Cecilia Aragon

Cecilia Aragon has always had to push harder to get where she wants to go. As one of few women in programming in the 1980s, she experienced sexism. As a first-generation daughter of immigrants in the US, she experienced racism, bullying and assault from her white classmates. Her experiences left her intimidated and anxious. One day, a coworker offered to take her for a flight in his small aircraft. It terrified her to go up, but once she was there, flying was all she wanted to do. This book covers her journey from a person deathly afraid of heights to a person who was the first Latina pilot on the US aerobatic team.

This is a remarkable book, and Aragon tells her story with warmth, eloquence and humour. I particularly liked how she applied the lessons of mathematics to calm her fears and push herself on to try new things. I loved reading about all the planes. The only thing this book was missing was pictures of the planes, although I suppose one can Google the model names.

I did find it puzzling that her boyfriend, then husband, was referred to as Ben throughout the book, then the acknowledgements called him Dave. Did she marry someone else? The timeline didn’t seem to work for it to be two different people, so I was rather confused by that.

I would recommend this if you like stories of women doing amazing things, stories about pilots, or both.… (meer)

Remarkable and inspiring memoir about a woman who defied the odds. The daughter of immigrants growing up in the Midwest, no one outside her family expected Cecilia Aragon to amount to much. She was timid and incredibly fearful. But then she decided to face her fears by learning to fly planes!

Her journey is gripping and exciting, and I couldn't put the book down. It kept me up late because I needed to learn what was going to happen next. After I finished the book, I felt inspired and encouraged. Like I could accomplish anything in life!

The book reads like an exciting adventure novel. It should be made into a movie. Are you listening, Hollywood?… (meer)

Boring. Not what I expected or hoped. It was probably a paper prepared for school credit. Filled with charts and graphs and numbers and footnotes and references and numbers and repetition, repetition, repetition...filler, filler, filler. A waste of money and as a fan fiction aficionado I was majorly disappointed in the choice of fandoms, the choice of archive, the information as and how presented and all the missed opportunities. Majorly boring presentation with bafflegab language as if the writer is being paid by the word and word length.… (meer)