Where to start? This was a book club read, but I just couldn’t finish it even though I hate to break our agreement to read each and every book. There are so many ways this could have been a better book. But what were the reasons it wasn’t worth finishing?

The writing style was clunky and more like a boring history book than a page -turning description of brave women who served during World War II. Their inspirational stories should have been heart-thumping and kept me on the edge of my seat. Instead the essays soon became repetitive and formulaic.

In fact, the profiles seemed more like research summaries with notes intended as preparation for writing a real book, one each featuring the 15 women. Each could have been the jumping off point for a story based on every individual woman. There are several books’ worth of stories here. I have even read a historical fiction novel about Mary Taylor, one of the women profiled in this book. If you want to read an exciting and realistic account of Mary’s story, read "When We Were Young & Brave" by Hazel Gaynor.

The profiles here promised to be “untold stories of WWII’s female heroes.” Many of these women are well-known and, like Mary Taylor, have already had books written about them. I would bet those books are better than this one.

I was also offended by the term “Girls” in the title. These are stories of women who often had to fight against prejudice, discrimination, and sexism, so the last thing they need is to be called “girls” by a female author, no less! The title was from a quote by actress Alex Borstein, recounting the story of her grandmother who stepped out of line when about to be shot during WWII. And Alex concludes by saying: “So step out of line, ladies. Step out of line!” Did you notice it was “ladies” not “girls”?

Sadly this book had a lot of potential, and maybe in the hands of a better writer, it would have been a better read. But I can’t recommend it. ( )

Stories of women during World War II. I listened to the ten-hour audiobook. ( )

This was a nice collection of biographies about women who were involved with World War II, either directly or indirectly. In the end, the author recaps the stories and adds some more grouping the women by their similarities. At times I found the book was repetitious and perhaps written for older children rather than adults. I may just not be the right audience, as I like historical fiction better. I had read about the sisters going to the opera in "The Opera Sisters" not too long ago and read about another girl and her teacher in the camp in the China in "When We Were Young and Brave: A Novel." ( )

Interesting collection of short biographies of young women of the WWII generation whose experiences or careers changed the course of the war and of the future of women's roles in American society.

Eder's brief write-ups aren't intended as full biographies, but they point the way for further exploration in the field. She loses a few points for keeping things mostly on the surface achievements rather than on the internal drives of her subjects, but gets some back for the final chapter, in which she singles out likely candidates for outstanding achievement in the future. ( )

Excerpt from a longer article:

Timely Take-aways for Life-long Learners

Lesser-known Stories from the World War II Era
Several new books explore the lesser-known stories of prisoners, survivors, resistance fighters, scientists, and other amazing individuals of the World War II era.

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The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line
Mari Eder, 2021, Sourcebooks Themes: History, World War II, Women, 20th Century
Meet fifteen women who challenged traditional expectations to become pilots, scientists and ultimately heroes and role models.
Take-aways: Use this stories to inspire young women and demonstrate the challenges faced by women during this time period.

...

Whether helping educators keep up-to-date in their subject-areas, promoting student reading in the content-areas, or simply encouraging nonfiction leisure reading, teacher librarians need to be aware of the best new titles across the curriculum and how to activate life-long learning. - Annette Lamb ( )