20/100 Books Completed
Summary: A Mouthful of Rivets: Women at Work in World War II is a collection of interviews with women who describe the challenges they faced when they entered the workforce to take the place of the men fighting overseas. These inspiring women share how they overcame harassment, lack of training, and discrimination to win the war at home. Without these women, America never would have met its defense production needs and probably would have lost the war.
My Commentary: This was a fantastic read. I have always been interested in the stories of women during World War II since I watched A League of Their Own. I knew they faced many hardships but I had no idea about the extent of what they had to overcome. When they started working, there weren’t even bathrooms for them to use. The girls had to find the nearest restaurant.
I was so inspired by the tales of women who left everything they knew and loved to go to the coast to work in bomb factories. The stories were just incredible. Even though I “knew the end” I was still angry when the boys came back and they all lost their jobs on the spot (even the ones who performed better than the men).
I really liked how they shared stories from many different perspectives. There were the tales of women who fought hard to keep their job once the war ended as well as ones of women who were eager to be housewives. I also enjoyed the few chapters of interviews with the women’s children and grandchildren. The descendants told of how inspired they were and how their moms and grandmas didn’t realize how crucial they were to the history of the USA.
I should also mention that I read this book outside. They’re doing construction by my house. It really heightened the experience of reading about riveters to the sound of jackhammers.
#rosie the riveter #world war ii #world war ii women #book #book reviews
Summary: Son of Neptune is the second book in the Heroes of Olympus series. Unlike the first one, this one follows Percy Jackson. Like Jason, Percy wakes up with mo memory and soon finds the Roman equivalent of Camp Half-Blood. He still fights and acts Greek, and is in pretty much the same situation Jason was all throughout the last book. He befriends Frank, son of Mars (Ares), and Hazel, daughter of Pluto (Hades). Together, the trio goes on a quest to Alaska, aka the Land Beyond the Gods.
My Commentary: If it wasn’t for the amazing ending, I would be disappointed in this book. It was basically the same story as The Lost Hero, but just with doppelgangers. Most of the plot was predictable, especially Frank’s “secret power.” It was meant to be a big looming question, but I immediately figured it out. Rick Riordan also bit off a bit more than he could chew by making Frank influenced by Chinese mythology. The Greek/Roman storyline was good enough. Throwing in another empire was annoying. If he was really that interested in Chinese mythology, he should’ve written a different book (like he did with the Kane series about the Egyptians).
Percy was a major redeeming quality for this book. Even though he was the star of his own five-book series, he didn’t overpower Hazel or Frank. That’s really tough to pull off so I give props to Rick Riordan. It was interesting how he experienced the same memory loss as Jason, but we knew what he was forgetting because of the previous series.
I have mixed feelings about Hazel. She had a really interesting story line because she was supposed to be dead, but sometimes she got a little whiny. She’s from Jazz Age New Orleans, and as a saxophonist I immediately took to her, though I don’t know if the average reader would.
The ending was a stroke of genius. If you can put up with the rest of the book for the ending, then I say go for it. Even though it’s not an amazing work of literature, considering the audience it is meant for it was still pretty entertaining. For me it was a page turner, but not so much for the story, but for the fact that I got to read more of Percy Jackson’s story.
#percy jackson #son of neptune #mythology #roman mythology #greek mythology #one year one hundred books #reading #book #book blog
