Pages

Monday, June 20, 2011

Barbara Bailey Reviews Laura Mays Hoopes New Book


Breaking Through the Spiral Ceiling: An American Woman Becomes a DNA Scientist
Laura L Mays Hoopes Author's web site: http://www.lauralmayshoopes.com
paperback
176 pages
Lulu.com
# ISBN-10: 0557923204
# ISBN-13: 978-0557923205
Memoir

Reviewed by Barbara Bailey, Oak Hills, CA for Amazon.com
Five stars
 

Laura Hoopes tells us her life story in Breaking Through the Spiral Ceiling that is similar to so many women of her time and still to many women today.

If you are expecting a flaming feminist report on the unfairness of women's treatment in academia, then you've come to the wrong place. Her story is not riddled with blame but a play-by-play interpretation of her quest as an intelligent and motivated young woman of the 1960s who fought to reach her goal of becoming a DNA scientist. She tells us about the snubs and betrayals, but we are not invited to see bitterness and anger. Instead, Hoopes invites us to take a look at what kind of person her journey has molded her into. And, the humor and gentleness in explaining complex biological concepts shows that Hoopes found her niche as a teacher and mentor to her students.

It's that insightfulness that makes this a charming read. Breaking Through the Spiral Ceiling should be required reading for every young woman to see that they are standing on the shoulders of women who fought the first battles of having a career, family, friendships, and love despite the trials they faced and came out with battle scars but still hopeful and still smiling.

-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

1 comment:

  1. It's so hard to make it as a woman in science. And with a family, that just adds to the complexity.

    ReplyDelete

Authors and reviewers would love to hear from you. Please feel free to include the URL (permalink) of your post in your own blog or website.