JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Books About Inspirational Women

Ever since Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls was published, there’s been a definite trend in publishing. There are now so many fantastic books about inspirational women from history. I’ve been reading and reviewing a fair few of them for this blog, so I thought it’d be great to compile them all for one master post.

Forgotten Women: The Leaders & The Scientists
Zing Tsjeng
March 2018
Hachette Book Publishers

Forgotten Women is a new series of books that uncover the lost herstories of influential women who have refused over hundreds of years to accept the hand they’ve been dealt and, as a result, have formed, shaped and changed the course of our futures. From leaders and scientists to artists and writers, the fascinating stories of these women that time forgot are now celebrated, putting their achievements firmly back on the map.

Forgotten Women by Zing Tsjeng is a really wonderful new series, allowing readers to discover 96 women who I can guarantee you’ve never heard of before.

Each of these books features 48 incredible women of history, styled with beautiful artwork and colourful layouts. The Leaders is all about women who were true pioneers. They may not have lived long, or they may have been overlooked, but their contributions were important.

Grace O’Malley was a 16th century Irish pirate queen, Sylvia Rivera spearheaded the modern transgender rights movement, and Agent 355 was an unknown rebel spy who played a pivotal role in the American Revolution.

The series is both informative and interesting. I thought I would’ve gotten sick of these types of books, but I’ve found myself just as enthralled and intrigued as ever. In The Leaders, chapters are broken down into different categories, from rebels to warriors, rulers to activists. In The Scientists, the chapters range from Biology & Natural Sciences to Physics & Chemistry.

Each woman is given around three pages of information, so the books are pretty quick to read and the information not too heavy.

In The Scientists, we meet women whose scientific achievements or whose inventions have paved the way for the future, but unfortunately their successes weren’t as acknowledged or praised as highly or as often as they should’ve been.

Ruby Hirose developed a vaccine for polio, Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner was a brilliant inventor who found ways to improve everyday struggles, and Ynes Mexia was a botanist who discovered 500 new plant species.

Both of these books are packaged beautifully. They’re hardback, with thick, high quality paper and bright colours. They look wonderful together on the shelf, and I hope the series will have more books coming out. I’m sure there are plenty more women out there whose achievements have been sadly forgotten.

SHE: A Celebration of 100 Renegade Women

Harriet Hall

March 2018

Hachette Book Publishers

SHE is a love letter to all the women who have thrown out the rulebook and threatened the status quo. It’s a toast to the brave, bold and brilliant women who make us proud to be ladies.

From fashion icon Coco Chanel to Queen Cleopatra, from literary legend Jane Austen to trailblazer Michelle Obama and from kick-ass activist Malala Yousafzai to the one-and-only Beyoncé, SHE honours 100 truly renegade women, from history through to present day.

SHE by Harriet Hall is a compact book highlighting 100 women from history who contributed to positive change within society. Some of these women have long since passed, but some are still alive today.

What I loved most about this book is that each woman was dedicated only two pages — one page had a black and white sketch illustration of the woman, and the other page detailed their life story. I loved that their story was summarised so succinctly.

YOU CAN READ THE REST OF MY REVIEW HERE

Rebel Voices: The Rise of Votes for Women

Louise Kay Stewart & Eve Lloyd Knight

January 2018

Hachette Publishers

A beautifully illustrated celebration of the brave campaigners who fought for women’s right to vote.

Discover that it was never illegal for women to vote in Ecuador, or how 40,000 Russian women marched through St Petersburg demanding their rights. Find out how one Canadian woman changed opinions with a play, and Kuwaiti women protested via text message. And learn that women climbed mountains, walked a lion through the streets of Paris, and starved themselves, all in the name of having a voice.

Meet the women who rioted, rallied and refused to give up. This book celebrates the women who refused to behave, rebelling against convention to give women everywhere a voice.

Rebel Voices by Louise Kay Stewart and Eve Lloyd Knight is gorgeous and inspiring, educating readers on the history of the female vote and how a woman’s right to vote was achieved in different countries.

This is a hardback book, the size of a portrait picture book. It’s quite large in size, to allow for all the stunning illustrations on every page. The quality is amazing — thick and heavy paper. And there are only 47 pages to this book and there aren’t too many words. So, it doesn’t take long to read.

YOU CAN READ THE REST OF MY REVIEW HERE

100 Nasty Women of History

Hannah Jewell

November 2017

Hachette Book Publishers

These are the women who were deemed too nasty for their times – too nasty to be recognised, too nasty to be paid for their work and sometimes too nasty to be allowed to live.

In 100 Nasty Women of History, Hannah will spill the tea on:
-the women with impressive kill counts

-the women who wrote dangerous things

-the women who fought empires and racists

-the women who knew how to have a good-ass time

-the women who punched Nazis (metaphorically but also not)

So, if you think that Nasty Women are a new thing, think again. They’ve always been around – you just haven’t always heard of them.

Well, this is just hilarious and so so fun to read. 100 Nasty Women of History is all about history’s bravest, most ballsy women. And most of them you’ve probably never heard of!

In the final debate of the 2016 US presidential election, Donald Trump leaned into the microphone as Hilary Clinton spoke about social security, and he called his opponent ‘such a nasty woman’. I’m sure Donald Trump didn’t realise that this phrase would go on to become a badge of honour for women around the world. Being a ‘nasty woman’ is now considered a compliment!

Hannah Jewell is a senior writer for Buzzfeed UK, so she brings into this book her wit and sarcasm. I laughed out loud many times when reading this book, chuckling on public transport to and from work.

YOU CAN READ THE REST OF MY REVIEW HERE

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

1974. Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.

Thirteen-year-old Leni dares to hope that a new land will lead to a better future for her family. She is desperate for a place to belong. Her mother, Cora, will do anything and go anywhere for the man she loves, even if it means following him into the unknown.

At first, Alaska seems to be the answer to their prayers. In a wild, remote corner of the state, they find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the Allbrights’ lack of preparation and dwindling resources.

But as winter approaches and darkness descends on Alaska, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates and the family begins to fracture. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own. In the wild, there is no one to save them but themselves.

The Great Alone is — at its core — about a troubled Dad who takes his family into the wild Alaskan terrain to live. However, underneath all that, it’s about a family struggling to mend. It’s about a wife who loves her husband despite his demons. It’s about a daughter who must learn to follow her own path, despite knowing that it will have disastrous consequences.

This is a literary fiction novel about family and survival. It’s emotional, rich and unforgiving, with characters you fight for and a setting that you marvel. Leni’s family learn to survive the harsh winters in Alaska, but with the dark nights and cold temperatures comes another threat — from within the home.

“This time was bad, I’ll admit, but it scared him. Really. It won’t happen again. He’s promised me.”
Leni sighed. How was Mama’s unshakable belief in Dad any different than his fear of Armageddon? Did adults just look at the world and see what they wanted to see, think what they wanted to think? Did evidence and experience mean nothing?

The secondary characters in this novel are just as fantastic to read. The other residents in this small town support Leni’s family and help them prepare for the winter. They help Cora and Leni stand up against Ernt, who grows more volatile as the novel progresses. The reader relishes in the relationships that Leni forms, particularly with characters such as Large Marge and Tom Walker.

The Great Alone explores domestic violence, but in a very unique setting. Leni and her family live in a one-room log cabin, and when Ernt grows violent and starts beating Cora, it’s impossible for Leni not to witness it. She urges Cora to leave Ernt, but Cora loves him too much. She refuses to talk about what happens and she refuses to press charges. And so the winters roll on and Ernt grows more abusive. Leni grows up witnessing the horror of domestic abuse.

Leni knew what her father had done and the vandalism revealed a new side to his rage. It terrified her that he had done such a public thing. Ever since Mr. Walker and Large Marge had first sent Dad to the pipeline for the winter, Dad had been on his guard.

As Leni grows older, she wants to have a life of her own. She wants to fall in love, study, maybe start a family. But as her father grows more closed off and refuses to let her have a social life, she realises how difficult this will be. She wants to leave, but she knows she can’t leave her mother behind. For a while, she tries to juggle everything in secret. She pursues a relationship, whilst also standing by her parents and watching as her Dad builds an actual wall around their cabin. Soon, Leni becomes isolated, and the tension within the family and the town escalates.

This novel will appeal to readers both young and old. This is about a family navigating a difficult time in their lives, but this is also a coming of age story. Leni starts the novel as a thirteen year old, and by the end, she’s in her twenties. The reader follows Leni as she grows older, continues her learning, falls in love, and ventures off into the world to pursue her own path. There is both happiness and disaster in Leni’s life, and the reader follows it all. At times, this novel will have you smiling. At times, it’ll have you feeling dread.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Great Alone
Kristin Hannah
February 2018
Pan Macmillan Publishers

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

If you were told the date of your death, how would it shape your present?

It’s 1969 in New York City’s Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children—four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness—sneak out to hear their fortunes.

Their prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden-boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in ’80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor post-9/11, hoping to control fate; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality.

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin is a literary fiction novel that follows four siblings after they learn the exact date of their deaths.

Words can’t express just how much I loved this book. The writing reminded me of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara — Chloe Benjamin moves between time so effortlessly that the reader doesn’t even realise she’s doing it. In one paragraph, we’ll be reading about Klara’s life while she’s a teenager, and then suddenly she’s a few years older and the transition was so smoothly written.

Additionally, Chloe Benjamin juggles these four characters with such ease. Yes, each section of the book focuses on a different sibling, but that doesn’t mean the others aren’t present. During Simon’s life, he and Klara are very close and she’s in the storyline a lot. And yet, at no point is it confusing. At no point am I overwhelmed by the plot.

“Fourteen years later and ten states east, Daniel enters the Hoffman House to meet Eddie again…Like Eddie, Daniel is at least twenty pounds heavier than he was in 1991. Like Daniel, Eddie must be nearly fifty, if he isn’t fifty already.”

I devoured this book. I knew what was going to happen, and yet, I was desperate to get through to the end of each of their storylines. This is a book to be savoured, but it’s also a book to marvel.

These characters are beautiful, despite being incredibly flawed. They found out when they were going to die, and in a lot of ways, knowing that specific date put them on a path that led to that death. If they didn’t know when they were going to die, I wonder how different their lives would have been. But that’s the beauty of this book, because it illustrates what it would be like if you knew when you were going to die. Would you live your life differently?

It’s so common to read a literary fiction novel that’s either plot-driven or character-driven. The Immortalists was the perfect blend of both, drawing me deep into each character’s life but also filling me with dread because I am aware of their inevitable death.

“At his wedding, when he looked into the audience and saw only Gertie and Varya, something snapped in his heart like a branch. That Klara and Mira never met remained one of the biggest regrets of his life.”

Despite how much I adored this novel, I didn’t love Varya’s storyline. I found it kind of boring and completely dependent upon her career, whereas the other sections of the book heavily focused on the characters and their own thoughts and fears and their own concerns. Finishing the novel with Varya’s story felt like a letdown.

I’ve been recommending this book to scores of people. It’s not just for literary fiction lovers. It’s for those of you who are intrigued by the idea of knowing when you’ll die. It’s for those of you who love family sagas, or reading novels set in the late 90s. This is definitely a novel for adults, but I really think everyone will devour it.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Immortalists
Chloe Benjamin
January 2018
Hachette Book Australia

The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell

Before Carrie Bradshaw hit the big time in the City, she was a regular girl growing up in the suburbs of Connecticut. How did she turn into one of the most-read social observers of our generation?

The Carrie Diaries opens up in Carrie’s senior year of high school. She and her best friends — Walt, Lali, Maggie, and the Mouse — are inseparable, amid the sea of Jens, Jocks and Jets. And then Sebastian Kydd comes into the picture. Sebastian is a bad boy-older, intriguing, and unpredictable. Carrie falls into the relationship that she was always supposed to have in high school-until a friend’s betrayal makes her question everything. With her high school days coming to a close, Carrie will realize it’s finally time to go after everything she ever wanted.

The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell is a novel about Carrie Bradshaw before Sex and the City. It’s a fun, entertaining novel about her final year of high school when friendships are tested and relationships threaten to break down all that Carrie has built.

This book is set during that time in a teenager’s life when they have to figure out what they want to do after they complete school. Carrie wants to be a writer, but she’s been rejected from a summer writing seminar that she desperately wanted. She doesn’t want to stay in Connecticut, instead, wanting to explore the big cities and feel like she’s meant for something more.

If you’re a fan of Sex and the City, you’ll love The Carrie Diaries. You’ll love getting to know a young Carrie as she goes from aspiring fiction writer to the sharp, insightful non-fiction writer that we’ve come to love in the TV show. At the end of the book, you’ll also get to meet a Sex and the City favourite as her and Carrie cross paths.

Don’t get me wrong — you don’t need to be a Sex and the City fan to read this book. It’s a standalone novel, and completely separate from the series. So anyone can read it.

“I spot Walt behind the counter by the grill. The only other customers are three teenage girls with hair dyed in multiple hues of pink, blue and green. I nearly walk past them when suddenly I realise that one of these punks is my sister.”

I’m not sure what I was expecting going into this, but this was one of my favourite reads from the past year. I read it on holiday, and this is such a fun, fluffy book but it’s also incredibly well-written with plenty of depth and relatable characters. Even though this is set in America, I recognised some of my own high school experiences in this book.

“I understand her despair. Maggie is one of the millions of kids out there who have no idea what they want to do with their lives — like Sebastian, I suppose, and Lali.”

At times the plot did feel a little unrealistic and absurd, but the friendships are really developed and the dialogue is realistic and the characters are relatable. Anyone who is creative and has a dream of pursuing that will be able to relate to Carrie. Any girl who has gone to high school or has dated a guy that wasn’t really right for them, will also relate to Carrie.

The Carrie Diaries is very dialogue driven, with plenty of characters in every scene. I recommend this to teenagers, but also fans of chick lit, romance, or fans of the TV show.

The Carrie Diaries
Candace Bushnell
June 2010
HarperCollins Publishers

Rebel Voices by Louise Kay Stewart and Eve Lloyd Knight

A beautifully illustrated celebration of the brave campaigners who fought for women’s right to vote.

Discover that it was never illegal for women to vote in Ecuador, or how 40,000 Russian women marched through St Petersburg demanding their rights. Find out how one Canadian woman changed opinions with a play, and Kuwaiti women protested via text message. And learn that women climbed mountains, walked a lion through the streets of Paris, and starved themselves, all in the name of having a voice.

Tracing its history from New Zealand at the end of the 19th century, follow this empowering movement as it spread from Oceania to Europe and the Americas, then Africa and Asia up to the present day. Meet the women who rioted, rallied and refused to give up. Stunningly illustrated by Eve Lloyd Knight, this book celebrates the women who refused to behave, rebelling against convention to give women everywhere a voice.

Rebel Voices by Louise Kay Stewart and Eve Lloyd Knight is gorgeous and inspiring, educating readers on the history of the female vote and how a woman’s right to vote was achieved in different countries.

This is a hardback book, the size of a portrait picture book. It’s quite large in size, to allow for all the stunning illustrations on every page. The quality is amazing — thick and heavy paper. And there are only 47 pages to this book and there aren’t too many words. So, it doesn’t take long to read.

The message behind this book is so important, allowing readers to understand just how hard women fought to receive equal rights. The book begins with an introductory spread, detailing the history and the reason behind this book. It’s about women’s stories — important women of history who helped their country understand how important it was for women to be able to vote.

“By the end of the 19th century, women could stay silent and powerless no longer. Suffragists from every corner of the globe began to fight, march, riot and petition for their voices to be heard.”

Each spread of this book focuses on a different country, from India to Japan to Ecuador to the United Kingdom. Rebel Voices also follows a timeline, 1893 to 2015. The illustration style of the book is perfect for the content. The design is strong, with bold colours and distinct colouring. With harsh lines and contrasting colour palettes, you can’t read this book without studying these illustrations. I spent just as much time looking over the illustrations as I did actually reading the words.

“Even the cold wind couldn’t wipe the smile of satisfaction from Norwegian Gina Krog’s face. She was one of the first women in the world to summit a mountain — at a time when ladies weren’t even encouraged to set foot in a restaurant alone.”

This feels like the perfect time to publish this book. The world is beginning to work harder to recognise equality, and with the #MeToo and #TimesUp movement making waves around the world, a book that showcases the strong, powerful, determined and brave women of history is fantastic reading for adults and kids.

“Tang set up the first women’s suffrage group and campaigned for girls to get an education. She also help to win the crusade to ban foot binding.”

I recommend this to young girls and boys, because it’s easy to read and understand and a great way to introduce them to suffragists. I recommend this to parents as a way to educate themselves and their children. I also recommend this to anyone who has read Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls, Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World or Women in Science.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Rebel Voices: The Rise of Votes for Women
Louise Kay Stewart & Eve Lloyd Knight
January 2018
Hachette Publishers

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