Given what an interesting life Elizebeth led, this is a boring biography with little emotional engagement. ( )

When hired by an eccentric millionaire to tease out secret messages in Shakespeare's plays, Elizebeth discovered a hidden talent for code breaking. During WWI and WWII, Elizebeth and her husband William both became the premier experts, and key players in the fields of cryptanalysis.

Although this book was well written and engaging, I felt like I had read this book, or a similar one before. Both Elizebeth and William's lives were utterly fascinating. It was intriguing to read about both their successes and failures. Overall, 4 out of 5 stars. ( )

This biography tells the incredible true story of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, a cryptanalyst during both World Wars, who worked to crack codes and ciphers used to mask military and spy messages.

Keep bringing on the stories of overlooked folks who made a big difference! Elizebeth (and no, that's not a typo, apparently her mother really didn't want her nickname to be "Eliza") is a fascinating woman, and I loved the story of both her and her husband William who both worked for the U.S. government in various capacities. In a time where women seldom went to college and ended their careers when they had babies, Elizebeth bucked the norm with the full support of her husband. The prose sometimes made me want to pull out an editor's pen, and maybe cross out one or two of those sentences that compared researching a part of Elizebeth's life to decoding. But this YA biography will have a lot of appeal beyond that age group. ( )

Another woman buried in history by the patriarchy, now resurrected for our edification. Elizebeth Smith Friedman was not simply the wife of cryptologist William Friedman, but was a formidable code breaker herself. While she was apparently well known in the 1930s because she was a woman codebreaker, she went "dark" to protect her work, and after death, poof, gone from history.

But what I loved most about her story was the humanity of it. Elizebeth did not lead a glamorous life. Most of it she toiled away for the government and had her work claimed by others, like the FBI.
She had a loving relationship with her husband, who supported her working and loved her brilliance, but it was made difficult by his bouts of severe depression, severe enough that he underwent electroshock therapy.

Elizebeth grew up on a farm in Indiana, the youngest of many children, and began her career in 1917, after finishing college, when she was hired by an odd millionaire named George Fabyan. She was hired to help find the secret codes embedded in Shakespeare's work! (Well, she concluded there weren't any.) Here she met her future husband, William.

Eventually they escaped the clutches of this odd man, and went to work for various branches of the armed forces. During her working life, Elizabeth served as a cryptologist during World War I, Prohibition, and World War II. Her work made a real difference in each of these events.

And here we were, growing up in the 50s and 60s, thinking all women who came before us stayed home and tended house, well, maybe except for Rosie the Riveter during WWII.

History (even the name History implies a "him") really is written by those in power. But things really are changing for women in the 21st century.

One thing I do wonder: why was this book marketed as Young Adult? Much of the content, especially about her married life, would not appeal to teens. ( )