omccloskey's review against another edition
1.0
DNF'ed at 64%.
I enjoyed the movie adaptation, but the repetition and constant fact regurgitation in this caused it to read more like a history textbook rather than a narrative. While I don't generally read non-fiction, this failed to hold my attention to the extent that I was forcing myself to continue reading. Furthermore, I wasn't fond of Shetterly's writing style or the indistinguishable characters. On a positive note, however, I appreciated the manner in which difficult subject matters and themes were addressed.
I enjoyed the movie adaptation, but the repetition and constant fact regurgitation in this caused it to read more like a history textbook rather than a narrative. While I don't generally read non-fiction, this failed to hold my attention to the extent that I was forcing myself to continue reading. Furthermore, I wasn't fond of Shetterly's writing style or the indistinguishable characters. On a positive note, however, I appreciated the manner in which difficult subject matters and themes were addressed.
ablotial's review against another edition
4.0
This book was highly recommended by a great number of people I respect, so when I saw it pop up as part of a sale on Audible I snatched it up. And then it showed up not a month later as part of a challenge group, so I figured it must be a sign. I did enjoy the book, parts of it even made me pretty emotional (but maybe that's the pregnancy hormones talking), though I wasn't a fan of the audible narrator. She took awkward pauses in the middle of sentences, but didn't pause in places that would be natural. And her pronunciation was a mess. I found it pretty distracting... but managed to not let it affect my score much. I don't think this would have gotten 5* from me even with a different narrator.
As some people here mentioned, I found it difficult to keep all the people straight. Though it seemed that Dorothy Vaughn and Katherine Johnson were the two main ones I thought, and then Mary, Christine, "Chubby", and a bunch of others all thrown in for good measure.
The beginning of the story with Dorothy leaving her family - I was almost in tears trying to imagine such a thing. And it especially hit a nerve for me when the author talked about Dorothy having an advanced degree, but giving up her teaching career to work in the laundry room because it earned her more money, so that her kids could go to college and not have to do crappy jobs like work in laundry rooms. Except a lot of good it did her! *sigh* And many of the other hardships she and the other women faced - the story about the bathrooms (how would -we- know where -your- bathroom is?) and the tables in the cafeteria (and the sign!) were really frustrating to read about... I can't imagine living it.
Every time computers doing things was mentioned, it caused a minor hitch in my brain while I remembered that computers were people, not machines. I knew that was where the machines had gotten their names from, but it was still a weird jarring feeling.
Overall, I'm glad this book was written and the stories are being told. It feels like we've come a long way in the last 50-70 years, but we still have such a long way to come. I'll definitely watch the movie. It sounds like it was pretty different from the book.
As some people here mentioned, I found it difficult to keep all the people straight. Though it seemed that Dorothy Vaughn and Katherine Johnson were the two main ones I thought, and then Mary, Christine, "Chubby", and a bunch of others all thrown in for good measure.
The beginning of the story with Dorothy leaving her family - I was almost in tears trying to imagine such a thing. And it especially hit a nerve for me when the author talked about Dorothy having an advanced degree, but giving up her teaching career to work in the laundry room because it earned her more money, so that her kids could go to college and not have to do crappy jobs like work in laundry rooms. Except a lot of good it did her! *sigh* And many of the other hardships she and the other women faced - the story about the bathrooms (how would -we- know where -your- bathroom is?) and the tables in the cafeteria (and the sign!) were really frustrating to read about... I can't imagine living it.
Every time computers doing things was mentioned, it caused a minor hitch in my brain while I remembered that computers were people, not machines. I knew that was where the machines had gotten their names from, but it was still a weird jarring feeling.
Overall, I'm glad this book was written and the stories are being told. It feels like we've come a long way in the last 50-70 years, but we still have such a long way to come. I'll definitely watch the movie. It sounds like it was pretty different from the book.
jxg255's review against another edition
3.0
A bit redundant pieces of the story and the author tied in too many facts, taking away from the characters. I understand why the facts were relevant but lost focus on the characters because of the redundant and deep facts.
beannoneya's review against another edition
5.0
Fantastic. The women, amazing. The science, delicious.
almartin's review against another edition
4.0
This was a powerful book - vivid, thoroughly researched, and enlightening. The subhead is not inaccurate, though I think "how black women, and America's shameful history of segregation, were whitewashed out of the space race" would also make for a fair summary.
Shetterly tells the story of a whitewashed history on two dimensions - first, the individual black contributions that don't show up in Apollo 13 or newsreel clips of the space program, and second, the ugly discrimination that permeated... everything, in particular the government facilities and Virginia cities that housed NACA, the precursor organization to NASA. It's a reminder that "civil rights history" isn't a separate shelf of American history - there's no alternate universe where a scientific history or military history or sports history can honestly be told without telling civil rights history, because all those histories would be different in a society that didn't systematically exclude and oppress people of color.
As important as the Hidden Figures project is
there were places that the execution came up a little bit short. While Shetterly's scenes and descriptions absolutely sing, structurally the book was a weird compromise between group biography and NASA organizational history. Telling one biography is hard enough - much less four - and Shetterly's task was made that much more difficult by trying to also capture NACA/NASA's institutional transition from WWII aircraft design into spacecraft construction.
YMMV, but I also wanted to know a little bit more about what the mathematicians did - 'calculation' shows up quite a bit, and the mechanics of the paper flow from engineering to West Computing is captured in detail, but the content of those papers themselves remained frustratingly vague. Especially for a book that will probably be read by many young people, I thought there was a missed opportunity to capture the beauty in the specifics. A flawed wind tunnel model that eventually becomes a working airplane is an astounding thing, and I thought that Shetterly could have dramatized the work itself - maybe even with an equation or diagram or two!
Shetterly tells the story of a whitewashed history on two dimensions - first, the individual black contributions that don't show up in Apollo 13 or newsreel clips of the space program, and second, the ugly discrimination that permeated... everything, in particular the government facilities and Virginia cities that housed NACA, the precursor organization to NASA. It's a reminder that "civil rights history" isn't a separate shelf of American history - there's no alternate universe where a scientific history or military history or sports history can honestly be told without telling civil rights history, because all those histories would be different in a society that didn't systematically exclude and oppress people of color.
As important as the Hidden Figures project is
What I wanted was for them to have the grand, sweeping narrative that they deserved, the kind of American history that belongs to the Wright Brothers and the astronauts, to Alexander Hamilton and Martin Luther King Jr. Not told as a separate history, but as a part of the story we all know. Not at the margins, but at the very center, the protagonists of the drama. And not just because they are black, or because they are women, but because they are part of the American epic.
there were places that the execution came up a little bit short. While Shetterly's scenes and descriptions absolutely sing, structurally the book was a weird compromise between group biography and NASA organizational history. Telling one biography is hard enough - much less four - and Shetterly's task was made that much more difficult by trying to also capture NACA/NASA's institutional transition from WWII aircraft design into spacecraft construction.
YMMV, but I also wanted to know a little bit more about what the mathematicians did - 'calculation' shows up quite a bit, and the mechanics of the paper flow from engineering to West Computing is captured in detail, but the content of those papers themselves remained frustratingly vague. Especially for a book that will probably be read by many young people, I thought there was a missed opportunity to capture the beauty in the specifics. A flawed wind tunnel model that eventually becomes a working airplane is an astounding thing, and I thought that Shetterly could have dramatized the work itself - maybe even with an equation or diagram or two!
bex_knighthunterbooks's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
2.25
I'm really glad that Shetterly did all this research and these stories are now out in the world, but unfortunately as a book this didn't work for me. The writing style was much too dry and reportage style for my tastes, and where it was trying to be more stylised I found it too clunky, with the point muddied. Some of this will be the medium not being my thing - I should probably steer clear of historic biographies as I tend to get on much better with memoirs when we are closer to the story. I would find it really hard to summarise the story as there were so many details, but only a very loose narrative thread holding everything together - I'm looking forward to watching the film as I'm expecting that will need a much clearer narrative. The characters also never really came to life for me. I found it easy to mix up the main three and while I was rooting for them all I couldn't tell you anything different about their personalities. I had high hopes for this as I have navigated STEM environments as a woman, and find the the space race and early computing really interesting, but sadly the delivery didn't land. I did read to the end because there were a few interesting details but was listening on high speed while doing other things by the end.
alliepeduto's review against another edition
4.0
I cannot think of a more appropriate book to read on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing than this one, because while we celebrate the men who actually walked on the moon today, we should also be remembering the contribution that women made to make this grand achievement possible. Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine G. Johnson, and Mary Jackson were pioneers in their own right: women of color who paved the way for future generations, who made holes in that glass ceiling so that the women who followed could shatter it. For all those who like me are watching old footage of the moon landing today, I recommend you read this as well, because this day belongs to them just as much as the astronauts.
jcpdiesel21's review against another edition
4.0
Educational and inspiring. I picked up this book after seeing the excellent movie adaptation to help fill in any remaining blanks, and it gave me even more background and information than I bargained for! Shetterly has clearly done an expansive amount of research in order to write this book. The many women profiled on these pages are truly incredible and such valuable assets to the United States space program; I am overjoyed that they are finally getting their time in the spotlight.