erinpiac's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
slow-paced
3.5
readers_block's review against another edition
2.0
Tom Wolfe is one of my favorite authors. I’ve spaced out his books so I always have one to look forward to. This is one of the last of them. And I…..hated it. I can’t for the life of me figure out what it was that everyone in this book loved so much. I actually gave up about 75 percent of the way through, after much internal debate.
carriekelley22's review against another edition
2.0
I could not finish this book. It is poorly written and has not aged well.
What really bothered me was the persistence of commenting on drinking and driving/flying/racing. This is not okay. It may have happened, but they way the author portrayed it I, the reader, inferred that to be a successful test pilot you have to be an alcoholic, drive/race your sports car drunk nightly, and then fly drunk or severely hungover. He also felt the need to constantly reiterate how it was the culture to do it with a pithy catchphrase. It glorifies these actions and that is not okay.
What really bothered me was the persistence of commenting on drinking and driving/flying/racing. This is not okay. It may have happened, but they way the author portrayed it I, the reader, inferred that to be a successful test pilot you have to be an alcoholic, drive/race your sports car drunk nightly, and then fly drunk or severely hungover. He also felt the need to constantly reiterate how it was the culture to do it with a pithy catchphrase. It glorifies these actions and that is not okay.
emoryriver's review against another edition
5.0
Listen to it on Audible, the narrator is Dennis Quaid and I cracked up multiple times while listening to it. If you enjoy the U.S. space program and short reviews you will click like and then read this book.
sallielu's review against another edition
2.0
Yeesh. This was dated af. The writing was pretty awful. It was super oratory like an old white grandpa was telling you a long winded story where he couldn’t help but repeat himself over and over again. I was genuinely interested in learning about the story of how pilots became astronauts but this was not the right way for me.