Extraordinary Women In History: 70 Remarkable Women Who Made a Difference, Inspired & Broke Barriers

by Leah Gail

Discover the inspiring lives and legacies of some of history’s most unstoppable women! Are you searching for a profound and empowering celebration of influential women throughout history? Do you want to uncover the lesser-known stories of the women around the world who helped shape history? Or do you want to motivate yourself to dream big with real stories of female heroes? Then this book is for you! Compiling the incredible real-life stories of 70 remarkable women throughout history , these short stories seek to inspire and empower women of all backgrounds to dream big and break barriers by sharing the amazing achievements of truly unstoppable female heroes. From female daredevils and pioneering innovators to radical reformers, dedicated activists, leaders, wordsmiths, artists, veterans and more, inside you’ll discover the lives and legacies of these once-in-a-lifetime trailblazers. Paying homage to some of the greatest women the world has ever seen, Extraordinary Women in History is a testament to the power of dedication, courage, tenacity, and never giving up. Their stories will encourage you to take action and prove that barriers only exist to be broken. Here are just a few of the extraordinary women you’ll find Perfect for history fans, educators, as an inspiration for young girls, or for anyone interested in discovering the legacies of these remarkable women, Extraordinary Women in History will open your eyes to the profound contributions that these female role models have made. Are you ready to discover the incredible and inspirational lives of these unstoppable women? Then scroll up and grab your copy now! (Re-edited version)

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Feminism, Historical, Biography, Audiobook, Contemporary

201 pages, Hardcover

Published May 17, 2021

Reviews

[Sindy Castellanos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring collection of stories from admirable women, throughout human history. The narratives are brief but incisive and show that, despite being forgotten, many persons have achieved great transformations in the society of their time and have influenced the present.
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Inspiradora colección de historias de mujeres admirables, a lo largo de la historia humana. Las narraciones son breves pero incisivas y manifiestan que, a pesar de ser olvidadas, muchas personas han logrado grandes transformaciones en la sociedad de su tiempo y han influenciado el presente.

[Kaitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love books about women who make a difference. This book contains short introductions to 70 women who have lead inspiring lives. There are the usual entries but also some often overlooked diverse candidates.

Good for anyone interested in history and women's studies

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

[Tissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I already mentioned once, I don’t read other people’s reviews until I’m done with a book. Opinions are subjective, and I like to start a novel with a bias-free mind.

When I checked on GR, I noticed something odd. Some people were lamenting the fact that Gail’s writing style sounded too dry, while others complained about excessive enthusiasm. Which is which, then? In my opinion, Extraordinary Women in History falls in the middle: the chapters are quite short, and that suggests a certain dryness; there’s an undercurrent of passion too, though, especially in the introduction. I mean, it’s not unbalanced.

[Keep reading @ Bookshelves & Teacups]

[Autumn Dunsmore · Rating 1 out of 5]

Such bland writing, couldn’t get into it.

[Jamie Bee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not Well Written

This could have been an excellent book. I love the idea of a book featuring women who made a difference, paving the way for other women and even future generations. I was alarmed first by the introduction, which seemed a bit too strident and anti-male with its discussion of the oppression of patriarchy. While that has certainly been—and to some extent—continues to be a problem historically, I don’t think it needs to be brought up in a book where the sole focus should be the remarkable women. Especially for the ladies in this book born before the 20th century, they were able to mostly work within their societal structure… and still be amazing.

Unfortunately, the writing style of the book is poor on several levels. The author has more enthusiasm for her subject than writing ability. The chapters on the ladies are over-hypey and don’t actually provide much information about the women… other than how awesome they are and what they did was. For the women I already knew something about, some facts were outright wrong or not quite right. The book also suffers from problems with grammar, punctuation, and usage.

So, while I admire the idea of the book, it has too many faults in execution that I cannot recommend it.

I received a free copy of this book, but that did not affect my review.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brief intros to 70 exceptional women through history. Appreciate that it has several more obscure women and is pretty racially diverse.

Topic was really interesting. Writing style was dry though and just couldn't get very into it.

[Shangread-La · Rating 2 out of 5]

The idea is a good one, but the writing doesn't live up to the subject matter.

[lf · Rating 5 out of 5]

70 Extraordinary women that will inspire you to go after your dreams and make a difference

Extraordinary Women In History contains stories about 70 women who have changed something in the world. They are grouped into 7 different categories with each story containing a concise summary of each woman's biography. These stories are uplifting, empowering and fascinating. A number of the women I already know about but some I have never heard of before or how their story had an impact for women who followed. These women were trailblazers without meaning to be as they lived their lives and wanted to accomplish their dreams and goals. '

The biography's are full of information and facts, some which you may know and others that you may not. For the most part was an easy read and flowed nicely. There were a few times where it was a bit choppy but otherwise really good. I know that reading one of these stories each morning would be an inspiration to get up and go after your own dreams also, no matter how far away they may seem.

[Art · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the variety of women lifted up in this book. The chapters split things nicely and include a range of time periods within them. There is enough information to give you a decent start to understanding what the women stood for and jump start your own research. It was a refreshing read and will be a reference for the future.

[Lara Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book! YES! Finally celebrating women instead of men that made history! This is so much needed, for women AND men. I am so thankful to the author for compiling this awesome list of awesome women!

I received a free copy of this book to review.

[Syed Saqib Mumtaz Hashmi · Rating 5 out of 5]

No one can underestimate the contribution of these wonder women to the world. The author has compiled leading ladies who have led by example and tried to achieve what was unthinkable.

[Nicola Harper Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reads mostly like a high schooler's essay. Short chapters with only basic detail, overly simplistic and the kindle copy included several grammatical errors (eg "Noble prize").

[Faith O'Malley · Rating 1 out of 5]

*Disclaimer - I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway*

I really wanted to love this book, but unfortunately it fell short of my expectations. The books gives short essays of many notable women through history and disciples. I appreciated that the author covered women I have never heard of and included a racially diverse set of women. The books is not well written as the author often makes redundant statements and many of the essays give very little information on what that notable woman did. I would have liked to learn more details of each women as well as seen a more well-rounded account of what they did (for example, some suffragettes were included and it did not talk about how many white suffragettes of the time were racist). I would have given the book a 2-star rating but there also seems to be some historical inaccuracies. For example, the author wrote that Anne Frank’s diary was written about her time in concentration camps but it was actually written while she and her family were in hiding. The inaccuracies that I picked up on make me unable to trust the other information presented in the book, especially for the women I wasn’t already familiar with.

[Kimberly · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book. I enjoy history and reading about the achievements of women. I found the writing style dry and excruciatingly boring, like a middle school book report. The profiles are very short and yet a few managed to be annoyingly repetitive. Overall, it was an interesting concept where the execution fails badly.

I received this book for free from a giveaway on Goodreads.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun little read. It’d be really awesome to read with your daughter every day. The information on each woman is relatively short and would teach the next generation of women what women before them have done.

[Stacie · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the intent of the book is inspirational and educational, each mini-biography reads like a junior high writing assignment. A book about these individuals could have so much potential if it could be rewritten or better edited.

[Carlotta Dunn · Rating 2 out of 5]

My grandma got me this book, you can imagine why. I was happy to give it a go, I'm always happy to learn about more female historical figures who are overlooked. But honestly, don't bother. The lack of detail, 'empowering' sentences and lack of variety made it quite surface level. Firstly, while it made efforts to include women of colour there is NO mention of queerness, even when the figures mentioned have that history. If you're going to delve into the ways gender and race or religion intersect then why not sexuality? Seems a big gap to not mention or include ONCE in 70 different examples. But that I can move past if not for the way some of these sentences are written oh my GOD. Calling someone 'the first TRUE mathematician' or 'first TRUE feminist' is such a strange claim to write in a book. More so, the frequent reminders that slavery and racism is bad feels less like a reminder for the audience and more of a reminder to the author. I know that was likely not the intention but it's how it came across. Also, the use of the word 'queen' does NOT need to be used this much. As far as I'm aware there's not a legal amount of times someone needs to say 'queen' to make it a feminist book. Thirdly, some of the examples were SO repetitive. I think there were 7 or 8 female pilot stories- please pick one or two girl. Finally the 'woman in leadership roles' immediately became my least favourite chapter when it repeatedly frames the colonialism, slavery and wars caused by these leaders as a girlboss move. Elizabeth I 'encouraged her nations exploration of the world by discovering new places' ?? Aka she was a colonialist that started the slave trade, say it how it is! To be fair, the writer does mention this later, almost getting a pass from me until- and this BOILED my blood- she wrote 'her legacy is not perfect, but then she could not have predicted the worst excesses of British imperialism, which were to follow her own death'- like, EXCUSE ME?? She absolutely DID know what she was doing. Just because shes a successful woman doesn't mean she's an ethical one, as with many other female leaders. I'm not saying cut these figures out. They can STILL be inspiring but don't sugarcoat or whitewash the information to fit the empowerment-porn narrative. Let the readers decide if they find this person inspirational with the WHOLE picture in mind.

Anyway I HATE to be a hater. I know intentions were good so I really hope the writer never sees this. But hey ho, it was not for me and I had to let it out.

[Victoria B. · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5 stars, if I'm being generous.

I'll start with the things I liked: she included obscure women from a variety of backgrounds I had never heard of and piqued my interest in them.

The things I didn't like: she was very flowery with her praises yet not specific enough about the women's accomplishments, and the writing was similar to the 5-paragraph essays my 13 y/o churns out and in *desperate* need of an editor (grammar, awkward word phrasing, and just straight up facts).

I basically lost all respect for the author as an authority while reading the following in the section about Noor Inayat Khan: "Noor Inayat Khan was a courageous and lion-hearted woman who returned from the Gestapo's captivity and imprisonment without uttering a word. The nation and authorities awarded Khan with a George Cross and a French Croix de Guerrero with a silver star after the war. Such audacious and valent personalities are gems of a country." (Emphasis mine.) Let's break down the problems with the writing this British author wrote about a British spy, about whom films and PBS documentaries - as well as multiple books - have detailed. 1) She never returned from war. She was murdered in Dachau concentration camp. While there is some (minor) controversy about how exactly she died, one thing is very clear: she DID die. Authorities had nothing to do with her awards, but the government did and both awards were given posthumously. And I think the author meant to praise Khan's valiant personality (singular, since as far as I know, Khan was one person, with one personality).

There are better written books out there about historically important women.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from a Goodreads giveaway in exchange for my honest review.

[Hannah Wagner · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book sheds some (very brief) light on plenty of notable women, but some of the recitations are very clearly biased e.g. Mary Teresa, and her “indubitably commendable” speeches against divorce, contraception, and abortion 😬
So many of these names deserve to be remembered and celebrated, but this book is basically just a fluffed up list. Still, a lot of these names aren’t celebrated and discussed enough (or hardly ever) and at least this can introduce them to people. I for one, am glad I learned about women such as Wangari Maathai and others I had previously heard very little of or at all, so in that sense I got something out this book.

Harriet Tubman? Wish we all grew up learning her name. Alice Paul? Undoubtedly revolutionary but her work wasn’t for ALL women (WOC were actively excluded). Defs a pioneer of white feminism. And if Mother Mary Teresa said abortion was the “worst evil” out loud nowadays she’d undoubtedly get bitch slapped. All these women did brilliant things, but they weren’t always brilliant people with admirable beliefs. Something to be noted. Some of these women had some very outdated beliefs and you can definitely tell when the authors not-so-subtle agreement shines through. Also, these types of sentences that showed up sometimes throughout the book— “[Phillis Wheatley] was able to gain the admiration of even the literate, white colonists.” and “Bader reached the rank of acting corporal due to her positivity and determination, which was unusual for a black woman of that time.” —were just… not phrased well to say the very least.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won a copy through a GoodReads Giveaway, and here is my review.

I really appreciated the intent behind this book, and got to learn about several figures I never learned about in school!

Since each woman was only given 2-4 pages of content, it was impossible to capture the full socio-political context each overcame to make their mark on history, so the author was fighting an uphill battle the whole way. Initially, the subtitles for each were simply titles they were known by, but as the book progressed these devolved into repetitive, longer lists that were restated in the body of text. Specifically, the abolitionists and suffragists started to blend together, as their actions, causes, and deeds were copied/pasted, instead of highlights that made each woman's origin and contributions unique.

On the biographies of the women that I did recognize, I was disappointed that the author chose to interject their personal feelings and adjectives without supporting facts/descriptions. If they were unique, tell me why. If they were courageous, give examples to tell me what they did.
This book needed a good copy edit, with grammatical errors throughout that changed the sentence to mean the opposite (i.e., an abolitionist working for, instead of against, slavery). I also found it extremely problematic that racism and sexism were issues that at times were discussed in the past tense, as if these are not still relevant issues today.

[Jasmine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extraordinary Women in History is a book that introduces readers to 70 different women who lived throughout different time periods and did some extraordinary things. Some women are very well-known and familiar (Rosa Parks, Anne Frank, Harriet Tubman, etc), while others are a bit more obscure or unknown. Each woman has a short snippet about her life and what she did to be included in the book. It was an interesting read, but I found some of it to be a bit repetitive and dull. A few of the women had very similar stories, and they all kind of blended together. This book also had some typos (the main one being Noble Prize instead of Nobel Prize). I think this would have been more fascinating and unique if it had included perhaps a small photo of each woman (if one was available) and a bit more about them. I've read two other books this year about women who have accomplished some amazing things throughout history, and both of those books were a little more enjoyable to me than this one. Not to say this one is bad, but I found myself growing a bit bored with the repetition.
If you're looking to learn about some historical women you may or may not know about, this would probably be a good starter before diving into a different book for the main course.
3.5 stars.

[Hermione · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were a lot of interesting women from all eras and places that I had never heard of who are in this book, as well as some of the more obvious ones. The author does well to have gathered such a broad range of women from different walks of life. The little bios are quite short, like little broad introductions, so I'll be looking into the lives of some of these women more. The book is a great starting off place for getting to know these historical figures. It's inspiring all the amazing things these women have done, throughout history, and it's nice to see them talked about. Some of them had their work devalued in their own day.

The writer of this book has a certain way of writing and structuring a sentence that is slightly odd. I know some other reviewers commented on this. I think this sometimes happens with self published books, they're not highly edited. But I found this book intriguing. I dipped in and out of it, reading one or two lives over a cup of tea, and just getting to know all these lives. I think it's a nice book.

Thank you to the author for the copy of this book for review.

[AL Kepple · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this book. I find this book has a usefulness because it does list women of note.

There are a couple of counts where this book falls short of my expectations, first, it seems to be a mixture of an encyclopedia and opinions by the author. I think it would have been stronger if it had gone in one direction or the other or had encyclopedic entries for the women interspersed with essays for the sections of the book where the author could provide input and opinion. As it is, it falls short on both counts by trying to be both in every entry.

The second place the book falls short for me is it could have benefited from solid editing. There are places where different word choices would have been beneficial. Additionally, a good edit would have cleaned up sentences like the following, "Being the first African American, McDaniel won an Oscar and received an honor due to her distinct performance as Mammy in Gone with the Wind."

I'm giving the book 3 stars for its listing of the women inside of it. I wish the execution would have been better.

[Gosia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I commander the idea, but the execution leave a lot to be desired. The choice of names is a bit questionable (Mother Theresa, after what we already know about her scams? Hattie McDaniel, with the promotional and in fact racist Oscar? Who else of the women I didn't know had questionable history?), but I can understand it was a personal choice - however, I can't agree to not have the issues surrounding their life omitted. I also find the stories to be stripped of chunks of time and deeper meaning (e.g. "She was hiding... but soon found" - how soon? what happened during? why, how was she found?), the stories seem to be on a superficial level. The flow reads like it was children's book; the wording is all over the place at times, redundant or missing the point. And the stories are "unequal" - some have too many small (sometimes unimportant) fact, some are just short summaries. I love the idea, but I feel like it was written off-handedly, without putting enough research, thought, and faith in it.

[Jane Bowditch · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was given to me as a Christmas present, and I was interested in the subject matter so was a good buy. However, on reading I found that it did not live up to expectations. The writing was confusing as the sentences were poorly executed and at times the grammar was appalling. I feel the writer needs to find a better proof reader/editor if she decides to write another book. One woman that was mentioned is Dorothy Hodkins, however her name only crops up in the first two paragraph of her section after that the writers speaks about two other women through Dorothy’s story, it appeared that the writer forgot who she was writing about. This book felt as though it could have been compiled by a GCSE student and was rushed. Paragraphs on the women were short in places and had limited information, better research should have been done. Unfortunately I wouldn’t recommend this book.

[Radhika Shendye · Rating 1 out of 5]

I would give a lower rating if it was possible. The writing is immature and the research is shallow. This book was an utter disappointment. The author makes no effort to go deeper into the contribution of the women, describe their challenges or explain the significance of their work/accomplishments. Each chapter uses flowery language to glorify women superficially without actually getting into any meaningful detail.

For example, the chapter on Marie Curie, the author notes that her first discovery was "radioactivity" (factually false, it was discovered by Henry Bequerel for which he won the Nobel. Curie shared it for her work *on* radioactivity, particularly Bequerel radiation). The chapter does not explain what radioactivity is or what impact her work had on the world.

The book was a waste of time.

[Claire Milne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book after seeing it on Kindle Unlimited as I wanted to know more about the women that have been forgotten in history. It is an excellent idea for a book, unfortunately I really struggled to get through it. There were phrases that sounded glib , abbreviations that were not explained and poor grammar. There were more mentions than seemed necessary about horse riding leading the women to become what they became as well as many mentions of their talents etc being "God given". Some of the women I had not heard of so it gave me insight I did not have but I then went and looked up these women to find out more about them. And perhaps that was always the intention of the author as I noted at the end the book was self published after she noted the lack of women in her field of work, so in that respect she has done her job.

[Bibliophileverse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary Women In History by Leah Gail is a remarkable book witnessing all the achievements made by women over the years. The book has mentioned some renowned names from all over the world. The book was really interesting and informative. Extraordinary Women In History is best for students for their curriculum. It was a great read as I came to know about so many accomplishments made women, who broke barriers of color and racism.

Definitely, I am going to award 5 stars to the book. And, thanks to Book Review Crew for providing me an opportunity to read and review the book.

Read more on bibliophileverse.blogspot.com

[Olivia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a lot in this book. It has made me appreciate women more so than before. This book is a non-fiction. I truth be told am not a fan of non-fiction books - they are harder to get into and sometimes to understand and comphrend where the stories going and what its about. Also because it's a non-fiction it takes me much longer to read despite it being a 100 ish pages.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book though. It was a nice short read exactly what I was looking for with the writing being understandable and easy.

3.75 *

[Ligia Bonetti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading about all these amazing, incredible women was inspiring and gave my heart a sense of proudness and strength of spirit. Today in the year 2022, women are still subject to discrimination and face injustice specially in poor communities and under developed countries. This book is a testament that nothing is imposible. It is a reminder to us women that no matter the difficulties, obstacles, discriminations and injustices one must believe in our dreams and pursue them at all cost and with all intentions. If they did it so can we !!!