Liza Mundy

*I received a free copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

Code Girls is far and away the BEST non-fiction I’ve read this year, if not in the past five years. Following the style of Hidden Figures in showing just how much work women have done to make our country what it is today, Liza Mundy reveals the women behind the code-breaking operation during World War II. During her research, she asked for documents to be declassified (some show more successfully, some not), giving us access to a whole new world of information about the lives of women during the war that they were never allowed to talk about.

What struck me most about this book is how well the author formats the narrative; she gives plenty of background information in the field of cryptanalysis, the context of what was happening during World War II at various times, and the context of just what the military was doing in order to combat the Axis nations. Within that, she follows the lives of a few women who left their normal lives to work for the government and help the war effort by joining a super secret project that broke codes for the military. Because of the way it’s written, you get both the full context of what’s happening and what the work the women are doing means, but you also get the human element of being able to relate to specific women who served as codebreakers, which is such a great balance to have in a non-fiction. It really helps it to become a page-turner and I was enthralled.

I never realized how much I didn’t know about the US World War II effort; I would poke at my husband throughout the day to share the most interesting tidbits and tell him about what I was learning; it almost made me feel like a little kid again, discovering information that fascinated and enthralled me. And, of course, it’s so great to hear the stories of women who were rock stars but never able to tell anyone about their accomplishments; it’s humbling to read about how much work they did and the sort of conditions they put up with in order to simply help us win the war.

This book is everything — heartbreaking, inspiring, emotional, and intelligently researched. I’m going to be buying copies of this for friends for Christmas this year, because this is a story that people need to know.

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This is a completely riveting book about a part of WWII history that, for a long time, went undiscussed. Liza Mundy does a fantastic job in conveying the skill and the integrity in the women who held these extremely important jobs. She also does a great job in showing us the lives of these women before, during, and after the war, and how policies of the time robbed them of the recognition they deserved--and often, kept them from pursuing careers using the skills they developed in the war. show more

Liza Mundy also managed to do something really impressive, in that she had me on the edge of my seat, absolutely riveted, at events that I know extremely well. I am a WWII historian, so the "how this happened" stuff is old hat to me. Yet by shedding light on the behind-the-scenes efforts that went on to break ciphers and codes that were integral to the war, she has added an entirely new perspective on the war effort during events like D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, and the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. It's thoroughly fascinating material. show less

This book is so dense with details that at times I felt inundated with and drowning in the written word. It really should have been two separate books: one about the code breaking work and one really about the women. If you are interested in the personal lives of the women, how they were recruited, what their jobs meant to them, how they coped, and what happened after the war, then much of this book won’t appeal to you. If you want to know what the jobs themselves entailed, how the codes show more were written and broken, then you probably don’t care how the girls managed to get a mattress home from the store. While the author did focus on a couple of main code breakers, there were so many secondary characters with not a lot of narrative to connect them that it was hard to keep things straight. Still, it is an interesting and often overlooked part of the war and is worth reading, even if the book tended to be overwhelming at times. show less

Liza Mundy's "Code Girls" is a splendid, well-researched work of non-fiction that sheds light on the contribution of highly educated women who were plucked from their hometowns and colleges to serve their country during the Second World War. What they had in common was an aptitude for breaking the enemies' complex codes. After being vetted and tested by government officials, the recruits were trained in the top-secret science of cryptanalysis.

The author conducted interviews, consulted oral show more histories and other primary sources, and studied declassified documents stored "at the national Archives and Record Administration II in College Park, MD." These files "had sat gathering dust for over seventy years." We now know that the U. S. Army and Navy created a program that taught thousands of women to closely examine and decrypt German and Japanese message systems. Gleaning facts about the enemies' casualties, troop movements, supply convoys, and planned attacks gave our military leaders the information that they needed to make strategic decisions. There is no question that the code breakers' work saved countless American lives.

Mundy provides an overview of the attack on Pearl Harbor; America's shift from isolationism to a war footing; the shortage of men to fill jobs on the home front; and the horrible toll that the Second World War took on American troops and their loved ones. However, it is her focus on particular women that creates a vivid picture of who the code girls were, where they came from, how they handled their demanding jobs, and what effect their clandestine activities had on their personal lives.

Code breaking was a painstaking task that required skilled workers who were patient, highly motivated, and intuitive. The most successful among them had excellent memories and the ability to see both the forest AND the trees. "Code Girls" is an entertaining, enlightening, and riveting account of a turning point in American history. Liz Mundy's beautifully crafted prose flows effortlessly. She brilliantly portrays the personalities, successes and failures, and personal sacrifices of the female code breakers who, without fanfare, played a key role in helping the Allied forces defeat Germany and Japan. show less