This is a comprehensive, well-researched overview of the first six women to become astronauts. The level of detail provided definitely adds to the immersive aspect, and it feels like the reader is living the experiences alongside the astronauts. A discussion of the history of the endeavor to send women to space is also included, and gives welcome context to the political and social environments of the 60s, 70, and 80s. Because of the level of suspense and tension achieved (particularly when describing countdowns to launches), this book was incredibly fast, easy, and fun to read. Although this is non-fiction, the organization of events narrated was done well and felt perfectly "plotted." The book closes with a discussion of more recent space-related events and some future ones, with a last line that really encapsulates the whole experience. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in space travel, NASA, or a "behind the scenes" look at astronaut training and mission selection.

This was such an interesting, informative, and engaging book. It was about the groundbreaking six women who answered NASA’s call for women to join their team. They were: Sally Ride, Judy Resnik, Anna Fisher, Kathy Sullivan, Shannon Lucid, and Rhea Seddon. Of course, I was familiar with the history making event of Sally Ride and the heartbreaking explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger which took the lives of seven astronauts including Judy Resnik and Christa McAuliffe who was on board as the first teacher in space. However, there were four other extraordinary women who were not really household names but definitely should be. All six were role models for future female astronauts.
The author’s thorough research took her reader from the lives of these women before they even thought about becoming astronauts to their dedicated work ethics, some juggling careers and motherhood, as well phenomenal skills as astronauts.
The six was such a riveting read from beginning to end and highly recommended.

Space shuttle flights have fascinated me since the early days. I vividly recall the loss of Challenger and Columbia. Reading about the first six women was enlightening. Much is already known about Sally Ride and Judy Resnik. The four others shine through here. Shannon Lucid has become my most admired astronaut of The Six.
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Starting from when when going to space was potentially discussed and why it was thought to be a bad idea (you guessed it, it's all sexist nonsense), The Six outlines the early lives of the astronauts, their fascination with space, their selection process and details their career and first launches. There is some focus on their later lives and 1986 Challenger disaster but the narrative is still on the women themselves.

I read this in a couple of sittings despite it being non-fiction. There are definitely some overlaps in the narrative as six people in parallel are discussed. The amount of research that went into this, with personal anecdotes from the astronauts' families and acquaintances definitely showed. It's also not surprising that Grush has great journalism skills, since is a space and science reporter.

The strength, hard work and resilience the six needed to have was definitely inspiring to read about. I loved learning about their early lives and how much they've always wished they could go to space. It's also always fun to get a behind the scenes on politics and launches. I will definitely recommend this to anyone interested in space or feminist history.

Some other interesting points:
- One of the reasons women started being considered for astronaut roles was because they figured if men went to space they would eventually need supporting staff like secretaries. 60s had their priorities straight.
- NASA and the media's obsession with someone being the first X to do Y: I loved how these women cared a lot more about just going to space and worried less about the titles.

Thank you so much to Scribner for the ARC of this one.

This is a riveting narrative nonfiction book that tells the story of the first class of astronauts selected by NASA that included women. In 1978, NASA accepted 35 new astronauts that included 6 women. This is the story of these women, the challenges they faced as women in scientific fields, their decision to apply to NASA, and their subsequent training and missions on the space shuttle.

You will know these women after reading this well researched, amazing story. Their personalities, strengths, work ethic, friendships, adventures, frustrations, and even their heartbreak all come through the page. I love a nonfiction page turner and that’s what this is. I highly recommend this book. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

“The Six” by Loren Grush is an essay-style telling of the story found of the first six women austronauts. Grush was able to effortlessly portray all of these amazing women and show case all of their struggles. Interesting read that made me think for a long time after. My respect to those who contributed to these stories and i will definately be recommending this to my friends.

What an excellent read! the author gave us a well written, well researched, engaging story about the lives of the first 6 female astronauts chosen by NASA. Their stories are so well written that it feels like a conversation with each one. There is a bit of NASA history thrown in to, that helps complete the overall pictures in the story. I highly recommend to any fan of space travel or history.

A great accurate telling of the first six women astronauts. Grush does a wonderful job of keeping the reader engaged with wonderful stories about each woman. The determination of these women to become astronauts is amazing! Enjoyable , well written!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of The Six! I am so impressed with this book. Grush did an incredible job of condensing years of information into a narrative that flows naturally and keeps the reader invested throughout the book. As someone interested in space history, particularly as it pertains to women’s involvement in it, I really appreciated the extensive research that went into this work. I was also glad to see mention of Weitekamp’s work and the women who were a part of Project WISE/The Lovelace Program. Additionally, while I sometimes struggle with the tone and style of nonfiction, I never had that issue with The Six. I found that Grush’s writing did a fantastic job of navigating each woman’s story while not losing sight of the overall narrative thread. This is truly a must-read for anyone interested in space and/or women’s history. I can’t wait to buy a copy in September!

Author Loren Grush has put together an intimately researched book about America's first female astronauts, "The Six," who paved a new path for gender equity in space exploration when the women's rights movement finally caught up with NASA in 1978.

These women were already trailblazers as achievers and students, far beyond most women of the 1970s. They came from families that supported them, were friends with men who were not intimidated by them, and they took that and ran. Can you imagine just deciding to apply to be an astronaut as a 20-something???

At the same time, the women supported each other, knowing they were in America's spotlight, and had only each other to truly understand what they were going through. The women learned and trained so hard - it was inspiring to read about.

I think this would make a great book for any young woman looking to go into a STEM field, and honestly, it should be taught as part of history classes in high school.

I wish the book did not open with the end story of each of the women, as I would have prefered to learn about their paths by reading the chronologically organized book.

4.5-stars rounded up. Pub date 9/12/23. 432 pages (kindle).

Thank you, Scribner Books, and NetGalley, for providing an eARC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

#scribnerbooks @scribnerbooks #netgalley @netgalley #thesix

Thanks so much to the publisher for I really supplying me with a galley of this book in exchange for my review. I loved it! I learned a lot, not just about the first women astronauts, but about NASA, and the space program in general. It was also a stark reminder of how difficult it was for women prior to (and at the start of) the women's movement. Of course, reading this today, as we seem to be moving backward as a country, that aspect of the book packs even more of a punch. I was disappointed, however, that the book began with summaries of the various women and what happened to them in terms of who flew and in what order. As most readers will be unfamiliar with anyone other than Sally Ride, it would have been nice to withhold that information and keep the reader guessing about not just what order the women flew, but whether everyone actually got the opportunity to fly. As we learn in the book, you can be an astronaut in training and even be an astronaut and yet never take flight.. SO: for those of you reading this review on Goodreads, I suggest you skip the summaries of the women; it's covered in the narrative.

First, let me thank the author, publisher and NetGalley for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

This book is a fascinating telling of the lives of the first six women astronauts. It follows their lives from prior to applying to NASA, all the way through the selection process, to their first flight assignments and beyond. You really get to know these women and the amazing things they accomplished.

I’ve long being fascinated by space exploration from the early Mercury days to the Apollo missions to the age of the Space Shuttle. I’ve read several books covering these topics over the years. This book gave a unique perspective by focusing on the first six. An amazing group of women. I grew up during this timeframe and obviously always heard of Sally Ride, and being born and raised in the Akron, Ohio area (the hometown of Judy Resnik) felt a sort of “connection” to her, but was far less familiar with the others in this group. I really enjoyed this and felt it was very well researched and written.

I highly recommend.

I’ve had a fascination over the last 4-5 years of stories of astronauts going to space. So imagine my delight when I found out about this book.

The Six: The Untold Story of America’s First Women Astronauts the rich story of the first six women admitted to NASA back in 1978. Going in, I only knew of Sally Ride, so this book was a delight. The author sharing the details of their upbringing, the frustrations of being women in a male dominated industry and highlighting their successes as they finally made their way into space.

I also really loved the insight into what NASA was like before the women arrived and the changes they had to make once women started to enter into the program. Despite there being a lot of the science explained in the missions, it’s never hard to understand and makes it digestible for someone not in that field. The chapters dedicated to the Challenger explosion and Sally Ride’s first trip to space were the highlights to me, but I enjoyed learning about all six of the women.

This book is fantastic. The research that went into it is extensive and the author really knows what she’s talking about!

I did not expect this to be a book I would really love but guess what? I was totally wrong on this one! It is a cannot put down book. I learned so much about each of the six women and most of the men astronauts that made up the first of the US astronauts. It is an in-depth study and written in a very likeable, informative way that really appealed to me. I followed the careers of each of the six women from childhood to career endings of each of these iconic women in the history of the United States Space program. The reader will experience their pain, their joys and their secrets. It is an amazing work and I simply cannot praise it enough. The total description of the training involved in preparation for an actual space journey is incredible and I felt great respect for all of them as they endured so much, risked so much and put their life, their marriages, their families behind them while the sought the ultimate prize of space travel. This book will be a book club favorite when it is published. I highly recommend this book.

I wish to thank NetGalley and Simon & Schuster, Scribner Publishers for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book. I have voluntarily read and reviewed it. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

such a solid history of the first six american women to go to space. I wish a little more time was dedicated to the post challenger NASA but this book really resparked my childhood love of NASA/astronauts

Thank you to the publisher, author and Netgalley for the ARC

What an excellent book! Whether you’re a space geek or not, this will give you an inside look at NASA as well as what it was like for the first women astronauts. It read like a novel at times, which was not easy to do given some of the technical details provided. I was so impressed with the passion, dedication and enthusiasm these women had for space travel. They were dealt a difficult hand, considering the discrimination against women in NASA, the media and the population in general. But all six of them handled it professionally and overcame the obstacles. I haven’t read an inside look at male astronauts and I’m sure they had the same drive to succeed as the women did but they didn’t have the world constantly doubting their abilities and choices to have a career and family. I hope that this story inspires young girls to fight to make their dreams come true and to learn from these six how to gracefully overcome the doubters. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

If you asked me about women in the space program before I read Loren Grush's, "The Six," all I would be able to tell you was that Sally Ride was the first American woman sent to space and that two women were part of the Challenger disaster. That is to say, Grush nearly had a blank slate on which to school me.

Chronicling the NASA careers for the first six women astronauts to be admitted to the program, Grush writes a wonderful tribute to each of their successful careers. I didn't know they were all part of a class of new astronauts which included the first members of color. Grush adeptly tells the story of each of the six as singular people but also as part of a larger group. At no point in this book was I bored or yearning to get back to a different character. This is a testament to Grush's ability to highlight what made each woman unique to the reader.

Grush also does a great job moving the narrative forward which is no mean feat. She needs to occasionally jump back in time to highlight a different character but it seems seamless in Grush's presentation. I should point out that this is clearly a celebration of these six women as opposed to anything akin to an exposé. Grush focuses on the positives of each of the six and possible character flaws are not detailed extensively. In fact, she treats all the characters, even those not in the six, in the same way (with the exception of Johnny Carson but don't worry about that). This is not to say Grush sweeps anything under the rug, but merely avoids diving into long discussions around things like marital fidelity. The book is better for it.

I did notice that some reviews call this book a "novel" or suggested some of the details may be fiction. My reading of Grush's sources at the end seem to indicate there is nothing fictitious in the book and it is in no way a novel.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Scribner.)

Kudos to Ms. Grush on this exemplary study on the first six female astronauts in NASA and the Space Shuttle project! This book covers everything from the biographies of Sally Ride, Judy Resnik, Anna Fisher, Kathy Sullivan, Shannon Lucid, and Rhea Seddon, to the early years of NASA, the sometimes raging mysogyny which ran through NASA and finally, the acceptance of women in the Space Program.

The way things work is fascinating and Loren Grush takes the reader through the Space Shuttle beginnings, the mistakes and the successes of NASA.

Those old enough to remember the Challenger tragedy and the Columbia breakup several years later, know those disasters will be discussed in this book, and they are. And they're discussed with discretion and respect, as they should be.

What struck me was the amount of time each of these astronauts had to put into training and waiting for their chance to fly. Again, this is as it should be, with each task becoming second nature.

All in all, this is one of the most informative books I've read about the space race, really from start to present day.

Loren Grush did a remarkable job researching and writing this book. Highly recommended!

I received a free e-arc of this book through Netgalley. I was worried it would be dry as nonfiction sometimes is for me, but it was SOO good. I was super interested the whole way through because it was written in such a great way. It was great to learn more about the behind the scenes stuff at NASA and about the personal lives of these six women. It was a bit sad, but still compelling reading about the space shuttle explosions near the end of the book because I had been alive for those events, but also I felt like I knew them better after reading everything they had gone through to become astronauts.

The Six by Loren Grush was a book about the first female astronauts. What they had to do to get to the top of NASA's missions. The discrimination they endured because they were woman by the same gentlemen who were allowed to go into space.

One thing I liked about this book was the back stories about these women. How they started their careers and what let them to apply to the space program. There are many books written about the space game which really only tell us about the male astronauts and all their accomplishments. Not many stories were told about these women who fought long and hard to be part of NASA'S elite program. These six ladies had to fight the "ALL MALE CLUB" so they can accomplish the dream of going into space.

Reading the backstories of these women was interesting, because I never heard of them. I knew of Sally Ride and Judy Resnick but never heard of Anna Fisher, Shannon Lucid, Rhea Seddon and Kathy Sullivan.. So it was nice to see there were so many other women who had the dream of space.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the space journey and seeing it from a women's view. Knowing there is another side to the story was refreshing. Thank you NeyGalley and the publisher for the approval. Thank you Loren Grush for writing a book that might inspire young girls to follow their dreams, work hard and never give up.