Author: Margot Lee Shetterly
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (Movie Tie-In Edition)
Year: 2016
Audio Publisher: Harper Collins
Audio Year: 2016
Audio Reader: Robin Miles
Audio Length: 10 hours 47 minutes
Genre: Histoical Non Fiction
Age: Adult 18+
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This was our The Book Was Better book club pick for the month of August. The last time we had people attend the meetings was in June. I'm a little disappointed that no one showed up to the meeting because when we met in June this book & the September book were both ones that they had picked. Hopefully things will pick u with this book club otherwise it might get cut from our schedule! Because no one showed the only opinion on which version of the story was better I an give you is mine. But if you'd like to share please do so in the comments.
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The book begins well before the movie version of the story. NASA isn't even a thing yet, Brown vs. Board of Education won't happen for years, & for the first time ever women are able to work while their husbands are fighting the war against Hitler.
We are introduced to several women over the course of the almost 300 page book. But most importantly we get to hear the stories of three women name Dorothy Vaughn, Katherine Goble (Johnson), & Mary Jackson. These women like so many others were raised all over the US, brought up in a time when the color of your skin determined what kind of life you would have. They overcame challenges & eventually became some of the leading engineers, supervisors, & mathematicians for an organization devoted to getting humans into space for the first time ever.
The reader gets to follow these women & several others through their upbringing, school age years, married life, working time, & hard earned retirement. History develops on the page as the civil right movement takes shape, women's rights come into focus, & the world changes to keep up.
It's a compelling narrative full of science, math, & a lot of hope for the future
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Likes: The book wasn't that long, same goes for the audio, it was a good length overall.
The reader was clear & easy to understand. I liked that it was a woman.
There was a lot of history that I didn't know about & it was interesting to learn.
GIRL POWER!!!
The movie was an excellent adaptation I think despite the timelines being slightly different.
Dislikes: At some points there was too much information that did not add to the story overall.
I would have liked to see pictures!
Rating:
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Book to Movie Comparison:
Overall at the end of it I think the movie was better.
The reason I think that is because it depicts the most interesting & important part of the story where the women really start making a difference..We get a little bit of back story on Katherine which is interesting then we get right into it without a bunch of fluff. The fluff was interesting to read for the most part, although I think not all of it was necessary.
There is not that many differences between the book & the movie. The things that were changed added to the story in the film version. For example the opposition between Dorothy & Mrs. Mitchell in the movie adds a bit of drama. That coupled with things like the colored only coffee pot in Katherine's office really demonstrates the level of segregation in Virginia even after the separate but equal ruling. The movie was also funny & light hearted at sometimes, espically concerning Mary Jackson, she was hilarious. The love story between Katherine & her soon to be husband Jim adds a level of romance behind the trials of daily life. I will say one of the biggest differences between the book & movie were that although the book was about all the women it mainly focused on Dorothy. But in the movie the main character seemed to be Katherine. I was ok with the story either way.
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