Author: Melinda Gates
Published: April 23rd 2019 by Flatiron Books
Format: Hardcover, 273 pages
Genre: Women's Study / Human Rights
I savored this book. I had no intention of rushing and found myself lingering over certain passages and stopping fellow book lovers asking if they had had a chance to read, and if not, let them know that they were in store for a remarkable journey when they did.
Somewhere in the first couple of chapters, you forget who millionaire philanthropist Melinda Gates is and instead join a woman on a journey of not quite enlightenment but a discovery of women in general. Women who once they know they have a voice will use it to lift their neighbors and daughters and allow them to see a world that was denied to the previous generations.
You will cry along with Melinda and relish in the differences that the Gates Foundation has made in the lives of women in impoverished countries. Women that thought that their only choice was no choice. A husband would be chosen, more children would die than see their fifth, not to mention their first, birthdays. Hunger, beatings, and brutal backbreaking work so their husband could live a freer existence because that is the way it has always been.
There are many quotable parts of this book, but what remains with me is a simple fact that “change does not happen until someone says no”. They are simple words, but words strung together have a deeper meaning. This is a nightstand book, a book that should be picked up and reread from time to time so we don’t forget.
Somewhere in the first couple of chapters, you forget who millionaire philanthropist Melinda Gates is and instead join a woman on a journey of not quite enlightenment but a discovery of women in general. Women who once they know they have a voice will use it to lift their neighbors and daughters and allow them to see a world that was denied to the previous generations.
You will cry along with Melinda and relish in the differences that the Gates Foundation has made in the lives of women in impoverished countries. Women that thought that their only choice was no choice. A husband would be chosen, more children would die than see their fifth, not to mention their first, birthdays. Hunger, beatings, and brutal backbreaking work so their husband could live a freer existence because that is the way it has always been.
There are many quotable parts of this book, but what remains with me is a simple fact that “change does not happen until someone says no”. They are simple words, but words strung together have a deeper meaning. This is a nightstand book, a book that should be picked up and reread from time to time so we don’t forget.
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