Breasts: A Relatively Brief Relationship – the funny, moving and universally relatable new memoir

Jean Hannah Edelstein

Apr 2025 · Phoenix · Narrated by Jean Hannah Edelstein

About this audiobook

'Has the power to knock the breath out of you'
THE TIMES

'A must-read'
JESSIE BURTON

'One of the most brilliant writers of her generation, as witty, wry and unsentimental as Nora Ephron'
OLIVIA LAING

'I LOVED this book'
NINA STIBBE

In this short, striking memoir, Jean Hannah Edelstein charts the course of her unexpectedly brief relationship with breasts.
As she comes of age, she learns that breasts are a source of both shame and power. In early motherhood, she sees her breasts transform into a source of sustenance and a locus of pain. And then, all too soon, she is faced with a diagnosis and forced to confront what it means to lose and rebuild an essential part of yourself.

Funny and moving, elegant and furious and full of heart, Breasts is an original and indispensable read. It is both an intimate account of one woman's relationship with her own body and a universally relatable story for anyone who has ever had - or lost - breasts.

'Painful and funny and essential'
FRANCESCA SEGAL

'A thunderclap . . . I was blown away'
MARIANNE LEVY

'A tit punch of a book'
ROSAMUND DEAN

'Nobody writes about the curveballs life throws at you, or helps you deal with them, like Jean Hannah Edelstein'
DAVID WHITEHOUSE

About the author

Jean Hannah Edelstein is a British-American writer. Her memoir, This Really Isn't About You, was published by Picador in 2018. Her journalism has been published in numerous UK and US outlets, including the Guardian, Elle and New York Magazine, and she's contributed to radio programmes including This American Life. She lives with her family in Montclair, New Jersey.