overall, I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone with questions about sex and relationships and wants a comforting, and hilarious, voice on the matter that will really help you breathe that sigh of relief.
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Rating: 4/5
Recommend?: Yes
Have you read this book? Or maybe you’ve read something similar? What did you think? I’d love to know!
You can always find me over on Twitter if you’d like to discuss this book (or any others that I’ve featured) in more detail 😌
Hannah's Bookshelf 🌸 
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