Time for a book review, I know these aint really all that regular on here but this book is definitely worth one. It is one of those books that I have no idea why I even picked it up, it was at one of my visits to the secondhand bookstore in Napier and outside the shop is a box or two of free books. One day as I was leaving I looked down and saw a spine that said Jean Batten, so I picked up, had a quick flip through and decided why not. Now I do not remember studying Jean at school, I knew she broke some record flying, but I don’t know what made me think I wanted to read the book. Anyhow I grabbed it and it sat on my to-be-read shelf for quite a while till recently when I decided I would give it a go, and yes I’ll admit I was thinking I would read a chapter or two and get bored then send it to the Lions book sale.
Now, and I don’t feel bad admitting this, I was super pleasantly surprised when right from the start I was hooked. Ian Mackersey has written it so well, and it just flows so easily. It does not feel like a typical biography, it does not just boringly list facts or achievements while pretending its being written as a story. Don’t get me wrong, it is full of facts and quotes but they are not laid out in a boring way.
I can also admit that I learnt quite a bit reading this book. Those of you that know me may be surprised by this but I had no idea that Jean’s first record breaking flight was in a biplane, I know shocking aye. You would think I would have known that one, but nope, learnt it while reading the book. I also didn’t know that she broke more than one record, knew of the UK to NZ one, but that wasn’t her first one, and not the biplane one sadly. The biplane one was UK to Aus and it was her third attempt that was successful.
There were some things I learnt that I wasn’t so super happy to learn as well. Jean did whatever it took to achieve her goals, and in some cases it included leading men on to use them financially and then discarded them when she either found someone with better financials or they had run out of their usefulness. I am not very ambitious so I do not understand anyone just using people to get what they want so I felt kinda uncomfortable finding out that Jean had no issue with it. She also believed she was destined to be great and break records so it was owed to her.
Sadly Jean also didn’t really have any friends, part of this I think was because she never really let anyone in and only seemed to listen and care about her mum. But another part of it (I think) is because she used those that could be friends, she would go and stay with them for a week or so and months later she would still be there without having contributed anything towards bills or food, and in many cases not having helped with any chores either.
I did feel quite sorry for Jean though, she seemed to lead a very lonely life. I don’t know if she was happy with her life alone, but if she was then good for her. Her flights would have been very lonely, no radios in those old planes, and maybe she got used to this and loved it. She sure did live a rather spectacular life, with amazing adventures and some very very tough and sad moments as well. The saddest thing about her life, in my opinion, is that it took two years for those that knew her to become concerned enough about her silence to start looking for her, and it then took three more years of searching to find what had happened to her. Admittedly this was later in her life and it wasn’t the first time she had gone off to be alone, and she had told people she wanted to be alone for a while, but still two years before anyone started to look to make sure she was ok, that makes me sad.
So yeah, really enjoyed this book. I loved that the author didn’t sugarcoat anything and didn’t try and make Jean seem like a polite caring person when she wasn’t. I also loved that the author personally helped with the search to find out what happened to her so the book wasn’t left with a we have no idea what happened ending. I am not sure if I think Jean Batten is a great role model for young people, I mean sure her achievements were awesome but the way she got there could have been better. Not that the next book I am reading is going to provide me a good role model either lol, it’s on Minnie Dean who is the only female ever hanged in NZ. So super learny books for me at the moment :)
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