Hidden Figures

There's not much to say about Hidden Figures that hasn't already been said, but I still found the story of how African American female mathematicians left behind their families and hometowns to seek their fortune doing calculations on bomber planes to win WWII, in a time that there was still segregated lunch tables and African American women could expect to make a pittance. It's amazing to read about the women, who despite these circumstances, forcibly integrated grade schools to earn their PhDs and persevered for years to be recognized as engineers and included on literary papers. I liked that Shetterly chose to focus on a few key characters as a way of humanizing the story, although I agree that the character development was pretty weak, and especially the side characters tended to blend together.

As a side note, I DNF'ed the young adult version and, having read the real thing, I completely stand behind that choice. What were they thinking? Young adults are not more attracted to drier books stripped of characters.