This is a fantastic concept, but I don't think the author managed to frame it in the right way. I wish they had been more removed from the narrative because it really is their tone and commentary that taints an otherwise perfect premise. I don't think their humor hit the mark and actually came across as condescending in some places.

The language used is odd and comes across as trying too hard to appeal to a younger audience - which is never a good thing! Younger readers can spot this a mile off. It just ends up sounding forced and unnatural. I don't think it will help the text stay relevant either, and it will likely date it.

I wish this could have been redone with a lighter touch because it really is a fantastic idea.

DNF @10%

The authorial voice in this book is just not working for me at all and the humor is not landing. In addition, from the title and synopsis, I was expecting the stories to reflect a variety of genders rebelling from the standards put upon them, but these seem to be all stories about women. Not necessarily a problem, but not what I was hoping for.

I was really excited to find out about this book as a gay man! However, within the first few pages I found the storytelling to be very try hard and cringeworthy. I felt like it was trying to appeal to a younger audience. Even as a 25 year old who has grown up in London and is familiar with a lot of the slang and buzzwords used in queer and pop cultures, the way the author used the language did not feel genuine and it put me off of the book completely. It's such a shame as the stories of the women in the book are very inspirational.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I couldn't even finish this because of the utterly poor writing. Not everything needs a bad joke to try and be relevant. This could have been done well. Unfortunately it wasn't.

This books is about the unsung female (s)heroes of history. It talks about 50 (wo)men that did some spectacular things and makes you want to read more about them. It looks at how empowered they felt and actually even though they were born females it doesn't mean that they saw themselves that way.

I really didn't know what to think of this book. I loved the concept of this book but I felt that the execution just didn't do it justice. Again the concept of our unsung women is great especially when its looking at how they were perceived but again the execution wasn't for me.

Lots of us might know the names of Mulan or Mary Read who disguised themselves as men during their lives to become a soldier and a pirate respectively, or even more likely given our favourite topic (books) you’ve probably heard of authors like George Eliot, women who used men’s names to publish their books and have their voices heard, but I for one had never heard the names of so many #genderrebels before opening up Anneka Harry’s book for the first time. This book is full of women who were denied the lives they wanted based on the perception of their gender and turned around and said we’re going to have it anyway!

Let me start off by saying, I was so excited to read this book. It came after me reading about women in the Crimean War so I was ready and willing to devour this book... unfortunately, it fell flat. Very flat.

The concept was great, I really wanted to read about women who threw down the gauntlet and tore apart stereotypes but none of the fifty women in the book had any justice done to them because of Harry's writing! She writes like a journalist from Bliss magazine. I would have more faith in this book if if had of been written about One Direction!

When I first got this book I did note the low reviews - I was puzzled. What could she have possibly written about that would have gotten these bad ratings? Then I read some of them and they all say the same thing... her writing is flippant, immature and patronising.

As I stated above, none of the strong and inspiring women in the book got the justice they deserved due to the stupid comments every second sentence. I can see that Harry didn't want to write a really heavy history book and probably wanted to appeal to the "Insta-peeps" of today with her writing but lord, was it bad. There was literally no happy medium.

I give this book 2.5 stars out of 5 for the concept and I enjoyed reading about the lives of these women, I'll probably do my own research on them based on the bibliography provided at the end because I learned zilch; nada from this book.

Recieved an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was not for me - a fact I realized by the third essay... The subject matter was fascinating - the lives of the women detailed inside are worthy of scholarship and publicizing, but this book feels like it was written by a middle-aged high school guidance counselor desperately trying to connect with teenagers... Injecting a little levity into serious subject matter is fine. It can help introduce difficult or sensitive topics and keep the weight of difficult stories from becoming overwhelming. But turning everyone's name into a pithy nickname, sprinkling in crude references to men and male body parts, and taking every opportunity to incorporate text - worthy deliberate misspellings and dated pop culture references in an attempt to look trendy made this one a no - go for me... I was looking for tales of women who made difficult, brave choices because of the circumstances of their lives. What I got instead felt like a comedian opening a women's studies conference... It wasn't a style that worked for me.

This was interesting for the most part but I did have a couple of small issues with the book. My main one was the writing style was way too chatty and trying to be funny and relatable. This just felt flat and not that interesting, i'd much rather it was the traditional academic tone instead of trying be funny. The other issue is that it focused mainly on those born white European women who adopted male clothes and even though there were some figures who weren't that, the author could have had a better balance. There weren't any stories about those who were men who dressed as women or even those who were non-binary. The range was way too limited and I see what the author was trying to do but she missed the mark for me and it just didn't work.

I enjoy the intent of this book as I've read several others that are similar in vein highlighting strong women who are often "lost" to history. I really enjoyed this compilation of women as several I had yet to discover in other books/research. However, I will admit the humor/jargon really grated on me a few essays deep. A few jokes are fine -- slang keeps these essays relevant to "now" and would perhaps encourage younger women to read (which is ideal and fantastic). But every sentence does not require a joke and oftentimes, much of the humor felt crammed in sideways in the hope of being more entertaining. These women did amazing things -- that's entertaining enough without having a one-line punch every few words.