Cover Image: We Came First

We Came First

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Member Reviews

This book totally cracked me up and gave me a new perspective on some of the fiercest women from history. I learned some sage advice too!

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Part agony aunt, part history, all witty and intelligent. I learned a lot about some very cool women and maybe also about relationships too.

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Thanks to Laurence King Publishing Ltd and NetGalley for the Advance Review Copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is a witty take on a self help book with famous women from History taking on the roles of agony aunts answering letters from modern women. It's a fun concept that largely works.

The artwork is colourful and funky and the advice given manages to combine history and humour, the turn ons and turn offs in particular made me laugh.

There's a wide range of women featured including Cleopatra, Josephine Baker, Lucrezia Borgia, Sappho and Julia Child amongst many others. Books like this can often be quite corny but this one stays on the right side of quirkiness.

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Entertaining, fun and funny. I love the tongue-in-cheek style, which delivers empowering information about famous women in a brilliant format.
I highly recommend, and also wish it was longer. I was sad to reach the last page.

This book was provided to me by Netgalley in return for an honest review

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This was such a fun book! Reading the advice famous women were giving in an advice column was so great and seeing how it actually related to their lives. I loved the profiles for each woman in the book, these profiles are set-up like modern dating sites -- a little info about the person and the likes/dislikes, the humor and information in this book were both amazing!

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This is an advice column written as though famous women of Western European history had written the answers. There are a few women of color scattered about for good measure as well.

The answers are based on the women's lives and are witty and cleaver and cute, and when I didn't recognize the women, it made me want to learn more about them, which is a good thing.

On one hand I love that the women who are all rather badass, and some I hadn't heard of. But on the other hand, would it have been hard to find some women from non-european countries? Surely there are some out there that would have written witty answers as well.

<img src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/we-came-first.png" alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5439" />

<img src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/we-came-first2.png" alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5440" />

Fun read. Recommend it, for both the advice, and for the women written about. There are several mistresses I have never heard from.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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We Came First is a humor book that packs serious history and messages of empowerment for women. The premise is relationship advice from women throughout history, from Sappho to Pocahontas to Coco Chanel. Many of the women profiled in We Came First empowered themselves and took charge of their romantic lives even though it was difficult, though some women profiled paid a price for not doing so.

Jennifer Wright breaks her book down into categories including Flirting, Dating, Marriage, Break-Ups, and Single Life. Some of the "advice" would be highly questionable (for example, putting laxatives in a romantic rival's lunch a la Nell Gwynn). Much of it is pretty solid underneath the historical framing and jokes.

This would be a terrific gift book or a light read for women into feminism and/or history. It is also encouraging for women in all stages of relationships (or no relationship at all). There are heavy footnotes at the end, allowing for further research. The illustrations are delightful. Above all, it proves that women are not made to be passive or conform to a societal mold.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

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That double entendre in the title might be tough to get past the school librarian, but the book’s so full of good advice and vital feminist history that I might as well try it, right?

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4.25 very well advised ★★★★✩
This book is for you if… you are in the mood for a feminist read that is not necessarily suited for just one session. Enjoy this funny, informative read piece by piece and learn about love and life from history's great women.[text]

⇝Overall.
I stumbled upon this on NetGalley and requested it, fully well knowing I already had way too many books to read for NG. But the reviews on here and NG were all so great that I couldn't resist. I never can withstand the temptation of feminist reads.

As I said, I don't believe this book should be read in one sitting. It was fun to return to it every evening after coming home and just getting a smale dose of fun, helpful and sometimes even questionable but always historically accurate advice from extraordinary women. Jennifer has a fantastic humour and also manages to bring across some criticism she might have in regard to individual women's actions or states of mind.

Each advice is structured into a letter from a person seeking advice, the woman giving advice and a short profile of said woman, including turn-ons and turn-offs. Sit back and enjoy funny lines from Coco Chanel, Pope Johanna, Amelia Earhart, Marilyn Monroe and many many other famous women who even have been notorious in their times (and maybe today).

There is not much criticism I have to offer, except maybe that overall I would have wished for more information on the individual characters and thus longer advices maybe.

➺The content is structured as follows.
⤐ FLIRTING
⤐ GOING STEASY
⤐ MARRIAGE
⤐ BREAKUPS
⤐ SINGLE LIFE
_____________________
Writing quality + easy of reading = 5*

pace = 4*

plot development = 4*

characters = 5*

enjoyability = 4*

insightfulness = 4*
_____________________
This eArc was provided by Laurence King Publishing Ltd. via NetGalley+ in exchange for an honest review. Thank you very much!

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Lovely little tongue-in-cheek book with relationship advice (and advice on life ingeneral) from famous women in history. They indeed came first.

I want to gift this book to all my friends, female and male.

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This was an amusing little book. It would make a good gift for sure! I wish the author had included a more diverse group of ladies however - it definitely leaned heavily towards white, Western women.

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***Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review***
What an utterly glorious collection of women from the past! I've read tons of books that feature strong, brave women, but this one is by far the most interesting. It is told in the form of Dear Abby letters and features responses by some of the most intriguing women from the past. Most of these women were considered progressive for their time, and honestly, some were deeply flawed, but I appreciate that this book is taking a more liberal approach to honoring strong women.

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I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This book was funny, poignant, and fiercely feminist.

What if you could go and ask the women of history for advice? Well, now you know! From Wallis to Pocahontas to Josephine questions about relationships are asked an answered.

This book was so much fun to read that my only complaint was that it didn't last longer!

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If famous women from history could give advice to modern women about love and life, what advice would they give? And would all of it be good advice? That's the question posed, and answered in a biting, humorous, and unflinching way, by "We Came First".

Jennifer Wright takes a look at notable women throughout history and allows them to tell their own stories. Rather than just what was reported by the media or recorded in history, Wright takes on these women as the multi-faceted, motivated, and unabashed human beings they were. While I definitely wouldn't categorize this book as "self-help", there's plenty that we can learn from these fascinating and, often times, scandalous women. This book makes history fun and accessible while correcting a lot of misconceptions about these women-and introducing some that don't get nearly enough attention.

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