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4.02 AVERAGE
4.02 AVERAGE
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It’s fine. An easy read but too much name dropping. Just researching these mathematicians didn’t add anything to the story.
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
What an incredible book! I was on the edge of my seat throughout and brought to tears on several occasions.
I loved the nostalgic and melancholy tone of this book. Just thinking about it makes me feel young and hopeful and lonely and snubbed - Katherine as a character was so real and full in so many ways. I just wanted something more to round out the story. Maybe in the end I wanted to see her wins instead of her losses - which would maybe take away from the book's theme that to follow what you love, you must give up yourself. But, oh, I wanted to hear more about her great life than her asides. This was a book about reflecting on sacrifices and losses, but I do so wish it could have balanced itself with some joy.
Lovely, but somehow incomplete.
Lovely, but somehow incomplete.
Color me surprised that I loved a book about mathematics SO MUCH! It is definitely more than that - the journey of the main character exploring her identity as her life unfolds is amazing. I highly recommend this one! Note: I listened to the audiobook.
Another win for reading challenges. For this year's 50-state challenge, I needed a book for Indiana and wanted one with a BIPOC author. I finally found and read The Tenth Muse. I loved this book. Women in STEM (mathematics), historical fiction (WWII-60's), and just a wonderful story.
If you are looking for an engaging, largely uplifting, original story with a touch of feminism (maybe more than a touch) then you will enjoy this book.
If you are looking for an engaging, largely uplifting, original story with a touch of feminism (maybe more than a touch) then you will enjoy this book.
3.5 stars. There's much about the narrative to like, but the gaslighting and misogyny of the decades during which the main plot happens is off-putting, to say the least.
4.5 stars for this gorgeous, heartbreaking novel. It was a little disconcerting that Catherine Chung named her heroine Katherine; if I wrote a book and named the main character Anjuli I feel like it would be really strange, but once I got past that weird factoid, I was completely swept up in this story of a woman who wants more freedom than the world wants a woman to have. Katherine is a mathematical genius, and as a woman in the male-dominated world of math she is constantly sidelined, ignored, and diminished. Add in a complicated family story rife with secrets tracing back to Germany in WWII along with fascinating math history (Chung has a degree in mathematics so she knows her stuff), and this book was an absolute gem.