January Book Review: Hidden Figures
Ashley is a 26 years old engineer from the US working in the Naval Supply industry. She’s our book reviewer this January and decided to talk about Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly.
“Reading is a great way to get the creative side of you out. When you read a book it’s way different than watching a movie because you’re imagination is the one that actually creates what the characters and places in the books look like and sound. Your version of a book can be completely different than someone else’s” starts Ashley when talking about her passion for reading.
Bookstagram to relearn the reading habit
Ashley is a 26 years old engineer from the US working in the Naval Supply industry as a Sales/Quality Engineer in a small machine shop in PA.
She started her bookstagram a few months ago “to get some recommendations on newer books coming out that I’ve missed and then to do reviews of my own to share with others”.
“I love reading and used to not be able to be without a book. But with school, then work and “real-life”, I haven’t read a lot the past couple of years”. Bookstagram really helped her to get back into reading, and turned her in the right direction for it.
One of the books that she loved and wanted to review for us was Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly.
Civil Rights and Feminism
“I read this book first when the movie was just about to come out. I am pretty big on reading the book before seeing the movie and the premise just sounded so great, women in the space exploration industry, I just had to read it” she remembers.
The book is based on the true story of five African American women mathematicians who played a crucial role in helping America be the first in space during the Space Race.
Taking place during the civil rights era, the books show how these women were forced to be segregated from their white male counterparts and required to do everything by pencil and paper. And it shows, despite their crucial part in the events, how these women were almost completely left out of the history books.
“Civil Rights and feminism definitely played a huge role in this book. Just trying to get the men to even listen to some ideas was a challenge within itself” reflects Ashley when asked about the main themes.
For her, the feminism factor of the book is obvious. “It really shows that women can do just as much as men no matter race, color, or age. Sometimes even better than the men themselves” she smiles.
Left out of history and now celebrated
She argues that the very strength of the book comes from the “great and strong women” it is about. “Knowing these are REAL women who actually went through all this is amazing to think about as you’re reading”.
She was surprised and shocked by how much these women actually did during the Space race. “They were pretty much left out of the history books so before this book (and movie) came out, younger me really didn’t have any idea of the depth of it”.
If she found some pieces of the book dry, she excused it based on the fact that these were real lives, and real lives are not always 100% exciting all the time.
And no matter what, she would definitely recommend it, and will eventually reread herself for sure.
“Being a woman in engineering/STEM myself I know how hard it can be dealing with the masculine majority culture and these women had it even worse than I do. But I hope that it shows that women are smart and strong and we can do anything we put our minds to!”.
