What readers think of Code Girls, plus links to write your own review.

What this book is: A prodigiously researched, well-written and cogent historical account of the heretofore unrecognized accomplishments of the so-called "code girls," the incredibly smart young women who successfully deciphered the coded secret messages sent by Japan and Germany during World War II. This allowed the Army and Navy to anticipate enemy troop and ship movements so major battles were won, leading eventually to the Allies' victory.

What this book is not: An easy read.

While there is quite a bit of personal information about the women who were recruited to decipher the enemy codes—and all of it is absolutely fascinating—that is a small part of the book, despite the title. Instead, this is a history of the women's efforts, including how they got there, what they did, how they succeeded and how little fanfare there ever was for their phenomenal work. After all, what they were doing was top secret and remained so for decades.

I have given this book by Liza Mundy five stars, but not because I loved it and couldn't put it down. In fact, I had to slog through parts of it. I gave it five stars because this is an incredible book based on extraordinary research about a vitally important part of American history that hasn't been reported until now, largely because it remained classified until quite recently. This book is one for the ages that tells the true story of how much women accomplished for our country in a time when women were thought of as best being wives and mothers. If you enjoy reading history, you will like this!

Bonus: I think the epilogue is the best chapter of the book. It alternately made me tear up and gave me goosebumps!

This was so compelling and astounding when I realized that these women had broken the code as to where the attack in the Pacific would occur! Midway and NOT the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska! My dad was a radio man in the US Navy protecting that region during WW11! He apparently also sent coded messages while flying and tapped the messages out in Morse Code! BUT if the attack was where he was stationed I might never have been here! While sifting through the last items of my parents belongings I found his code book which in turn lead me to this book! Thanks for such impressive stories of that time and place!

I'm almost ashamed to say I'd been hearing about this book for years - and it sat on my TBR shelf almost as long. Liza Mundy has written a mesmerizing history of American's WWII female code breakers that makes me wish I'd been one of them.

The Code Girls is a fascinating true story of the unsung code-breaking heroines whose expert use of word weaponry helped the US win World War II. How young women from all over the country were recruited by the Army and Navy for the top-secret task of breaking and translating German and Japanese encrypted military messages is expertly woven by the author into personal stories of the women’s war loves and lives. The book is well researched and a must-read for those interested in U.S. World War II history.

The purpose for picking up this book was to see how the events from Pearl Harbor going forward affected the lives of the women at that time. Most of the book gave bits of history that are common knowledge and not the stories of the young ladies who became the code girls. There were some interesting/sad items such as the pay difference...will it never end?

The search in this book for the story of the lives of the ladies and how their jobs affected were hard to find. It could happen...for every 40 pages, there were a couple tidbits of the ladies and a lot of the men working in the code breaking jobs. It was not an enjoyable assignment.

The one positive is when a story came out last week in the news talking about a woman being buried w/British military honors for her work as a codebreaker, those who read this book knew what she had gone through.