Recent Reads: A Mind of Her Own by Paula McLain

A Mind of Her Own by Paula McLain
Publisher: Audible Studios
Publication Date:  February 28, 2019

 

Format: Audible Audiobook
Source: Freebie form Audible Originals with Subscription

Rating:






Goodreads Synopsis: 

Listening time: 1 hour and 15 minutes 

From Paula McLain, the best-selling author of The Paris Wife and Love and Ruin, comes a breathtakingly intimate story of the brilliant, willful Marie Curie - a young woman in Paris on the verge of her greatest discovery yet: herself. 

Paris, 1893. Twenty-five-year-old Marie Sklodowska is studying science at the Sorbonne - one of the only universities in the world that has begun to admit women. A thousand miles from her native Poland, with no money and the odds stacked against any woman daring to pursue a career in such a rigorous field, Marie throws herself into her studies. She's certain that to succeed in a man's world, she will have to go it alone.  

Her meticulous plans get thrown slightly off-course when Marie attracts the attention of an accomplished young physicist, himself on the precipice of greatness. Thirty-five-year-old Pierre Curie, famous for his work on symmetry, believes he has found in Marie an equal who shares his devotion to scientific discovery. He offers to help with her work, and soon begins to court her. But to Marie, men have always been an obstacle, love a distraction from her goals. She hasn't come this far to let either stand in the way of her dreams - dreams Pierre insists they can share. 

In A Mind of Her Own, McLain taps into the luminous mind and complex heart of a singular woman caught between order and chaos, science and love in the period just before the world would learn her name.

Review: 
This was a really long Synopsis for such a short listen, and so re-capping seems a bit pointless. Nevertheless, this Audible Original is about Marie Curie as she is in university and the struggles of being a woman in the field, but it is also a romance and it tells the tale of Marie meeting Pierre. 

This as a really quick listen and it was interesting ans to the point. The beginning threw me off quite a bit as I got used to the French names for places and things being thrown in, as I don't know French it was a bit off-putting. In the end it was all fine. 

I liked listening to the tale of her coming to be an university and how strong-willed she was to get there. She was a very determined woman and this was a great way to be introduced to her life. 

I found that the romance bits kind of took over once Pierre was introduced but that was the time period I guess, so many things revolved around the men , so can we really be surprised it was written this way as well? Pierre was a gentleman and I really hope that was an accurate depiction.

Overall this was a good listen. If you are looking for something short and interesting and have an affinity for the sciences, this may interest you as well.