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4.02 AVERAGE
4.02 AVERAGE
Rounded up to 4! Audio; magnificently narrated by Cassandra Campbell. Weaves in exciting (really!) math talk amid portrayals of female pioneers, including the fictional Katherine and a lot more.
I thoroughly enjoyed this story. I loved how math and its historical figures were woven into the narrative. A lot of this book was about choices, choices we make or don't make and how that makes us complicit with events going on around us, that we might not agree with, but which we are not actively fighting. She also examines what happens after those choices, sometimes there is no right choice, especially if we are trying to make ourselves happy. Happiness is not always an available outcome.
“Since then she has told a thousand stories, she has lived a hundred million lives. She is born again in every generation: Sappho. Hypatia. Scheherazade. Woolf. And all the rest unhailed, unnamed, erased. Returning and returning, she is the tale embodied. Long may she live, again.”
This is the heart-warming story of Katherine, a brilliant mathematician who constantly has to prove herself in a world that would rather have her quiet. Her life takes a surprising turn when she discovers that all she has ever known about herself is a lie. She dedicates her life to her work and tracking down her relations, people who would claim her, only to realise at the end of it that love, family is about who you claim.
It explores such themes as friendship, loyalty, belonging, and family - there is so much to consider and to learn about these topics and more. In a way, this was a coming-of-age or coming-into-self story for Katherine. She learns to accept her flaws, count her blessings and bear her wounds with grace. I'm especially glad that she excelled at her work.
It explores such themes as friendship, loyalty, belonging, and family - there is so much to consider and to learn about these topics and more. In a way, this was a coming-of-age or coming-into-self story for Katherine. She learns to accept her flaws, count her blessings and bear her wounds with grace. I'm especially glad that she excelled at her work.
This was a more linear novel than I'd expected, a coming-of-age story about math and discovering one's origins. But Chung's straightforward prose is very good at revealing the truth of certain moments -- the heroine, Katherine, a mathematician of incredible skill who is frustrated by the sexist world's constant belittling, tries to explain these feelings to her male partner. He loves her, and he's really trying, but he just can't understand what she's saying to him, smart as he is. Those paragraphs felt so piercingly real to me, and in a few deft sentences, Chung cuts to the heart of what makes people close and what makes it impossible to really close the distance between them.
A sometimes brutal story of what we take from one another. What men take from women and what war takes from us all - but mostly what men take from women. Not to say the book offers nothing else, it is an incredibly engrossing read. Katherine is a compelling narrator and her story offers moments of wonder, grief, ambition, and tragedy. Mysteries about mathematics and striving for ambition frame a larger story about the mysteries of truly knowing yourself and the ones you love and striving for love and belonging in a harsh world.
An absolutely phenomenal and breathtaking book. I was a bit baffled by the genre (part-fiction part-nonfiction?) and had to take a bit of care to read the author's note at the back of the book to better discern what was real and what wasn't. But the story and the writing go hand-in-hand and are so utterly effortless that you can read it through without stopping and without getting bored.
The story focuses on Katherine, a mathematical prodigy, throughout her life.Katherine is a fictional character, one who did not actually exist. We witness her successes, her failures, her trials and tribulations, and follow her as she attempts to solve the biggest problem of her own life: who is she?
Most attractive in Chung's story is how often men take advantage of women. This action is seen in her personal life, academic life, her career, and in her relationships. So often Katherine is lied to, used, and abused by the men in her life. Chung's representation of Katherine's struggles against this treatment (internally as well as externally) is beautiful and harshly realistic.
No one is beyond reproach when it comes to Katherine's work and her life. Peers accuse her of plagiarism when in fact they were the ones who cheated; academics refuse to take her seriously and accuse her of lying; even men that she loves hurt her in strange and complicated ways. It echoes the grim realities of life and how not much has changed from the 1950s to today.
A really beautiful and well-written story with just enough fiction to blend in with the fact to make it completely and utterly believable.
The story focuses on Katherine, a mathematical prodigy, throughout her life.
Most attractive in Chung's story is how often men take advantage of women. This action is seen in her personal life, academic life, her career, and in her relationships. So often Katherine is lied to, used, and abused by the men in her life. Chung's representation of Katherine's struggles against this treatment (internally as well as externally) is beautiful and harshly realistic.
No one is beyond reproach when it comes to Katherine's work and her life. Peers accuse her of plagiarism when in fact they were the ones who cheated; academics refuse to take her seriously and accuse her of lying; even men that she loves hurt her in strange and complicated ways. It echoes the grim realities of life and how not much has changed from the 1950s to today.
A really beautiful and well-written story with just enough fiction to blend in with the fact to make it completely and utterly believable.
I really loved what this book was trying to do. As someone interested in math, academia, women's history, and the tension between personal life and career, the elements of this novel really excited me. I found some scenes and plot points intriguing and well crafted. My problem was the overly expositional and heavy handed prose style. Some of the backstories verged on melodrama, and a lot of the dialogue made me roll my eyes. ("Hitler - that monster! That fool!") I still enjoyed reading it, but in a "beach/airport read" way rather than the literary-nerdy-mathy way I was expecting. I truly wished I could take the narrator as seriously as she wanted to be taken.
4.5 stars.
It's so hard to sum up my feelings about this book though. Within the first few chapters the book had already roused a burning sense of anger and indignation for Katherine.
The bulk book is about Katherine trying to strike out her own path in the field of mathematics, when she is but one of the very few women in the field. But this book also explores many other parts of her identity, relationship and roots.
Katherine feels so real! I kept having to remind myself that this is a fictional story. It's so heartbreaking to read about all the things she had to go through. Along the way she had stumbled and made many decisions that on hindsight she would regret. But it was a pleasure to read about her self discovery and growth.
It's so hard to sum up my feelings about this book though. Within the first few chapters the book had already roused a burning sense of anger and indignation for Katherine.
The bulk book is about Katherine trying to strike out her own path in the field of mathematics, when she is but one of the very few women in the field. But this book also explores many other parts of her identity, relationship and roots.
Katherine feels so real! I kept having to remind myself that this is a fictional story. It's so heartbreaking to read about all the things she had to go through. Along the way she had stumbled and made many decisions that on hindsight she would regret. But it was a pleasure to read about her self discovery and growth.