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A review by themermaddie
Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
2.0
2.5 stars
if you're here bc you liked the movie, be forewarned that this is nothing like that. this reads far more like a textbook than biographies of the women who were sidelined by history.
there was no central plot; rather, it felt like a series of events tangentially related to the advancement of NACA and other technological developments in relation to four main women. their narratives eventually intersected with one another, but only a few times, which made the whole book feel more disjointed. this wasn't helped by the timeline of the story, which wasn't told in chronological order but rather jumped around in a seemingly random order. sometimes a story would be taking place in the 60s and then get derailed by another long anecdote from ww2.
this book's saving grace is shetterly's writing. a large majority of this book describes detailed technical procedures in great depth which was quite dry and boring most of the times, but her writing really shined when she was talking about the women and their lives. you can see that shetterly is quite a beautiful writer, she has a lovely way with words and every now and then she would throw in a fantastic turn of phrase that i just thought sounded wonderful. unfortunately, these moments were few and far in between, drowned out by the enormous amount of extraneous technical information.
because of this, i actually thought the intro and the epilogue were the most compelling part of the whole book. here, shetterly gets to talk at length about not only these individual women, but their impact on future generations and the roads they paved for future success of other minorities. these parts felt far more heartfelt and engaging, as i cared about these women, and not so much the theory of aerodynamics. shetterly also mentions that she cut out a whole section about gloria champine, which is such a shame because i would have much rather heard more about her life and her relationship with christine darden instead of what we got in the end.
this is still an incredibly well-researched and thorough book written by someone who clearly can write compelling material, but unfortunately the experience of reading was overall, a bore.
if you're here bc you liked the movie, be forewarned that this is nothing like that. this reads far more like a textbook than biographies of the women who were sidelined by history.
there was no central plot; rather, it felt like a series of events tangentially related to the advancement of NACA and other technological developments in relation to four main women. their narratives eventually intersected with one another, but only a few times, which made the whole book feel more disjointed. this wasn't helped by the timeline of the story, which wasn't told in chronological order but rather jumped around in a seemingly random order. sometimes a story would be taking place in the 60s and then get derailed by another long anecdote from ww2.
this book's saving grace is shetterly's writing. a large majority of this book describes detailed technical procedures in great depth which was quite dry and boring most of the times, but her writing really shined when she was talking about the women and their lives. you can see that shetterly is quite a beautiful writer, she has a lovely way with words and every now and then she would throw in a fantastic turn of phrase that i just thought sounded wonderful. unfortunately, these moments were few and far in between, drowned out by the enormous amount of extraneous technical information.
because of this, i actually thought the intro and the epilogue were the most compelling part of the whole book. here, shetterly gets to talk at length about not only these individual women, but their impact on future generations and the roads they paved for future success of other minorities. these parts felt far more heartfelt and engaging, as i cared about these women, and not so much the theory of aerodynamics. shetterly also mentions that she cut out a whole section about gloria champine, which is such a shame because i would have much rather heard more about her life and her relationship with christine darden instead of what we got in the end.
this is still an incredibly well-researched and thorough book written by someone who clearly can write compelling material, but unfortunately the experience of reading was overall, a bore.