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kathleenitpdx's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.5
the_bitextual's review against another edition
dark
informative
slow-paced
3.5
A very informative book about one of the worst things America has created. It is a bit dry.
public_nuisance's review
4.0
A bit confusing at times with the author's prose and how she chose to present events, but overall a good book that got me thinking a lot!
crownoflaurel's review
dark
informative
tense
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation, Sexual harassment, and Sexism
Moderate: Deportation, War, Suicide, Hate crime, Mass/school shootings, Violence, Xenophobia, and Genocide
Minor: Islamophobia
booktalkwithkarla's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
3.25
This is a book about women of the CIA across the generations, from the inception of the CIA through the take down of Osama bin Laden.
Liza Mundy is a journalist who researches and interviews well. I appreciated the individual stories of the women who served with passion and sacrifice. Their words interspersed with historical events were powerful. Their stories were the best part of this book. The parts of the book that were annoying and took me out of the story were her personal opinions about “powerful” men and women who didn’t support other women. Although believable, the bad players were handled by the women who persevered and overcame. I wish she would have let the women’s stories stand on their own. The stories were enough. As readers, we are smart enough to draw our own conclusions about the gender dynamics.
Reading about the women of the CIA and what they accomplished through hard work, skills and talents, and perseverance was a joy. I didn’t see a true sisterhood and feel the book would have been better organized differently by each woman’s story or by world event or by their common passions. It was hard to keep the women straight because of the author’s tangents. I read this for book club and was more generous than any of the other members, who greatly dislike this book.