Book Review: What Would Boudicca Do?

It feels rather odd to write a review before I have actually finished a book. But I believe in the case of this book, I am pretty safe in doing so.

What Would Boudicca Do? is a book celebrating the women of history in brilliant bite sized chunks, perfect for a few pages before bed. The book has a chapter dedicated to each women, and with a couple of pages gives us a synopsis of their life, giving us both the good and the bad, and how we can channel them into our everyday life.

The book has a feel good vibe to it, and gives us the history which we might not think to look for, and shows us women who we may never have heard of if we didn't know where to look.

The book is written in a relaxed, and fun to read style which I find easy to follow and doesn't have me scratching my head trying to understand what it is saying.

Overall I am enjoying this book, and it is giving me so much more information about the women of history that I never knew I needed to know about, and something to look back at history and smile at how strong and amazing these people were.

Book rating: I feel like I need to explain myself here, as this is the first time I have written a book review and I want to set up a book rating system to give the book a score out of 5. So I have thought about what I want to see in a book and have come up with the following three categories, each category will be rated out of five, then all the scores added up and divided by three to get the final score out of five. They are as follows:

1 - Readability: Is the book easy to read? What sort of language is used? Does the writing flow? Is it easy to get from page to page or am I fighting to the next chapter?

2 - Content: Is there a lot of subject matter or are we going around in circles? Is the subject made interesting by the writing? Is there depth to a story or plot? Are there backgrounds to each character, situation or decision? Does the writing give you loads of information at once or does it evaluate and pick out the good bits or the important bits?

3 - Put-Down-Ability: The last and final category kind of speaks for itself. Does the book make me want to keep turning the page? Is there so much going on that I just need to put it down to get my head around it? What is so "Just one more page" about it? Is there just one more thing to find out before you stop?

I hope this rating system makes sense, and perhaps if you have anything to add, anything to make it more interesting, or something I haven't thought about, leave a comment and I will try and get back to you, or improve the rating system.

So for What Would Boudicca Do?:

Readability: The language used is informal and easy to relate to. It flows nicely and is easy to follow. There are minor minor areas where I feel the subject jumps around a little bit, but overall I can read it quite nicely, so I'll give it a 4.

Content: The content is so much more then I realised I wanted to know. There is a lot of information that I don't think I find all in one place in many other places. I've enjoyed how individual parts are picked out and applied to everyday life and even the bad bits are not just glossed over but spoken about too. But there are some places where I am wanting more, I want to know more about specific stories and more about certain aspects of the people's lives. So I am going to give a score of 3 for content.

Put-Down-Ability: This book doesn't have any kind of cliff hanger, nor does it actually have a plot! But it is delightfully potato-chip-y. In that each chapter is so small that you just want to read one more. They are perfectly bite sized and perfect for reading a few pages before bed. The only thing making me want to come back to the book is the curiosity of who is going to be next. So for that, it is getting a 3.5 for Put-Down-Ability.

So the added total for each category is 10.5, so the final score out of five is 3.5.
Not a bad score for the book at all, and a lovely read if you want to find out just a little bit more about what some of the most important women in our history have done.

My all time favourite though, has to be Gráinne ní Mháille (Grace O'Malley), Irish pirate queen who did the f**k she wanted!

Episode 19: Summer Holidays

Welcome to the Lemmon Juicer Podcast, I hope you have a lovely time watching.

Instagram: @lemmonjuicer
Ravelry: sockbug97
Ravelry Group: Lemmon Juicer Podcast
Blog: www.lemmonjuicer.blogspot.co.uk

Extended Shownotes you will find on the Blog or in the Ravelry Group.

Finished Objects:
Bronwyn Shawl: https://www.ravelry.com/projects/Sockbug97/bronwyn-shawl - A lovely crochet shawl that I am pretty sure I will get a lot of wear out of. It is made with DK yarn in four different colours, Green - Countess Ablaze, Grande Merino, Footloose, Light Blue - Malabrigo, Arroyo, Cian, Yellow - Babbles Yarns, Delicious DK, Solid Gold, Dark Blue - Fyberspates, Vivacious DK, Deep Aqua.

Colin's Triceratops: https://www.ravelry.com/projects/Sockbug97/triceratops-head---taxidermy-dinosaur - a commossion from my brother for an excellent piece of livingroom furnature! ;) This is made from Cygnet Seriously Chunky in the Fawn colour way for the pale colour and Meadow Green for the main colour.

Gift Socks: https://www.ravelry.com/projects/Sockbug97/c-socks - A pair of gift socks from Christmas, these are 64sts on 2.5mm needle, in a 2x2 rib pattern. They are made from West Yorkshire Spinners, Signature 4-ply in the Pheasant colourway.

Margot the 2nd - Tilly and the Buttons pattern from the book Love at First Stitch, a wonderful book for getting started sewing your own clothes.

Spinning: Shetland and Icelandic blend, spun into a simple two ply that has come out as a light sport to fingering weight yarn.

WIPs:
F1 Socks: https://www.ravelry.com/projects/Sockbug97/sams-f1-socks - I have two pairs of F1 socks on the go, with a range of different yarns from CoopKnits in their Socks Yeah! base. The colours I have used I've listed on a previous post, so go back and have a look if you want to find out more.

Deck The Halls Stitch-a-long by Caterpillar Cross Stitch - a lovely stitch-a-long which is not too late to join in if you want to! I'm loving it!


In The Shed:
Handmade Notebook
Kiwico Eurika Crate - Pinball machine

Podcasts Mentioned:
Babbles Travelling Yarns
The Project Bag
Crafty Historian

Real Talk:
These are some links to the people leading the conversations around racism and inclusion in the
knitting community, take a look at their stories and discover some new people - please respect
their spaces:
@su.krita - https://www.instagram.com/su.krita/?hl=en
@thecolormustard - https://www.instagram.com/thecolormustard/?hl=en
@ocean_bythesea - https://www.instagram.com/ocean_bythesea/?hl=en
@booksandcables - https://www.instagram.com/booksandcables/?hl=en
@ggmadeit - https://www.instagram.com/ggmadeit/?hl=en

Layla F Saad's workbook: https://www.meandwhitesupremacybook.com/
Unfinished Object: https://www.unfinishedobject.com/
Vox Article: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/25/18234950/knitting-racism-instagram-stories

Music:
"Inspired" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/