Sheri’s Comments (group member since Jul 25, 2016)

Sheri’s comments from the EPBOT Readers group.

I pulled questions from a longer list, haha, forgot to delete the numbers/renumber.

I kind of felt the same. I liked learning about the different women through the ages, but it seemed like she needed much more editing to pull it together into something more cohesive and easier to read. Also some things like I didn't realize Katherine Gobel WAS Katherine Johnson until she started dating the man with the last name Johnson. She also seemed to jump around a lot, so I had trouble following the different women's stories. I'd wished that she had either kept strict chronological order, or else told each woman's story in her own chapter. It jumped around too much to follow. I also agree that a novelization would be good too, which is essentially what the movie did. The basic structure was true, but things were tweaked around and embellished to tell a more coherent and watchable story.

I do tend to agree that a lot of what went on at NASA/Langley wasn't done to be progressive or broad minded, but to solve an immediate problem. Mr. Butler and the others in charge probably assumed they'd be able to fire the women as soon as better male candidates were found, until they made their place too solid to oust them.

Going to your own question, I'd say they basically tweaked things to suit their own narrative purpose. For example, in the book the restroom scene was nothing so dramatic. If I recall ( read the book at the end of last year myself), it was actually one of the other women who just refused to walk across campus to use the bathroom so started using the white bathroom without saying anything. So they obviously wanted it to be more of a statement.

Some people mentioned wanting to try the suggesting books via goodreads topic method of selecting the next book. So we'll try that! Just put a suggestion here, and i'll try to count them up. If there's one that's a clear winner we'll do that, otherwise I'll gather top suggestions into a poll. If it gets too cumbersome we can try the google doc method again.

Hi everyone, I just realized we're getting into October so book discussion for Hidden Figures should have started. Sorry for not being on the ball, I have been very busy the past month!

To start the discussion off, I found a few questions to trigger some discussion beyond whether we liked or disliked the book, hopefully that helps!

2. In what ways was Melvin Butler, the personnel officer at Langley, progressive in his hiring practices? In what ways was he restricted by convention? Do you think he did the best he could under the circumstances?

3. What kinds of employment opportunities were available to African American women at this time? Why is the opportunity for a job at Langley so unique to Dorothy?

5. Are the women who become “girl computers” held to a higher standard? Or do they hold themselves to one? Why or why not? In what ways is working at NACA progressive? In what ways does NACA stick to southern conventions?

If anyone else has any other questions they thing would help, or other topics to bring up, feel free to add your own!

Man, week 40? Where did the year go?

Hope everyone's doing well!

I had a really busy weekend/week so I only finished two books this week.

Dark Matter - This was ok, but a little bit of a letdown. WHile the premise was really interesting, I was annoyed at the ending and a lot of the storytelling methods. For how much buzz was around it, I was expecting better.

Girl in Translation - I LOVED this one, so it made up for it. Such a great, yet heartbreaking story. It's billed as fiction, but the author blurb mentioned that she also immigrated to Brooklyn as a child, and also worked in a sweatshop. It's one thing to abstractly know conditions like that still exist in your country, another thing to read someone's first hand account to what they lived through. Yet the main character was likeable, and the writing style kept things from being so depressing I couldn't stand reading it. THis is also why I like reading challenges. I read this for my read harder immigration prompt, otherwise I probably wouldn't have hunted it down. So glad I did!

Up next is Seeing Red - this will be my book by a Central American author set in Central America.

How's everyone's weeks doing?

Susan, that's awesome you got to go see him!

Hi everyone!

Had a busy weekend, going to Cedar Point and melting in the heat. Still managed to get a bit finished.

The Death of Bunny Munro - Still a weird book. I still stand by the main character being completely repugnant, but for some reason I couldn't put the book down. I think I'll stick to Nick Cave's music, not writing, in the future.

Chimes at Midnight - October Daye book, I love the series in general and this one was good.

We Are Legion - We Are Bob - Friend recommended this to me, didn't know what to expect. I ended up loving it! It's a hard sci fi book, but the main character is a huge geek so it kept the tone light and readable, even when dealing with tougher subjects.

After I finished the last one up, I decided to get caught up on some of my comics so I could get them off the ipad.

Sherlock: A Study in Pink & Sherlock: The Blind Banker - I liked these ok, but they were basically line by line rehashing of the tv show. Interesting to see the characters in a manga style, but otherwise kind of redundant. No new insights or plot twists.

Rose, Vol. 1 - I've been reading this by the issues for a while, finished the arc last night.

Edge of Venomverse - read this this morning, interesting to see different characters as symbiots.

Currently reading: I'll probably kick out a few more comics just to free up more room, then move on to Dark Matter which just came up for digital checkout.

How's everyone's reading going? Anything good?

-Sheri

Hi everyone!

I had a pretty good reading week, considering I was out of town so had lots of plane reading time.

Finished:

Magic Steps - Started this a while ago but set it aside as a bunch of library books came up.

Tao Te Ching - Read this for Read Harder's book of poetry in translation on a subject other than love. Figured an ancient classic was a good choice. I liked it, ended up being pretty short and I finished it in an hour or so.

Descender, Vol. 4: Orbital Mechanics - Picked this up at one of the many Portland comic book stores I went to. I love this series, and the art is beautiful.

Daughter of Witches - i like Patricia Wrede, but i think i like her later books better. this was one of her early ones and it just isn't quite as engaging.

Under a Blood Moon - This is a book by a fellow FoE! It was pretty good.

Current reading:

The Death of Bunny Munro - borrowed this from a friend. I love Nick Cave so figured i'd give it a try. I don't think I've ever been so repelled by a main character as I am by Bunny Munro. However...since the book is called "The Death of Bunny Munro"...I am keeping reading to see what finally gets him in the end.

How's everyone else's reading going?

Welcome Alexa, and good luck!

Also you're welcome to just pop in to chat about what you're reading, even if it's not for a challenge. :D

Stephanie,

It's pretty nice! Glad to have a break from work!

Sorry none of my suggestions seem to be working out for you! I felt like the aguisette part was pretty central to her character. It's what lifted her out of the normal life of a house adept and brought her to DeLaney for the spy craft training. Those who would be in the market for her services wouldn't expect her to see through the fog of their experiences to use anything against them. since her ability was so rare, it put her in the position to have access to the highest levels of society, able to afford her services. It also drove her as a character, since that also is what caused her to make her biggest mistakes, especially with Mellisandre. I will say that the Namah series is less pain based if that is specifically what you find offputting. But again, it's also why I was cautious about my recommendation because I know it's totally not a book series that suits everyone.

Ps in a few hours I'm off to Powells :big starry eyes:

Hi Everyone,

Sorry for the late start. I have had a really hectic day, trying to both get all my work done and all my chores done so I can go on a small vacation this weekend. Leaving right after work!

This week I finished:

The Obelisk Gate - This was really good, second book in the broken earth series. I really love her world building.

The Stone Sky - I think this was my favorite in the series. It was just really powerful. In the afterword, the author mentioned that she was losing her mother to illness as she wrote it, so the anger and pain she felt came out into her writing. It made it really moving. Really loved the series, different from a lot of fantasy/sci fi i have read.

Magic Steps - Counting this as read because I've got less than a quarter left and it's short. I'll finish it at the airport before I even board the plane, I'm guessing. It's a light read. Kind of annoyed because while it is the first book in the immediate series, i did not realize there was a series before it that it references a lot. I'd have read those first, if I'd known. It's not that it's confusing, just it kind of spoils the previous series when you know "well, obviously these people are fine because here they are in this series".

Not sure what i'll read next, probably just something already on my kindle, or some ipad comics. I'll be really busy on vacation so probably won't have tons of time to read, except on the plane.

How is everyone else doing?

That's really cool. Also...I've read one of those. -.-

I think my problem is going to be finding them without buying. My library's digital files at least is pretty heavily American. I've been having trouble with Read harder, one of the prompts is a book by a Central American author, set in Central America. Found a list of books that fit those criteria, and none of the ones that sounded interesting were available digitally. So it probably means having to go through physical library network and hoping that SOME library within the network has at least some of them.

Stephanie, I leave the book club threads up and unlocked. So even if you don't' get to it until next year, you could still comment once you read it :D

Susan,

Let me know how the NdGT is, I've been wanting to read it!

I've thought about seeing him live, but every time I watched Cosmos, I fell asleep. Not because it was bad, but because his voice is just so soothing! I was worried if i saw him live, i'd just pass out haha

Rebecca, welcome!

I've been there, when i started my Goodreads account a few years ago. Luckily for your kindle books, you can import via amazon :D
I like the Martian a lot, hope you enjoy it. And yay for the book club! I read it at the end of last year, it was a good read. THe movie condenses stuff a lot into an easier to follow whole, but the book is great for learning about just how many woman worked at Langley.

I remember 1984 making me SO MAD in high school, haha. I've always been an escapist reader, it's only been in the last few years that I've been trying really hard to make myself read more nonfiction and "less fun" reading that I feel is important. It just made me so, so angry that there was no hopeful message in the end. I get what the point is, more so now than I did then, but I just HATED it at the time. And I haven't read since, haha. I hated Animal Farm too. I didn't hate Brave New World, but i only read it a year or two ago.

Partially my point of reading more classics now is exploring my theory that the way schools handle required reading makes people hate reading. Trying to see if I enjoy reading classics more now, when I choose to read them. My results are kind of mixed. I actually didn't mind Austin when I read it in middle school, I can't stand her now, haha. I didn't particularly enjoy Tess D'Ubrevilles. Really disliked Wuthering Heights. I thought 20000 Leagues Under the Sea was so deathly boring, with all the logs of what fish the narrator saw that day. However I re-read Color Purple this year, and enjoyed it a lot more than when I read it in school. I read Their Eyes Were Watching God and it was good. Loved Anne of Green Gables. I enjoyed Frakenstein to some degree, although the writing style was a little difficult to get through. SO maybe it just comes down to I'm a really picky reader, haha.

Stephanie,

You might like Murder on the Orient Express, even though it's a mystery. For all that it's a murder mystery, it feels less...gritty than a lot of them. There's not a lot of gory details, abuse, betrayals etc. It's a pretty straightforward whodunnit type.

And yeah, a lot of old sci fi has some really weird ides of utopia. Have you read Huxley's Brave New World? That's another of those "er...ok..." type utopia books. Or I guess more utopia-that-is-dystopia. So if they were studying together at that time, I could see how those ideas would permeate Well's work.

I know we talked about Dart a bit, but I do really love her world building. The impression I got from it was that it is supposed to be it's own separate world, but there's extremely clear parallels to our world. I think she gave it a degree of separation so she can tweak stuff to suit her own ideas. But it does feel like she researched the cultures she's referencing, so they feel fairly legitimate.

And yes, dark and twisty is a good description. But not dark as in "I don't know if I can handle this" levels of twisted. I hope you enjoy it, I dont' want to oversell it and have you not enjoy it like Boneshaker, haha. I know someone over in popsugar's group read it and HATED it. So your milage may vary. (kilometerage?)

hi everyone! Posting a little late today, because I was trying to finish a book, haha.

This weekend was a holiday weekend, and I had guests in the house the whole thing. Meant I didn't get much reading done. But I still did get some stuff read.

Finished:

Murder on the Orient Express - I enjoyed this a lot. It was an easy read, and I didn't really expect how it ended up. I also laughed when I realized there was totally an Animaniacs episode based off it, with Hercule Yakot.

Love Bites - I just needed a break from the other book I was reading, so this was a re-read. My weekend was so busy it ended up taking me all weekend to just get through it.

Homegoing - This is the book that i had to take a break from. I initially had picked it for my book about a difficult subject, but the waiting list was so incredibly long, I didn't want to wait that long to finish the challenge. I might count it for the Read Harder immigrant prompt. Kind of dubious if it counts though, since it follows two branches of a family through several generations. Both branches ended up in America from Ghana, but the narrative was not really about the immigration, more about the family ties through the generations. I had a lot of mixed feelings about it. It was well written, and it does tell a really important narrative. However because every chapter dealt with a new character/generation, i had a hard time really feeling invested. You could kind of piece together what happened to previous generations based on the next one's story, but it just wasn't really satisfying story arcs.

Currently reading: Technically nothing because I haven't started it yet, but next on the list is The Obelisk Gate which I need to hurry up and finish so I can read the 3rd book before it expires off my kindle.

How's everyone else doing?

I'm not familiar with either of those, sorry I'm no help! I thought the same about Frakenstein, not at all what I expected. I enjoyed it though!

Glad you liked The Lion, the witch, and the wardrobe. It's such a classic!

Oops, meant Susan, can't edit on the app!

Annemike, she totally has her priorities straight ;)

Awesome! Congrats on finishing!