Keith O'Brien centers his book on five female aviators of the 1930s: Florence Klingensmith, Ruth Elder, Amelia Earhart, Ruth Nichols, and Louise Thaden. Earhart is the most famous of the bunch today, but I found that I most admired Louise Thaden, who was not only a skilled pilot but also a smart one. Yes, this is a book about records set and limits broken, but it's also a story of friendship. I loved the camaraderie between these women.

Fly Girls also features a lot of accidents and near-misses. It was a dangerous time to be a pilot. So many plane crashes. The book really drives home the sexism of the 1930s; the women were frequently told they couldn't fly or race or compete with the men. Their races were called "powder puffs" and the newspaper articles about successful female pilots all discussed the women's looks. One event that really stood out to me was when a deadly plane crash was blamed not on the faulty plane construction (the model had many issues), but on the dead female pilot's menstrual cycle.

These women were defying the odds in so many ways.