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Holly's Reviews > Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race
Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race
by Margot Lee Shetterly (Goodreads Author)
by Margot Lee Shetterly (Goodreads Author)
My original "review" was this - two flippant little sentences to serve as a placeholder for an eventual "real" review:
Glad that's over. Not bad but strangely boring.(In the interim 8 people "liked" that review IDK why?) Too much time has passed for me to write something detailed, but I just want to explain that though the book didn't impress me the women depicted are important and it will makes a great movie that I'm going to see soon. But maybe the execution of the story/ies just wasn't to my taste. The pacing and structure jumped around too much for it to make a good audiobook experience for me, and it was frustrating to listen to. (I just read that the movie deal was made before Shetterley had fully finished the book?) Of course I'm happy that we're getting these new works uncovering the lives and careers of unsung women in science: Girls of Atomic City, Rise of the Rocket Girls, the new Dava Sobel book (The Glass Universe) - and at least Shetterley's subtitle is about WOMEN and not GIRLS!
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Reading Progress
| 10/02/2016 | marked as: | to-read | ||
| 10/14/2016 | marked as: | currently-reading | ||
| 10/17/2016 |
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70.0% | "I'm not following this audiobook too well and keep finding myself sort of bored. But it doesn't seem to require close following. (?)" | |
| 10/18/2016 | marked as: | read | ||
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Suzanne
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Oct 18, 2016 01:06PM
I heard the author interviewed on NPR. It sounded as if this might be interesting, but I was waiting until some reviews came in before I put it on my list. Maybe I won't.
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I'll try to write a bit more in a day or two. (At the desk today, but on deadline.)
Informative succinctness an art form: you succeeded.But the extended review provides the astute comment re gender titles. "Girls" probably sounded pluckier or less intimidating to publishing marketers worried about scaring off threatened males.
You never hear of Oppenheimer et al at Los Alamos as the "boys' in the lab. You get "boys" only in crime or sports, I suspect, like "Boys in the Boat," re Olympic rowers book, though that was probably case of facile alliteration appeal.
So true. I'm a bit offended by the continuing trend of girl thrillers, girl memoirs, and girl science bios. Re the boys: Homer Hickam's Rocket Boys comes to mind - but it really was about young men, not to mention that the title was changed to "October Sky" for the film, no doubt to broaden its appeal!
It is a book of interwoven biographies, not a story like The Help. There were so many historical facts that would have had to have been left out in order to make it more "entertaining", and that would have done the stories of these stellar women a great injustice.
I understand. My remarks were on the book's structure and whether it was conducive to an audiobook experience. ~ Thanks!
I read it rather than listening, and still had exactly the same experience. Something about the structure made it feel tiresome and boring after a while despite the fascinating and important topic. Frustrating!
