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rachslut4books25894's review against another edition
White women with god complexes. Not the take you think it is
kris_tea516's review
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
3.5
This book wasn’t the easiest to read because it is kind of a dry, “here are the facts” biography but they were a fascinating couple of ladies. I admire Elizabeth & appreciate the trail she blazed but she doesn’t seem to have been a very likable person.
kait_sixcrowsbooks's review
challenging
slow-paced
1.5
Really wasn’t all that great a book. The writing itself was dry and it tended to jump around quite a bit. I felt like instead of it being a biography on two sisters becoming doctors, it was more like the Elizabeth Show with her sister as a side character. The fact that she (and Emily to an extent) was also of the “rights for me, not for thee” variety of woman made it that much harder to get through this book. The only redeeming quality was the narrator: I did like their voice, even at 2.1x speed.
_lilbey_'s review against another edition
3.0
2.5 The writing style was plodding and not engaging; several chapters over-used quotes which made for jolty reading. Rounded up because the subject was interesting and the book informative.
smalltownbookmom's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 - Really fascinating and groundbreaking women but the audio was a little stale - maybe it would read better in print or with a different narrator. It's also interesting that for how progressive Elizabeth Blackwell was she also had little interest in women's suffrage - sex, to her was irrelevant, she wanted to be treated as a doctor first, which I can respect. At the time people told her she needed to disguise herself as a man to study medicine or go to France where women midwives held greater prestige, but she refused to bend: "She had never wanted to be a man. She wanted as a woman to enjoy the same respect and freedom men took for granted." I thought the book did do a really good job setting the scene of the time period and the key figures and events that helped shaped the Blackwell sister's lives, both in America and Britain. Worth reading if you like learning more about the early history of women physicians or late 19th century women's history in general.
maevekh's review against another edition
5.0
The Doctors Blackwell are the original Enneagram type 4s