This book wasn’t quite what I’d hoped for, but was an interesting look at the path to founding the first women’s bank in Colorado. I enjoyed all of the historical context and learned a lot from this book, but some of the personal backstories of the women founding the bank felt irrelevant and got a little confusing with how many players there were. I wish there had been more towards the end of the book about the bank after it opened, but overall it was still a fascinating read.

I’d highly recommend the audiobook version of this book, the narrator is excellent and it helped move the book along. Thank you to NetGalley and Brilliance Publishing for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review

I couldn't tell the point of this book. It seemed more like an biography of different people instead of the event of women receiving the ability to have bank loans. Maybe I misunderstood the premise but I didn't find this appealing.

Give Her Credit offers a fascinating look at a little-known moment in history: the founding of a women's bank in Denver. The book provides valuable historical context, highlighting the financial disparities women faced just fifty years ago. While the detailed biographies of the women involved enrich the narrative, they occasionally overshadow the central story of the bank's creation. Overall, this is an intriguing and accessible read for those interested in women's history and financial empowerment. I received a copy of this book for review purposes.

As an Econ Professor, this is admittedly up my alley, but I thought it was an accessible and interesting look at a little known historical moment. I enjoyed a look at the lives of the women involved. Thanks to NetGalley and Brilliance Audio for the review copy.

I’m not usually one for non fiction but this topic piqued my interest.

It was interesting to hear about the struggle and success of this group of women looking to make banking and financial literacy accessible to women and other marginalized groups.

I also appreciated the history of the era. It’s wild that this was literally one generation prior to mine and it makes some of the attitudes my parents have demonstrated make sense as products of their time.

There were some aspects of this book that I really enjoyed. I thought the way the historical context was laid out was really clear and absolutely fascinating. As someone born in the 1990s, I’ve always taken it for granted that I have the same financial opportunities as my male peers, and it was incredible to see how different things were only fifty years ago.

The problem is, the process is opening a bank is, in fact, really dull. It’s even acknowledged within the book itself, that the process to open a bank is mostly waiting round, filling out endless forms, and raising funds over a few years. In order to make it more interesting, we had extensive biographies of everyone involved, and it did have a certain filling-the-word-count vibe.

I did enjoy finding out what drew each of the women to the project, and it did add to the overall picture of what it took to accomplish the feat they did. There was just so much detail, about so many different people, that it did distract from the main theme of the book and became a little muddled.

Overall this was an interesting read, but I think there were a few too many distractions from the main thesis.

I received a free copy for an honest review.

I'm giving this book four stars because I really enjoyed the history that is not usually talked about. The only reason I am taking off one star is because I had a difficult time following parts of the story with the jumping around in the timeline. Overall, really enjoyed!

I love microhistories, and while I was a bit skeptical going into this one that there was enough material here for a book, Williams surprised me with this delightfully entertaining and intriguing piece of narrative nonfiction about the women’s bank in Denver.

I generally don’t love nonfiction history that focuses heavily on biographical information (preferring instead a broader sociocontextual perspective), but it worked well here and a lot of that is down to Williams ability as a writer. Like all good narrative nonfiction this reads like a novel, and its real-life “characters” are both compelling and easy to invest in.

Sometimes reading things like this makes me kind of mad, thinking about how relatively recent it is that women had so little control over their finances (not to mention that the country now feels like it’s going backward in that regard, further adding to my anxiety and unrest), but the tone and trajectory of this (while certainly recognizing the central misogyny at play) mostly makes it feel like a success story, and I loved that.

Fascinating history but a bit dry at times. I felt like it could have been edited down a little bit between the waiting about the application, but WOOHOO GIRL POWER!!!

Since I wasn't approved for this until after the pub date, I don't think it's accurate for this to count against my feedback ratio. I'm certainly going to finish this!! But in the meantime I'm submitting this as a placeholder for the reason above.

{Thank you bunches to Grace L Williams, Adenrele Ojo and Brilliance Publishing for the ALC in exchange for my honest review!}