The Book of Awesome Women: Boundary Breakers, Freedom Fighters, Sheroes & Female Firsts

by Javier Moro

Get inspired by the powerful sheroes in this feminist collection of short biographies. “This book is an antidote to the erasure of women from our history.” —Vicki León, author of Uppity Women of Ancient Times

#1 Bestseller in Teen & Young Adult Social Activist Biographies and Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance

Women hold up half the sky and, most days, do even more of the heavy lifting including childbearing and child-rearing. All after a long day at the office. Women have always been strong, true sheroes, oftentimes unacknowledged. As we shake off the last traces of a major patriarchal hangover, women are coming into their own. In the 21st century, all women can fully embrace their fiery fempower and celebrate their no-holds-barred individuality. It is time to acknowledge the successful women of the world.

From the foremothers who blazed trails and broke barriers, to today’s women warriors from sports, science, cyberspace, city hall, the lecture hall, and the silver screen, The Book of Awesome Women paints 200 portraits of powerful and inspiring role models for women and girls poised to become super women of the future.

In The Book of Awesome Women you will

“Women have been left out of history for far too long. There is much to be learned from these women who paved the way for all of us through courage, daring and smarts.” —Ntozake Shange, author of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Biography, History, Historical, Womens

371 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 25, 2017

About the author

Javier Moro es autor de grandes epopeyas como Senderos de libertad (Planeta/Seix Barral, 1992) que cuenta la lucha por la defensa de la selva amazónica; El pie de Jaipur, (Planeta/Seix Barral, 1995) un conmovedor relato sobre la capacidad de superación del ser humano; Las montañas de Buda (Planeta/Seix Barral, 1998) resultado de dos años de investigación en Tibet, Nepal y la India, que es un testimonio indispensable sobre el drama tibetano. En 2001 ha publicado Era medianoche en Bhopal, la historia de la mayor catástrofe industrial de todos los tiempos, en colaboración con Dominique Lapierre. En 2005, Pasión India (Seix Barral), la vida de la bailarina española que se casó con el Marajá de Kapurthala, libro que ha fascinado a más de un millón de lectores en España y que ha sido traducido a 17 idiomas.
En 2008,El sari rojo, la historia de la familia Nehru a traves de la vida de Sonia Gandhi, libro que ha causado una fuerte polemica en la India y que ha sido recibido con gran exito de critica y lectores en todos los paises donde se ha publicado. Finalmente, "El Imperio Eres Tu", ganadora del Premio Planeta de Novela 2011.

Reviews

[Dr. Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hi yes, I have shelved this book on my trash shelf. Not because the book itself is trash, but BECAUSE THE NARRATOR WAS THE WORST NARRATOR I HAVE COME ACROSS. I don't think I'm exaggerating about how painful it was to listen to this narrator. She read the book in such a choppy manner that it was hard to tell when she had finished sentences. She also randomly would develop accents for 10-20 seconds. I don't think I've ever had such a horrible listening experience as this book. Legitimately felt like my ears were bleeding through this 13.5 hour long audiobook.

Okay, so now that I'm down ranting, let's talk about the actual book. I felt like the book had really great intentions. Anderson talked about several different women throughout history, and of different skin colors, so yay for diversity! It was weird reading this though, because each story about the different women was a tiny snapshot of their life. I know this book's aim was to talk about a ton of women, but it made it mostly felt like random flash trivia about them. I would've liked each chapter to focus more on 2-3 women than the 10-15.

Also, Malala is a prominent figure on the cover, yet I don't recall hearing her story throughout this whole book. Which is weird?? Overall, I'm glad I read it, but I will never listen to the audiobook again, even if someone paid me.

[Kassie · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this is a set of paragraphs with information on a bunch of women through the ages. Becca Anderson set them up within categories like science, music, etc and that's how she created the chapters. The information itself was fine and interesting.

What I really couldn't stand was the word shero. It made the book and the information feel cheap.

[Katie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a bummer. I bought this for my classroom and it’s a total letdown. I could have written this same book based off of basic Wikipedia searches, which is what each page felt like. The author crammed dozens of small snippets in, where a more detailed description of fewer women would’ve provided more insight on the women the author most found “awesome”
And the use of “shero” was way overdone.
I’ll put this on my shelf for my kiddos and I’m sure it’ll come in handy as a reference, but that may be it.

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the content because I’ve never heard of some of the women. However, the actual writing was pretty poor. I may delve into some of these women further.

[MaryBeth Long · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is hard to take this book seriously, but I tried. The book is writen in a breathy gossip-column style. Mother Jones, the co-founder of the Industrial Workers of the World, is called "Mo Jo Rising" and she is allocated equal text with Yoko Ono. Martina Navratilova, who was named the best tennis player of the year for 30 years, gets a paragraph of text mainly dealing with her sexuality. Finally, the book is also full of invented words that sound like they burbled forth from the mouth of a middle school cheerleader: “shero,” “femtastic,” “herstory” and lots of cliches like "Jane Goodall, not just monkeying around" and "Clare Boothe Luce: Luce Cannon".
I bought this book for my teenager and after reading it myself, I decided it was too banal for a teenager. I give it one star for introducing me to a couple of news-to-me historic figures including the Night Witches, Nazi-fighting Soviet pilots.

[Rosanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's shocking how many of these women I've never heard of. History has erased so many women and their important accomplishments. The author highlights these "sheroes" from throughout history and what they achieved. There is about a page devoted to each women so it's fun to pick up the book periodically and read about a few, or pick and choose. The fun part is now I have a long list of women I want to learn more about. And the author would like to publish another volume and has a form in the back for readers to nominate other forgotten "sheroes." Time to rewrite "herstory!"

[Dani Weyand · Rating 3 out of 5]

5 stars for the content, there were so many interesting women that I enjoyed learning facts about. Instead of in-depth explorations of a few women’s achievements, you get blurbs about... a lot. I honestly couldn’t even say how many, 50? 100? I do appreciate the inclusion of right-leaning women but the book does gloss over a lot of controversies.

This otherwise fine book looses stars because it uses words like “shero”, “sheroism”, “femtastic”, and “herstory”. I get it, but I absolutely hate it. If that’s not something that bothers you, you’ll probably enjoy this.

[Leanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was not what I expected. I thought it would be longer stories about a small group of women. This covered many women, which was nice, but the depth left me wanting. I also found it strange how some women had long sections dedicated to them while others had only a paragraph. In particular, Martina Navratilova is an accomplished tennis player, and inspiring woman yet she only had a paragraph and it mostly focused on her sexuality. I found that disappointing and insulting.

[Abby · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had hoped to read some stories that would uplift and inspire in these heavy times. Instead I was continually struck by poor writing, lack of editing, and shallowness of research. Worst of all, the book is full of micro-aggressions against Black women...and even women in general! The author’s perspective is outdated and damaging. Such a huge disappointment.

[ML Hart · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I looked up 'dumpster fire' in the dictionary, I wouldn't be surprised to see a picture of this mess. No rhyme or reason to the overly broad selection of women to profile, with a couple paragraphs to a few pages for each, all seemingly compiled from wiki-sources.

'More is more' seems to be the method for choosing the categories and the entries. Almost no photos, and worse, there's no story to inspire or intrigue or invite to explore further. Add to that, the e-book formatting is distractingly poor, with typos, and editing editing problems (duplicate phrases as if half a sentence was copied and pasted twice) on top of wildly different voices in the writing style without thought, analysis or care, other than to pop in attempts to be cute? relevant? but succeeding only in being annoying.

I'm embarrassed to have paid for this book. The idea, when done well, is excellent. I recently read two books I would give 6 or 7 stars to, for style, content, and inability to put down until I finished:

THE BOOK OF GUTSY WOMEN by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton - thoughtful, well-written profiles focusing on the impact each made on the world, their motivations and obstacles overcome. There are recollections from the authors about meeting, working with, and/or first learning of them. Fascinating and inspiring.

WOMEN IN ART: 50 FEARLESS CREATIVES WHO INSPIRED THE WORLD by Rachel Ignotofsky - sort of a graphic-novel style, 2 full pages for each woman, with story, influence, a quote by her, often a fun-fact or comment from someone who worked with her. Illustrations by the author. Charming, well-researched and interesting - one in a series, others focusing on sports or science.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a collection of women that have inspired the author over the years and who can be used as inspiration for all other young women who are looking for someone to look up to.

The list is broken down into chapters that all focus on a certain area of life that these women have become leaders in. A lot of the women who are mentioned here are American or are women who have moved to America and have made an impact on their society, which doesn’t mean that they should not be ignored but it doesn’t give a wide scope of people to be inspired by.

While there is a chapter dedicated to Women of Colour and there are other women of colour throughout the rest of the book, they are still very American so it could have benefited from a more international perspective.

Good if your looking for American women or are looking to learn about inspirational women from America then this is a good starting point. If your looking for Inspirational Women from across the world, then there are other books out there.

[Karen Mathis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dynamic and mind-blowing! I was embarrassed at how little I know about woman's history. I was so proud as I read about the global female leaders who put their safety on the line for causes to bring greater good to the world. Although at times it comes as a firehose of info, the overall effect is one of the most inspiring learning experiences . There are sheroes and love stories intertwined at times. Each one of the amazing stories could be a book in itself.

[Len · Rating 2 out of 5]

it really is the book of awesome women. and kudos to all of them for making the world a better place!
the thing is, there are too many of them in such a not very big book that i couldn’t remember the last one as soon as i started reading about the next.
i’d love it more if the focus was on quality not quantity i.e.: a couple of detailed stories about awesome women in their fields would have been great.

[Cath · Rating 2 out of 5]

Loved the idea. The book fell flat for me. Just a bunch of random facts about amazing women with minimal explanation, context or relevant information to be frank. I wish there would have been a focus on a few women in certain categories and to have had more details about each woman.

It is a fact that there are too many incredible women to have them all represented in one book, the author could have just acknowledged that and maybe done a series of books instead.

[Shelby Lionberger · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the concept is excellent, the writing does not do these incredible women justice. It's a decent place to start, if you really have no clue. Your best option: flip through and write down the names, then Google them yourself. The information will be more complete, accurate, and well written that way.

[AlliD · Rating 4 out of 5]

With a few paragraphs each dedicated to both well-known and obscure women from modern and ancient times, this book collects the bios of warriors, athletes, activists, scientists, musicians, visual artists, performing artists, writers, and rulers. My biggest complaint is that there is no index, so it's hard to go back to someone you'd like to revisit.

[Krystal Linn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have lots of names for future research and reference.

[Roni Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s going to be amazing.

[Johnnysbookreviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

A list of awesome women. I wish it was more narrative than a list, but it still was a good book.

[Linnea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good as a reference book. Hard to read straight through.

[Lauren Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must admit this book does read a bit dry, but so fantastic to read about amazing women I never knew about. It was very inspirational and a great reminder to keep being a badass woman.

[Addy Canzano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks pops

[Danielle McCaffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing itself is good, however, I would have rather it focused on less women for longer than just these weird, summed-up paragraphs.

[Jas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was looking for books on feminism and stumbled upon this book. It seemed really interesting at first but it was an extreme letdown. The book was literally just different fragments from what seems like they were copied and pasted into the book from Wikipedia. I don't know why but I also don't like the word 'shero(es)' either.

[Debora Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book every women should read this