A review by heatherinjapan
Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World by Matthew Goodman

adventurous informative medium-paced

3.75

I thought this was a well written nonfiction on these women and this journey. I have heard of Nellie Bly ONLY because of Drunk History and their rendition of her stay at an asylum but I never knew about this journey! I've seen some reviews saying that this book is biased towards Elizabeth Bisland so I was expecting to see more of that but honestly I feel this book was evenly weighted towards talking about both women and pointing out both of the flaws they had (cough racism and imperialism and privilege cough). Bisland was a fangirl for the Brits while Bly was an American fed up with the way Brits and Europeans view Americans (though she was very much dipping her toe into enjoying the upcoming American imperialism). I find that both of these types of American exist today. Those who love anything British and those who live abroad or actively travel for work and deal with people shitting on Americans the whole time. While I'm very critical of American imperialism and our issues as a country, the UK and so many European countries really have a lot of people who look down on Americans for the problems we have, while they have their own blatently obvious problems just like us (I 100% accept and expect countries that America has fucked over royally to not have a good view of us and don't expect people to be happy to interact with me and other Americans though). So while others might've found the author being biased towards Bisland and what he said about Bly and her views of the Brits to be negative, I can't say that it wholly was negative. But on the other hand WHEW, the racist undertones throughtout Bly's whole trip .... yikes. I did like that Bisland was more appreciative of the cultures she was experiencing, but it was still clear where she stood and privileges she held.