This book recounts the life of America's first female reporter. She didn't have an easy adolescence; after the loss of her father, her family found themselves in financial difficulty. This didn't deter the young woman's great tenacity. She presented herself at the editorial office of the New York World and won a job as a journalist, something no woman had ever achieved before, thanks in part to her determination to report on a women's mental institution. This investigation was a resounding success, and her figure, always under different covers, began to be feared by the most important figures. Thanks to her courage, she never stopped in the face of failure; she traveled the world; in short, she said and did what no other woman had ever said or done.

Although it can be a bit cumbersome to read in some places, I recommend reading this novel. Reading about such courageous actions can be inspiring for those who love the genre.

Where the Wind Is Born is a biographical novel that tells the story of Elizabeth Cochran (aka Nellie Bly). Growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after the loss of her father, she finds herself testifying against her mother's second husband. This experience deepens her belief that a woman should not be dependent on a man, should not be supported by her husband, but rather can be independent, earn her own living, and have the same rights as a man. This leads Nellie to write a letter to the Dispatch newspaper in which she supports these ideas.

From there, her life as a journalist began, leading her, for example, to pretend to be mentally ill to be admitted to Blackwell's, and finally to be sent as a reporter to battlefields during the First World War. With this book, Nicola Attadio wants us to understand that Nellie Bly is an example to follow, because even today we continue to talk about gender inequality, especially in the workplace: we should look to the past and remember that figures like Elizabeth Cochran broke all the mold to demonstrate that women are just as capable as men of holding public office or leading a large company.

Where the Wind Is Born: The Life of Nellie Bly is a biography of this woman who is a force of nature, just like the wind. Contrary to what everyone thought when she started out, she will achieve her dream on her own.

Written by Nicola Attadio and published by Bompiani in March 2018, the book is set in the late 1800s, when this young girl's father passes away and her mother remarries an abusive man. She quickly realizes that she must rely solely on herself to create the life she dreams of. In 1887, she shows up at the Dispatch, where she is hired despite the editor's considerable hesitation. She gains fame from her first articles about Blackwell's asylum and the Pullman strike; her peak is her trip around the world in less than eighty days. She continues to write for various newspapers, but despite all this work, she always finds time to care for her mother and falls in love with a man much older than her, but with principles she believes are right. So much so that in the last years before dying of bronchopneumonia in 1922, she was busy transmitting news about the war from Europe to America and managing her husband's company, American Steel Barrel.

Nellie Bly is the epitome of an enterprising and independent woman who, by doing what she loves and sharing truthful news with heart, will be able to live the life she imagined as a child. Ambitious, passionate about her work, attentive to detail, understanding and compassionate, driven by curiosity, and possessing a captivating mind are all adjectives that can be attributed to this "Superwoman." Themes include female emancipation and the resourcefulness of individuals who seek to convey a single message: that you must build your own future, without ever looking for loopholes, because you will be rewarded later.

The writer adopts a style in which the descriptions and thoughts of the character prevail, with short sentences and lots of punctuation to give the whole book a frenetic pace just like Nellie's life.

The book is very interesting: all the characters are perfectly researched and have characteristics that make them unique and very similar to real people; the locations are described in such a way as to give the reader a general idea, but leave room for the imagination in less relevant elements; the quotes or references to other works by great artists (e.g., Verne) are also very appreciable. Overall, the book reveals a true story that few people know and is an excellent way to learn about events of the past through a relaxing read.

Nowadays, we are inundated with newspapers reporting a myriad of news: from news articles to political events, from reviews to advertisements. Men and women can easily seek the truth and report it to the world. This hasn't always been the case, because the work of journalism has always been done by men, considered the only ones capable of doing it. One day, a bold and brazen woman, then a young girl, arrived to definitively overturn normality and open up a new world, her memory etched in history.

Where the Wind Is Born is the biography of Nelly Bly, the first female reporter in history, written by Nicola Attadio and published for the first time on March 7, 2018.

Elizabeth Cochran is a young girl who never stops at appearances, always seeking to delve deeper into her surroundings. Her father is her role model and has always encouraged her to be herself in any situation, proving her worth and never letting anyone who tells her she's just a woman walk all over her.

At sixteen, unable to bear her family situation any longer, she leaves home and moves to New York, determined to become a successful reporter. Young and lonely Elizabeth needs more than just an innovative and direct writing style to win her readers' hearts; she also needs a memorable name that immediately brings her back, and for this very reason, she decides to be known as Nelly Bly.

Not everything always goes as smoothly as expected, and young Nelly must deal with a failing marriage, public commentary and judgments about her love life and personal life, changing publishing houses, facing seemingly impossible challenges, an identity crisis, and rediscovering her true passion, the one that drove her to give up everything to create the life she deserved. The key to success is not giving up, but rolling up your sleeves and facing everything with determination and courage, just like Nelly, who made headlines in the past and continues to do so today.

This is a book about women's independence and how undervalued they were in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It denounces the institutions of the time, such as treatment and care in hospitals and psychiatric centers, and the fact that once you're inside, you can't get out. It demonstrates that a woman is capable of navigating the world alone just as well as a man, if not better, and how difficult it was to earn respect and esteem by carving out your own path in an all-male and prejudiced environment.

It's a book worth reading because it makes you passionate about the story of this young woman who gambled away everything she had, and it makes you understand how much women have achieved over time by reclaiming everything that had been taken from them in the past.

I'm very happy to have read this book because it introduced me to the story of this extraordinary woman. American Nellie Bly (pseudonym of Elizabeth Jane Cochran) was the first female reporter in history, between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, at a time when women's sole responsibility was to stay home and dedicate themselves to their families or to perform low-level jobs in factories. Not only did Nellie become famous throughout America, but she also fought for the causes of women and the most vulnerable workers. Her life was a constant challenge: from traveling the world in 72 days instead of 80, to managing a company with thousands of employees, whom she cared for as if they were her own family. Her life began happily thanks to a loving father, but everything changed after his death: Elizabeth was quickly forced to take charge of her life and fight for her own autonomy without having to depend on a man. She makes a mistake only once, trusting a man who causes her company to go bankrupt, but she quickly recovers, returns to Europe just before the outbreak of the Great War and begins working as a reporter again.

It's a story full of exciting adventures and surprising twists. I really liked the way the author structured each chapter, dividing it into two parts: the first, written in italics, represents Elizabeth's interior monologue, with very profound and touching words; the second, more extensive, represents the journalist's actual biography, the account of her adventures enriched by some of her articles from that period.

It is a very engaging and informative book because the author also includes a careful description of the period of profound change that the United States was experiencing between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

What really struck me about Nellie was her strong character, her boldness, her courage, her passion, her irrepressible desire to discover and make known, her desire to write to reveal to everyone what we often preferred to hide.

For a twenty-first-century girl like me, it's interesting to discover that most of the things we girls take for granted these days, such as the ability to work or even just study, were once reserved exclusively for men. It's only thanks to women like Nellie Bly that we can consider them such today. Once upon a time, women had no say in anything outside the home; they were marginalized and excluded from society. Nellie, thanks above all to her determination, was one of the first women to prove the opposite: that women are just as valuable and can be as independent as men.