Rachel Swaby undertook a fantastically ambitious project with Headstrong - she spent 4-6 pages each on 52 different women scientists throughout history, no more than a handful of which I'd ever heard of before. There are certainly compelling stories here, and I greatly admire the hustle, but I will confess that all the stories start to run together after a while. Some of the stories deserved to have a longer treatment, and some were stretched to fill a few pages. Hedy Lamarr was probably the most compelling story, but she was also the one that I already knew a little bit about. I'd like to report that there were some hidden gems that were unearthed here, but while there was tremendous scientific work which Swaby shines a light on, there weren't any must-read narratives that came along with them. I appreciated that Swaby told the stories in a straightforward way without overselling, but that meant that the hooks were few and far between.
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