Really interesting, obviously a lot of time and effort and thought had gone into this book and the research behind it. Was a good read and gave me a lot to think about!

Great book, I enjoyed this thoroughly and it gave me a lot of thinking to do. The author has clearly spent a lot of time researching these amazing women.

I thought this was a great book to demonstrate that there is a substantial history of female contribution to the fields of STEM, despite most of them experiencing significant discrimination on the basis of their sex, and many of them also due to their race, religion, country of birth, or even their marital status. If there ever needed to be proof that women have the brains for Science, here it is. Of course for the most part there is only a snippet of each woman's life and her contribution, but there is enough to get a good idea of who she is, and what she achieved. My only slight confusion with the book was how the chapters were organised - it seemed a bit arbitrary how the women were grouped for some of them, and the Further Reading women it would have made more sense to list at the end of the chapter. Other than that, I found this an interesting book.

The stories in this book are no doubt interesting and fun to read. There is a well rounded, non culturally biased inclusion in this book which I like. However, it doesn't rack up full stars for me purely because I didn't find the writing style engaging. But overall a good book

This is an excellent collection of vignettes about women who changed the world'. While the usual suspects are included, such as Ada Lovelace, there are several women from all over the world whom Shimizu makes it a point not to ignore, so there's no Western world or recency bias. Informative and more importantly, fun to read. If you're thinking of picking up ' Lessons in chemistry', dont, pick up this one instead. Doesn't gloss over the problems the women faced at all, and gives you an insight into scientific development. Must read!

Quick overview of some amazing women accomplishments throughout the history

It was a nice quick read about great female innovators. Not very in-depth, but just enough to make you interested about the women she writes about. Writing overuse of :'whilst' bothered me a little, but overall a fast and pleasant read.

This honestly wasn't the best one of these mini-biography books that I've read but I've read a LOT of them and I think this one is still pretty well written so I decided to go with a 4 star rating. I agree with some other reviewers that I don't think it's very well organized but I think there's a lot of good information here and I did learn about several women that I hadn't heard of before which is always what I'm looking for when I pick one of these up so overall I'd still consider it a good book. Definitely a good book to pick up if you're looking for a fairly light but still informative read.

I love that there is a book that shows the role of women in our society. It's so easy to overlook this fact. For each female innovator there is some information offered like enough to pique your interest and then look up for more information but in the same time to not get you bored with details.

The premise is very good and one that I think would interest patrons. The book, as is in this ARC, feels unfinished, so it's difficult to evaluate fully. For example, there are biographies of some of the women, but for others just their names are given under a heading of "Further Reading." Is there more planned for those women? Also, the book could be improved by making it more visually engaging, such as adding pictures. The cover is very cute and grabs attention, but the interior doesn't convey that same style which might disappoint readers who flip through the book trying to decide whether they'll check it out or not.

I think this book has potential as the topic is interesting, but it wasn’t well executed. I find some technical terms/work explained too much in detail. I also wish the grouping was somewhat different and maybe included photos of the women or their work. “further reading “ sections were inserted almost throughout the book and I think one such section could be at the end of the book or omitted altogether

2,5*

I need to stop reading this type of book. I will give it to the writer, this was the best attempt of the genre that I have read and is honestly "not that bad". It is what says it is, a "concise introduction of the lives of 46 women". Unfortunately for books of the kind is very hard to a give short introduction without it resembling a wikipedia page.
There was a couple of things in here that I liked and a couple of things I disliked. First of all I'm gonna ignore the fact that there's a man in here, second I wasn't a big fan of the structure that decided to quote women in the middle of the chapters as "further reading" and it felt a bit random as to why some women were main part of this book and others were further reading.

Overall it was okay but everytime I pick up a book like this I always expect more than I get and I would honestly not buy this. It didn't feel enough to be more than a couple of articles online.

Female Innovators Who Changed Our World by Emma Shimizu is a good beginning point for anyone interested in the many women who have made significant contributions in the fields of S.T.E.M., contributions which all too often went unrecognised. The author gives a brief biography of these women and she has gone to great efforts to include a variety of women from all areas of the globe and from a vast range of time periods. While the biographies may be brief they do contain most of the salient details and opened the door to further reading on some particularly interesting characters. While some of the innovators included were household names like Marie Curie , others I had never heard of before, so I found the book to be very educational.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

The perfect read for women's history month, this incredibly diverse and fascinating book gives you a short biography of incredible women throughout history that have made an impact on our lives through their work in so many different fields.

Incredibly readable, the author gives us a collection here of women throughout history that I had not heard of before, it was refreshing to hear more about women that have done incredible things that wasn't completely american or eurocentric, as I find with these collections there is often a geographical focus, but these historic biographies come from all over the world and different times.

Another thing I appreciated were the 'further reading' sections that introduced you to another innovator that inspired the innovator before in the same field, for example Caroline Herschel is mentioned, Dorothy Hodgkin and many others have paved the way for further female innovators and its something I've not seen in a book before.

I think sometimes it can be a little dense and I am not to keen on how the structure works, however this book gives you a look at such a plethora of incredible female innovators and inspiring women who really pushed the boundaries for generations to come, and makes me want to know more about them so I do appreciate the introduction!

(Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC for honest review).

This book was fantastic! As a teacher of a STEM subject and a feminist I’m always looking for examples of female innovators. This book was perfect for me. It included a mix of women if heard of and ones that were new to me.

The book was written in a really reader friendly way. I only meant to read a couple of chapters and next thing I was halfway through!

I will definitely refer to some of the women as examples in lessons to try and encourage more women and girls into STEM!

This book showcases the life stories of forty-six women who have contributed enormously to the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The comfortable lifestyle of today's day and age would not have not have been possible if not for the contributions made by these great women.

Some of these women were born in the 18th and the 19th century and had to suffer through prejudice and discrimination along with professional issues due to our world being male-dominated especially during that era.

This book should be picked up by every women to remind them of their strength and stop doubting their capabilities.This book should also be picked by every men who consider women's role to be limited within the walls of a kitchen as this book will open their eyes and make them realise that if not for these strong-willed women,many of the luxuries which we take for granted in the 21st century would not even exist and would also help to keep their male ego under control.

I liked this book. The tone is conversational, and whatever science there is, is explained in plain language. Although there were times in the book where I lost the thread a little due to what I thought was awkward wording, by-and-large the book is well written. The book is more about the obstacles faced by these women than it is about the innovations themselves, which is fine, as I feel that the author wants to be inspirational. What I liked best about the book is its very broad scope, through time, subject and geography. Thank you to Netgalley and Pen & Sword, Pen & Sword History for the advance reader copy.

I'm sorry to say that, as excited as I was to be reading this, I ended up DNFing it at 40%. I just wasn't a fan of the writing style or the overall structure of the book. It read like random wikipedia entries that were grouped together in a seemingly illogical way and there was no proper format to the book. Some entires were 3 paragraphs and quite concise, the others were multiple pages and tried to make connections and offer deep insight into our lives as well as telling a factual historic story.

I think the concept is a great one and I'm all for gathering collections of female achievements throughout history but the book really could have used a better editor. I mean, why are the women behind the bullet-proof vest, the polio vaccine, and an early Islam mathematician all grouped up in the chapter titled "our day-to-day lives" which begins with someone inventing the furnace? I just was not able to connect with the book after that chapter and how much it jumped around to be honest. Also, I'm not sure if it's just in the ARC or if the actual book is going to have the pictures be at the end as an appendix but I wish the pictures were with the actual text and were used to actually break up the huge text blocks rather than providing an afterthought.

This was one of those times, when a book had a great premise but a not so great execution. I loved the aim of shining a light on women in STEM. The contribution of female scientists and inventors needs more limelight - especially if we want more girls to go into STEM. But while I support the aim of this book, I which it would have been carried out a bit different. I found the groupings of the women slightly random at times. And I was slightly confused by the layout and editing at times. The 'further reading' women (and a single man) were thrown in randomly throughout the narration instead of grouping them together, either at the end of a chapter or at the end of the book. While these things might seem small, they were distracting me from the actual subject, and that's just sad.

Female Innovators Who Changed Our World profiles 46 female scientists and inventors who changed life for the better. There are six categories of innovation, including Day-to-day Lives, Healthcare, and Protecting the Earth. At the end of each section, there are shorter narratives of additional innovators for further reading.

This book included some very high-profile women inventors, such as Ada Lovelace (computer), Stephanie Kwolak (Kevlar), and Mary Anderson (windshield wipers). This book also included some less famous innovators and noted ones that were African-American or other minority groups. The features describe challenges that the ladies had to overcome to accomplish their success or to receive credit for what they achieved.

Female Innovators Who Changed Our World is very interesting and is a great resource. I recommend that public and school libraries have a copy, in addition to readers’ personal collections. The stories are very inspiring to females who wish to pursue knowledge in science, technology, engineering, and math fields.

This book offers a concise introduction of the lives of 46 women, taking you into the cultural and social context of the world they lived in. Through their intelligence, courage, and resilience, they used STEM to defy expectations and inspire generations to follow in their footsteps.

The information is short and to the point, very well presented and it is very easy to understand and remember. I was impressed with how short and impactful it is. I loved reading about these women and their achievements and struggles. It made me want to research more about their lives. Also, I felt that it was a nice balance of different STEM subjects mentioned. My main interested were all the women that worked in mathematics and I took notes on some of them, which was great. Moreover, as a mathematics teacher, I think this book will be a strong addition to my classroom and I will definitely discuss it with my students.

It really impressed me and I highly recommend this book! It is great!