I was really disappointed in this book. I had very high expectations when I ordered it, but it was very uneven when I actually read it. Basically, it's a series of brief memoirs by women in "geeky" fields (science, math, gaming, etc). None of the pieces are particularly well-written and several of them end with "and then I left that field because it wasn't what I wanted" which I guess is fine but comes off as very unempowering. Especially when those pieces were about how intellectually challenging and/or competitive their fields are. I mean, if that's what happened, then that's what happened, but it leaves me wondering what the overall purpose of the book is. Is it meant to be inspirational and empowering? It's certainly not a critique of "the way things are." It's sort of in between those two (maybe). Anyway, that, coupled with the fact that one of the essays was about experiences with high tech sex toys, nixed my idea of graduating this one to my classroom library.