Reviews

I did learn some interesting things from this book, and was introduced to some cool artists I've never heard of, but that's kind of the other side to my general critique, which was that I'd never heard of the majority of the women on this list. Which kind of serves to make female artists seem even more in the minority, which I don't think was the author's intention. I was also curious about how the author didn't seem to want to cover any super current people. Most people on the list were dead, and if they weren't dead for the most part they were very old. There are so many contemporary artists that would be fascinating (though probably difficult) to hear from. Taylor Swift! Beyonce! Janelle Monae! Greta Gerwig! V.E. Schwab! Margaret Atwood! I can keep going, but I'll chill. The list of women also seemed heavily weighted in favor of painters and sculptors and away from musicians for some reason. All in all, interesting-ish, but definitely a lot of confusing decisions were made.

djl's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging informative inspiring

3.5

servemethesky's review

Go to review page

3.0

This was a fun read! Mason Currey has compiled tons of profiles of amazing women and how they got their work done. Each night I'd dip into this collection and read 3-5 profiles. Sometimes they were inspiring--how did she possibly achieve so much when she had so much on her plate?! Sometimes they made me irritated and envious--of course she could do all this, she had an all-expenses-paid estate full of servants!

All in all it was an interesting collection, though not terribly earth shattering and the individual profiles weren’t particularly memorable. My main takeaway was that you should find whatever works for you and go with it.