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393 reviews for:
Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars
Nathalia Holt
3.8 AVERAGE
393 reviews for:
Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars
Nathalia Holt
3.8 AVERAGE
Really, it's a 3.5 star book, but we'll give it the benefit of the doubt. It's an incredibly well researched piece of fascinating history. The problem, I think, is that Ms. Holt is trying to do too much. If she had focused on one or two of the women and really given us their characters or focused on JPL through the women, without giving us the personal stories of marriages and kids, then I think the book would have been much stronger.
As it was, we get an amazing amount of detail, but nothing to really anchor it to anything. Some important things felt like they got short shrift while seemingly inconsequential minutiae was dwelt on in agonizing detail.
As it was, we get an amazing amount of detail, but nothing to really anchor it to anything. Some important things felt like they got short shrift while seemingly inconsequential minutiae was dwelt on in agonizing detail.
While I loved learning about the women who made significant contributions to the space program, I struggled a bit with the writing style and the focus at times on fashion and marriages/divorces. Also, the scope is so broad, incorporating the stories of so many women from the 1930s until present day, that when you started to get invested in one woman's story, it flipped to another. That said, I would recommend reading this for its fascinating forgotten history as well as some great insider insight into the space program itself. It's great to see these women finally getting their due in books like this and Hidden Figures.
This book is something of a Hidden Figures for the West Coast - the story of the women calculators and engineers of NASA and its precursor, JPL. But where Hidden Figures leaned into describing the racial and gender inequality and the barriers women had to face, this book glosses over them, striking a factual tone that has the effect of downplaying the struggles and inequality likely facing these women. Instead, the author talked at length about the women's appearance, clothing, and romantic choices. In this way, it is a good book for those who want to learn about women's role in space exploration without confronting the racism and sexism of our country's past, to glide on the surface rather than crossing through the atmosphere, as it were.
We need to sing the names and praises of these women as history all too often forgets them in favor of the men. I cannot believe these women plotted trajectories involving insanely complex calculations BY HAND DURING A LAUNCH because they were FASTER than the "computers" of the day. Holt also made this story so incredibly readable without compromising any of the technical aspects. Wholeheartedly recommend.
Barbara Paulson lives in Iowa now. Can I meet her?
Barbara Paulson lives in Iowa now. Can I meet her?
I love a story about strong females, science and space and so I enjoyed this book. I hadn't heard about these wonderful ladies before picking up this book but I feel that with the new release of the movie "Hidden Figures" lesser know women are being brought into the spotlight which they so deserve. I'm glad that these "computers" are finally getting recognition and will hopefully inspire the next generation of young girls to do something great.
adventurous
hopeful
informative
tense
medium-paced
adventurous
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
I loved this. She discusses the women in detail, balancing hone and work life, marriage, how they kept up and what their contributions were, both scientifically and at JPL. It’s written well, reads like a novel, in fact. The science is easily understandable. Loved it
I love the concept and overall presentation of this information. However, the writing made the book seem more like a young adult romance at times than a compilation of biographies of incredibly smart women. I also think it wasn't particularly cohesive. Holt would start talking about a certain woman and then that woman would never appear again. Like what happened to the first Barbara? She just disappeared. I did find it very easy to read, as it went over basic scientific information but not enough to bog down the biographies.
I also read Hidden Figures recently and it is hard to review this without some comparing of the two. I picked up Rocket Girls but was unsure it could offer anything new to the story. There are some parallels to the stories and obvious overlap in theme. However, is not an alternate telling of the same story. It is an original story in a different place with a fresh feel and focus. I enjoyed both!
One of the things I liked most about this book was the equal balance between the characters personal lives and their technical work in contributing to the scientific advancements within the space program. Before I started, I saw some reviews that felt this book was very sexist and portrayed these smart, capable women as frivolous and concerned with their images. Especially related to the expectation to look beautiful, get married, have a family, quit work, and always appear happy and satisfied with that. I feel a need to speak to that and defend the author. The fact is, this stereotype was the expectation. If you were a female math or science major at this time, you were likely the only woman in any of your classes. But this is what they were up against. So I see it that these women lived in this world, but despite that, they were able to push through that barrier until others could see that there was much more to them.
One example that stood out to me, was the Miss Guided Missile Contest. By today's standards it seems not only sexist but ridiculous to think that the women competed in what was essentially a beauty contest at their workplace. But this isn't a "viewpoint " of the author. Readers need to realize that it really happened! It's just history! And in fact, it shows the progressive hiring practice that JPL had because it meant that there were actually enough women working there to even hold a contest. In other workplaces that would never be the case because they only hired (mostly white) men to do those jobs.
I think the fact that the author left all of these tidbits in just helped illustrate exactly what these women overcame to succeed in their roles. It amazes me how far we've come in such a relatively short period of time.
One of the things I liked most about this book was the equal balance between the characters personal lives and their technical work in contributing to the scientific advancements within the space program. Before I started, I saw some reviews that felt this book was very sexist and portrayed these smart, capable women as frivolous and concerned with their images. Especially related to the expectation to look beautiful, get married, have a family, quit work, and always appear happy and satisfied with that. I feel a need to speak to that and defend the author. The fact is, this stereotype was the expectation. If you were a female math or science major at this time, you were likely the only woman in any of your classes. But this is what they were up against. So I see it that these women lived in this world, but despite that, they were able to push through that barrier until others could see that there was much more to them.
One example that stood out to me, was the Miss Guided Missile Contest. By today's standards it seems not only sexist but ridiculous to think that the women competed in what was essentially a beauty contest at their workplace. But this isn't a "viewpoint " of the author. Readers need to realize that it really happened! It's just history! And in fact, it shows the progressive hiring practice that JPL had because it meant that there were actually enough women working there to even hold a contest. In other workplaces that would never be the case because they only hired (mostly white) men to do those jobs.
I think the fact that the author left all of these tidbits in just helped illustrate exactly what these women overcame to succeed in their roles. It amazes me how far we've come in such a relatively short period of time.
Great story, fascinating time in history and a unique and very thorough JPL Perspective. The writing is not well-paced however, and things get mired in peripheral detail. There is a poor marriage of the personal details and mission jargon. I confess, I was disappointed.