Birth of a Unicorn, by Heather Wilde

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Heather Wilde

I received this book thanks to Virtual Author Book Tours
in exchange for a honest review.

I will start on this occasion by pointing out what the synopsis of this book promises because, having finished it, I think I have read a totally different book:

In this book, you’ll find the true story behind one of Silicon Valley’s famous companies on its rise to the top. Peek behind the curtain as you see the highs and lows from an insider perspective, on the roller coaster that is the startup life. What emerges is a lasting friendship, a billion-dollar company, and an understandable framework of success for you to replicate.

How to find the balance between your career and personal life.

Why emotional awareness and critical thinking are as important as specialized knowledge.

How to identify the real skills you need to build a “Unicorn” team.

What is supposed to be a tale about the origins of Evernote, is actually an autobiography about a woman who worked for this app from the start, but managed to do so in an unconventional way: her own.

The Wildes were an ordinary couple living an ordinary life, usually miles away from each other because of the husband’s job as a pilot, when the attack on the Twin Towers occurred. I suppose that there are times when an external or internal event makes you pause and reflect about the mindless routines that shape our lives; it could be a terrorist attack, an illness, a killer pandemic… And, thus, the Wildes decided they wanted to live together, and to do so on a boat in Mexico. When Heather was asked to join Evernote, she put two conditions: one, to work remotely; two, to be paid (!!)

You need to read between the lines to know that Heather had already been in contact with the intricacies of Silicon Valley’s startups and that she knew that there were times and enterprises where you just had to show up and work not for money, but for a promise of a better, more profitable future, if it finally comes. She also had already made a name for herself, thanks to previous jobs, that led the founder of Evernote to want her in the team, and the road to gain that position in which her own conditions for the job are accepted is one of the points that are not really explained in the book and I would like to know more about.

In any case, both Wildes joined Evernote and they went to live on a boat in Mexico. The rest of the story goes back and forth in time with anecdotes of their time there: the problems when travelling with pets across borders; the good relationship with their neighbours; cultural shocks with the Mexicans, of course; and the intricacies of working endless hours for a startup that keeps growing.

The line that promises to teach you “how to find the balance between your career and personal life” is what I found most utterly misleading, even purposely deceiving, since the author explains in detail how they worked for more than 12 hours a day, worked every day also on holidays, and went to marathon sessions of in-person meetings, to finally collapse crying in an elevator in Evernote headquarters and decide to quit her job. Work-life balance? Sure.

In addition, the book ends with a Heather’s many-times-postponed visit to the doctor only to discover she had a tumor, having had an emergency operation while her husband was in another country for work (obviously).

There are parts of the story that soothe you into the graciousness of these businesses which were once managed by a few kind persons like you and me, like when she talks about the policy of providing premium access to homeless people and to people in areas affected by natural disasters. There are also truly interesting insights from a psychological point of view, such as the discovery that female tech supporters needed more interactions with the users to solve a problem and, therefore, they were less productive because they spent more time in solving one ticket, only to catch up with their male counterparts when they began to use men or gender-neutral names.

However, I cannot say this book really penetrates into the foundations and the development of Evernote. As I said before, this is a memoir of the time she worked for the company, with anecdotes of their time and routines in Mexico, as well as their trips to the headquarters in California; and the feeling that lingers after finishing the book is that, yes, they managed to work from what they consider paradise but, no, if you have two people working twelve hours per day, you really need three employees to do that job, and you are burning people out.

I have no doubt that the author loved working for the startup and seeing it grow, since she and her husband were an important part of it, and I have no doubt either that it was very remunerative for them after the increased popularity of Evernote; but I am positive that they should have had the chance to do so in another way—in a way in which she does not quit due to an anxiety breakdown, or neglects her health due to lack of time. After all, the only people to be remembered in a company like this, if any, are just the CEOs.

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You can follow the tour and enter the giveaway to get a copy of the book here.

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30 days of Digital Minimalism

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Cal Newport

Cal Newport is an author I have been following for some time, as I am interested in his books and posts about study techniques, career advice, and deep, concentrated work. Now, with Digital minimalism, Newport has produced a manifesto to encourage people to be more conscious of their use of digital services while reducing it to the minimum.

As an unaware user of social media, I knew I was spending more time on it than I should, but what brought me to the book was the radical change of circumstances right after the coronavirus outbreak: I was working and studying from home but I couldn’t get anything done since I was spending my waking hours scrolling on social media and reading every piece of news. This is not the whole truth, I must say, because I was keeping many of my good habits regarding waking up and going to bed at the same time as ever; exercising once or twice every day, now without leaving the house; doing a bit of spring cleaning; and even trying some recipes and making crafts. I was actually enjoying the situation, safe at home and spending time with my partner, after months of different work timetables that prevented us from seeing each other much, but the struggle came every time I sat down with a screen, computer or phone, because I would open social media and news sites, as always, but I was now getting caught in a loop that kept me scrolling and refreshing to the point of not even opening the document I was supposed to be working on until 2 or 3 hours had passed by. So I read the book, I acknowledged I had a problem, and I tried Newport’s approach: I got rid of social media for a month.

In the book, you will find plenty of ideas about how necessary it is for our brains to be “bored” from time to time, to spend time alone, to engage in hobbies that make us be creative, to maintain face to face conversation with others… All those things that social media has transformed into interactions based on likes and shallow comments that have stolen our attention and have only brought anxiety and a lack of time for the things that we really value.

So I started the 30-day challenge by posting on my social media accounts about my endeavor, and then I deleted Facebook, Twitter and Instagram apps on my phone and I used Cold Turkey to block them for a month on my computer. I kept free access to WhatsApp, to communicate with family and friends; YouTube, my source of workouts during the confinement; the sports watch and its app, because it keeps me motivated to move; and GoodReads, a service as necessary as oxygen for a reader. I also blocked news sites so I could only access them at lunchtime, and I did nothing about Netflix or TV because I don’t use these services (and it would have actually been nice to find time for a good film or TV series, but it didn’t happen in the end).

I have to say that the first day was glorious: I finished the first draft of my End of Degree Project by working all day on it and writing about 9 pages without distractions, a huge accomplishment for me. Of course, I couldn’t keep that level of performance, but on the subsequent days I started to get work done and get on track with my studies, which was really stimulating. The number of books I read was joyously increased that month, and I started to resume writing on my Spanish book blog, which led me to announce my very first newsletter. Had I known how easy and satisfying my time away from social media was going to be, I would had become a digital minimalist much earlier, for sure!

However, I would also like to address the difficulties that I found during those thirty days:

• The days prior to the shutdown were the worst: after reading the book I was getting to the false conclusion that I was an addict and, therefore, I would suffer without my dose. On the contrary, from the first day, being unable to access social media was actually a relief.
• GoodReads has a feed resembling Facebook’s, and it might tempt you to scroll down, which I did at first but soon stopped, as I was aware of the danger.
• When I baked something nice, or when we were allowed to go for walks after the lockdown, it was strange to take pictures and not to post them on Instagram. You really miss it! So I made the decision to post them after the thirty days, and that delay gave me clarity about how we have been deceived to post and seek recognition from unknown people that cannot care less about us.

This leads me to the final step of the process: going back to social media. The proposal of the book is to think carefully about how you want to use the services and make the proper arrangements: delete accounts, unfollow people you are not interested in, establish timetables and rules, etc. In my case, my desired strategy consists on, first, unfollow people and leave my account with a feed showing my real interests, books and all kind of crafts; and, second, keep the blocking during the week and access social media only on the weekend. I haven’t got around to do the former yet so, for the moment, I only allow myself to check social media on the weekends, but I don’t spend much time on it anymore.

I would like to end this long post with two final notes. On one hand, a warning: don’t rely on willpower to overcome the use of social media. That means don’t just turn off notifications or leave the phone inside a drawer; block and delete apps mercilessly instead of depleting your energy by constantly exercising self-control. I know this because I have had the notifications on my phone turned off for years, and look where I was. Above all, don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are cured, reformed, after the thirty days: recently I had two-week holiday with free allowance to social media and, from the first day, I was back to my old habits of checking and scrolling. These services are designed to get you hooked, so the best approach is to make them disappear from your life.

On the other hand, I have noticed that, without social media, your brain is naturally inclined to engage in new endeavors, and sometimes it is a bit overwhelming to have all these ideas when you are already engaged in other pursuits. It is as if your head is constantly producing unexpected and enticing projects now that it perceives you have more time and you spend it more consciously. This is definitely a positive outcome, though: to have lots of ideas plus the freedom to finally focus your time and attention on them.

Would you abandon social media for a month?

Learning how to learn, by Barbara Oakley and Terrence J. Sejnowski

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Barbara Oakley, Terrence J. Sejnowski

I don’t know about you, but I have always felt that the only thing I wasn’t taught at school was how to learn. Is it not ironic?

I’m attending an online English course and at some point we were discussing non-fiction books, when the teacher mentioned Barbara Oakley’s MOOC Learning how to learn. I enrolled in the course that very evening and, whereas I found it really interesting, I started the book before finishing the course due to my preference for the written word.

In the book, Barbara explains the techniques you need to master in order to learn better, and she does it in a didactical manner, even making you practice with her own book through reminders in every chapter about scanning through it first, addressing a series of questions at the end to see if you understood the material, etc.

She talks, among other things, about chunks of time, focused and difuse mode, active recall, memory palaces… And she bases their explanations on research about our brain’s way of working and storing new information. The book is intended to be read by young people or together a child with an adult and, therefore, she uses easy-to-understand metaphors so that all readers can understand and apply the techniques to the subjects and materials they need to learn.

But don’t underestimate the quality of this book: if the first sentence of this post resonates with you, you will get invaluable benefit from the reading of Learning how to learn. The techniques won’t be novel to you, I’m sure, but Barbara presents them in a comprehensive form, adding examples to help you get started, and basically compiling them together so you have the feeling of finally knowing everything you need to know about memory and learning.

Now, I am aware that when you read all this you’ll be tempted to make excuses like “I don’t have time for this, I need to study”, and by that you mean coming back to your familiar study routine of opening the book, highlighting half of it in bright yellow, and forgetting most of it the day after. Changing these old patterns is been also a challenge for me who, after 36 years studying, still follows the same unproductive path for learning my subjects at the university, but I’m making an effort now in order improve how I learn. As Barbara says, practice makes permanent, and by implementing the techniques you will end up having more time for other things!

I wish someone had the idea of including a subject on how to learn in schools curriculae when I was a child. It is frustrating when you have to educate yourself years later on the matter; it would have been easier to acquire these habits at a young age but, anyway, this is where we are at the moment. So, please, if you are a person who believes one must learn new things throughout her life, read this book – you won’t be disappointed!

HIIT your limit. Hight Intensity Interval Training for fat loss, cardio, and full body health, by Dr. Len Kravitz

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Len Kravitz

I received a copy of the book to review

Maybe you don’t know this about me, but I worked in a gym as a fitness instructor for almost nine years. Back then, in my classes, I never thought about working smarter, but harder: I was basically focused on getting my clients the sweatiest they could be within an hour of aerobics, steps, cycling, etc. That’s what they demanded, too, feeling their time was worthy by achieving that sweaty goal. Only some guys at the weight-lifting room would try different techniques to improve their muscle gain by controlling their sessions at the gym and their food intake to crazy-to-me levels.

But it turns out if you want certain results, you have to educate yourself and work smarter, right?

Back then I was working out for 20 hours per week. The time I was not exercising, I would eat insane amounts of every food available, including ice-cream, pastries and junk food. I was thin, lean, as hard as a rock. And perpetually exhausted.

That should have told me something, but there are things you can only acknowledge in retrospect. When I left that job, I couldn’t dedicate all that time to exercise anymore, so I did (and still do) what’s recommended -three to five sessions a week- while trying to eat less even though I was −and I am– hungry all the time (spoiler alert: when you stop exercising you are as hungry as before; your stomach is an independent entity altogether).

And, while all the blood and cardiovascular tests show I am an extremely healthy person, I am overweight. And it’s not that I say so; the doctor has told me I should lose some weight. But I can’t. And it’s kind of frustrating when you swim three times per week, run two times per week, go everywhere by foot, eat less than your stomach would like to… and still you don’t look good. The only thing that comes to mind is “maybe I should eat even less or run for 15 minutes more”, coming back to what I said about focusing on quantity instead of quality.

A few months ago, YouTube “recommended” me a HIIT (High Intensity Intervals Training) video. I tried it out and was amazed: I could only do half of it and I felt that my body couldn’t have been worked more intensely in those 20 minutes. That was when the book I am reviewing today (yes, all this was only the prelude of a book review) came into the picture to help me understand this kind of training better and schedule my own routines.

In my opinion, this -and a park- is all the equipment you’ll ever need to get fit

The first half of the books is dedicated to biology and physiology and includes data and research to better understand how the body works during and after exercise, focusing on HIIT in particular and what the benefits of this training are. For those of you who have already tried it, you would have noticed that you can do much more in less time, but it also helps improve cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and cardiorespiratory fitness faster than other kinds of training.

There is a section dedicated to help you stick with your exercise program, for which I really recommend you read James Clear’s Atomic habits in order to better approach a change in your daily routines either to include exercise or any other new habit. There are also frequently asked questions that I found very informative –“Can I reduce the number of fat cells in my body? No.” I’m still crying over this–. And, at the end of the book, there is advice on how to cut calories with small changes – I can’t apply the majority of them, since I hardly ever eat out, I don’t drink sodas or alcohol, nor do I have sugar with my coffee, etc.

Finally, we have the HIIT workouts. I like that the author recommends reducing your normal workouts and add HIIT ones instead of increasing the total amount of weekly exercise, which was what I had in mind when I started reading the book, and had an exponential increase in anxiety because you don’t really know if you will ever find the time to do it all.

Regarding the workouts themselves, I found them very beginner-like, thought to be done only with a certain exercise mode instead of creating different exercises for every interval, which is what I have been trying lately and found more enjoyable. Don’t get me wrong – I truly believe they are good workouts, but doing running work and recovery intervals is what I have always called “Interval Training”, but not “High Intensity Interval Training”. I know you can increase the intensity, of course, but I guess I was expecting something more like this.

I think the book is primarily targeted towards people who hasn’t developed a steady habit of exercising, so they can start by including these short but effective workouts in their weekly routines and get fast results. For the rest, the book will make you aware of those intervals you only did from time to time and how it is better to focus more often on them without increasing the total amount of time devoted to exercise, in order to achieve your aimed weight and fitness level.

In any case, it is a matter of adapting your routines. I will sure change more of my steady-state running, swimming and walking workouts to intervals, and I will also keep an eye on including different high intensity exercises a couple of days per week.

And now it’s time to start exercising!

HIIT your limit. High Intensity Interval Training for fat loss, cardio, and full body health
Dr. Len Kravitz
Apollo Publishers
216 pages

Book on Goodreads
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The wisdom of listening, by Marilyn R. Wilson

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Marilyn R. Wilson

I received a copy of the book thanks to iRead book tours.

The wisdom of listening is one of those books you can pick up and open at any given chapter, read it, get inspired, and go ahead with your day, letting the ideas or the message penetrate slowly. Or you can pick it up, get hooked, and read it from cover to cover in a couple of evenings. You will love it anyway!

I decided to participate in the tour because I felt the title was calling my name. We are so absorbed in our own narratives that we hardly ever listen to what others have to say and, on the other hand, I also find it difficult to be heard sometimes… I guess this is the major problem of the modern era, isn’t it? So that’s why I thought that the book came to me in the right moment, and it has been a very pleasant read.

Marilyn R. Wilson uses her career as a journalist to talk about the people she has interviewed and from whom she has learned precious lessons, but she also talks about valuable messages from films, colleagues and family members; you can learn anywhere, anytime, if only you are aware of what is being offered to you.

In truth, I think the book is meant to be an autobiography in which Marilyn comes to show how and why people have shaped her view of life. She explains she had a difficult time growing up due to the expectations of others regarding what a darling daughter, wife and mother she had to be, trying to behave in a way she wasn’t comfortable with just to please her family, and feeling deep inside that something was wrong with her. With time, she understood that one can only be happy by being herself, and the beginning of a career in journalism, interviewing artists who had to ignore criticism from even their own families to thrive in life, tought her how to find a way of pursuing her true calling.

What I liked the most is that, apart from the topics that the author wants to address in every chapter, you also take the message of receptivity and openness with which one should face everyday events as well as the remarkable ones. And I also enjoyed the cozy tone of the narration, as if you are just *listening* to a friend sharing significant passages of her life.

Follow the tour and enter the giveaway here.
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Marilyn R. Wilson’s website

 

21 days to happiness, by Ingrid Kelada

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Ingrid Kelada

I received this book in exchange for a honest review
thanks to iRead Book Tours.

I would like to start this review by saying that Ingrid Kelada, the author, is a psychologist and happiness expert (how well it sounds, a happiness expert!) and she has gathered all the information available in research studies about what makes people live a happier life, and put it together in simple, fun and approachable chapters to try every “method”, one at a time.

In the last years I have become an avid reader of non-fiction books, especially about learning and productivity, and I have to say that I have read a number of the authors Ingrid mentions in her book and I have come across all the topics discussed at one time or another, but I had never related all these behaviours to happiness itself – perhaps to wellbeing and health, but it had never occurred that this is a way which also leds to happiness, and of course it does!

That being said, I don’t think many of the readers that are usually keen of books about these topics will find something new in 21 days to happiness, but the appeal of this particular book comes from the way the tips are presented: each chapter talks about one topic (body language, time, relationships, optimism, etc.) and offers data and research about how happiness is affected by them, ways one can introduce them in your everyday life, tips to start doing it right now, and a brief comment about how the author actually does it to increase her own happiness. She includes links to Youtuve videos and TED talks about the topic and, at the end of the chapters there are also questionnaires, so you can test yourself about your thoughts on implementing this new behaviour in your life, and see if it works for you. It really makes the read enjoyable and addictive, and actually makes you “do” something to implement what has been discussed.

The thing is I have found that I do most of the things Ingrid recommends every day and, while I understand the value of the other stuff, I still haven’t worked out the way some things could “do good” to me. For instance, I see Ingrid is an outgoing woman who talks about the importance of relationships with others, suggesting one can join clubs or start conversations with people in your neighbourhood – there’s no way I can do such thing without dying from anxiety! She also talks about the joy of cooking a healthy meal, and here is one person that only finds joy in cooking a lot of food, knowing I won’t have to cook again in many days. Maybe I should try other approaches to these contingencies (this is also taught in the book), but I consider myself a happy person anyway!

Well, this is a book you could talk about forever, analyzing yourself and trying out what Ingrid suggests. As I said, I have been practising many of these suggestions throughout the years, and now I’m working on some of the new-to-me tips, like “happy body language” and the chunks of time when working. I’m even in the mood to try again the cooking stuff! So yes, this is a book I would recommend to anyone who wants to improve their approach to the days ahead.

Book on Goodreads
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www.21daystohappiness.com

Overwhelmed writer rescue, by Colleen M. Story

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Colleen M. Story

I recieved a copy of this book in exchange for a review
thanks to iRead Book Tours.

I have to confess that, as a reader, I have always wanted to know how writers do their job. I mean, I know that they sit down and write stories, but I have always wondered where the ideas come from before actually writing them down. Do they see a random person in the street that triggers something in their minds that leads them to a plot? Do they just start with nothing in mind to see what comes into the blank page? Do they brainstorm the main scenes of the story on a piece of paper and then follow the script on their computers? Do they really count words every day? Seriously?

Well, I applied for this book because I thought that, throughout the advice on increasing their writing productivity, I would found out the answers about some of the metaphysical doubts I had regarding the craft but, guess what, their secrets remain unknown. I couldn’t put the book down, however.

This book is basically a self-help book where you can learn about finding a way to include writing in your life and make the best of it in terms of productivity and quality. The best part is that you can apply everything you read on it to any activity you fancy doing, either as a hobby or as a potential career and, even though the author always refers to creative activities, you can also use them in your daily life for a number of things. In my case, I have thought about implementing her advice on my studies – this might seem the least creative thing you can come up with, but actually I have developed new habits throughout these last years that includes much more than sitting with a book and highlight it, and this book has given me new ideas to increase my productivity and try new ways of studying my Law textbooks.

The book covers from the basics of time management to the specifics of personality traits that can work in your favor towards writing more and better, without burnouts or feeling you are neglecting other responsibilities. It also addresses mindset issues like self-doubts about your skills, or the work overload that leads to stress and health problems because we need to “work harder”, so we stop taking care of ourselves. One can really relate to many of the subjects the author covers in this book and, as I told you, you can use it for your advantage on a number of projects, not only for writing books.

So I didn’t find the writers’ deepest secrets about their writing, that’s true, but I have enjoyed reading about how to improve my abilities to do more of what I like, finding the right motivation to do so and using resources that I have already developed to improve the results.

Overwhelmed writer rescue
Colleen M. Story
Published by Midchannel Press
304 pages

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A fistful of love, by Om Swami

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Om Swami

I received this book in exchange for a review
thanks to Virtual Authors Book Tours.

The reason I requested this book was the description of the author, which was fascinating: a successful man from the western culture who owned a software business and decided to leave this way of living in pursuit of spirituality at the Himalayas. Wow.

In A fistful of love, Om Swami talks about every aspect of our relationships with others and with ourselves, giving the book a structure with short chapters talking about one issue each in which the author explains his point through stories and tales as examples of what he wants the reader to understand, and then discusses the matter and gives advice and ideas to think about.

Well, it sounds really simple, but the fact is that every chapter resonates with oneself in a way or another, pushing you into an analysis of your own behaviors towards other people and also towards yourself, because sometimes it looks like we go through life punishing ourselves instead of making peace with what we are and being open to give and receive love.

As it happens, while I was reading this book I was also listening to an audiobook by Kelly McGonigal titled The science of compassion (GoodReads), and both fitted perfectly, intertwining their messages and taking all the advice and wisdom from Swami into a deeper -and more scientific- level thanks to McGonigal.

In summary, I think that this is a book to help us pause and reset ourselves into a search for compassionate and non-judgmental relationships, enjoying every step of the way instead of looking for salvation in our ultimate destination, whatever it may be. It is one of those books you can pick up and open at a random chapter for a daily dose of knowledge and inspiration. I am glad I have read it.

If you want to have a glimpse of what this book is about, you can read Om Swami’s posts, for they are very similiar to the chapters of the book, at omswami.com

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Memoirs, tales and short stories: mini-reviews from October’16 Readathon

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Anna Gavalda, Marga Minco, Sjón

As I told you, I chose short books for the Readathon, and that was the best idea I ever had: I read five books during the event! And, this is remarkable, all of them were interesting and enjoyable reads. This was a surprise because I just browsed the library and borrowed books based entirely on their number of pages, without any further information about them but the synopsis on the back cover.

I read almost all of them in Spanish, but I have seen they have also been translated into English, so I am free to recommend them here on my blog  🙂

Bitter Herbs: The Vivid Memories of a Fugitive Jewish Girl in Nazi Occupied Holland (Marga Minco)

This is a memoir of the author, and I think it is considered a classic in some Northern European countries, like The diary of Anne Frank.

The story starts when the German soldiers enter Marga’s town and, when she asks her father if they are going to deport the Jews, like they were doing in Germany, he says that ‘Something like that could never happen here‘. Her family didn’t want to leave the country and none of them survived except Marga.

It is a terrible story, of course, but the author doesn’t put any sentimentalism on the text; she just gives us her memories as facts for us to cover the passages with the fear and pain Marga must have felt in her youth.

Book on Goodreads.

The blue fox (Sjón)

This is a short tale set in the middle of the Nineteenth Century in Iceland. I thought I was going to read a story of men against nature, but I was very wrong.

The story starts with a priest chasing a fox for its fur but, as they move towards the mountains through the snow, the narration is interrupted to tell us what has happened those days in the village. There has been a death, and thanks to the preparations for her funeral, we are going to know the story of a girl who was “different”.

This is that kind of book you don’t want to talk about so much, for the prospective readers to discover the story by themselves. It is thought-provoking, sad and beautiful.

Book on Goodreads.

I wish someone were waiting for me somewhere (Anna Gavalda)

This is a collection of short stories and, even though it is not a genre of my liking, I have to recommend it, because most of the stories are shocking, affecting the reader in one way or another.

What they have in common is the impact of one single event that, in less than a minute, changes everything. Apart from this, there are different genres, characters, situations, etc.

I specially liked three of them: a humorous story about two rich boys who take their father’s car without permission; one about a female veterinarian who has trouble making herself a place in a small village; and one about a salesman whose life has been destroyed by himself alone.

Book on Goodreads.

The lost diaries of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, by Sarah Bates

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Sarah Bates

I received this book thanks to Virtual Authors Book Tours

The lost diaries of Elizabeth Cady Stanton is a work of fiction based on the early life of this historical figure, Elizabeth Cady Stanton: her family background, her education, and her willingness of being equal as any men from an early age; all of which is presented in small chapters narrating some events, followed by the possible entry that could have been written in this girl’s diary.

Elizabeth was born in a wealthy family and was exposed to the law, and the inequality of it regarding men and women rights, thanks to her father, the judge Daniel Cady. She liked, from an early age, to take part in the lessons and discussions that her father assembled at home with his students and, being Mr. Cady an abolitionist, she took some of his ideas as her own.

She fought hard to get an education further than what was expected for a girl like her, and she always presented herself like an equal to the men she encountered on parties and other social gatherings, trying to make points in conversations that were not supposed to be suitable for women. This behaviour, perhaps, didn’t make her a good match at the eyes of the prospective husbands of her time, but it certainly gave her the opportunity to choose a husband whose ideals match her own, as finally happened.

I found the book interesting – a great portrait of the time and personal background of this woman, addressing all the important events in her life, such as her academic awards, the death of her older brother, her approach about the abolition of slavery, a setback caused by the influence of the Revival meetings when she was a student, her forbidden love for her brother-in-law, etc. However, I have to say that sometimes the narration appeared as a mere description of events, lacking the emotional display needed in some scenes (to my liking, at least). Besides, the opening of the book introduces Elizabeth in her sixties, about to give a lecture, and then goes back to her childhood until the last chapter, when I had forgotten all about the lecture and the characters involved in the first chapter, which was kind of a shock because I didn’t remember what was happening and why now one of the characters was upset.

But, in summary, I have to say that I really enjoyed knowing about this historical figure. The book fulfills its role as an introduction of the early years of Elizabeth and how she became the strong-minded woman who fought for women rights and the abolitionist movement later in life.

The lost diaries of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, by Sarah Bates
420 pages
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