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jhbandcats's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
“It was more like a conspiracy of ignorance and obedience.” Soviet citizens trusted in the power of the government, and refused to even consider that things might be different from what they were being told.
This book was so hard to read. I kept having to stop and take a break. And then I procrastinated so I didn’t have to read any more of it. I’m relieved I finally finished. Of course, the struggles I faced reading it are farcical in comparison to what the people of the Chernobyl disaster experienced.
I found the book hard to read because it was so painful, people describing the worst time of their lives. These memories were interspersed with the occasional gung-ho Soviet who, ten years later, in the face of all the evidence, refused to admit anything had gone wrong, that it was all Western propaganda designed to tear down the achievements of the great Soviet Union. And this five years after the Soviet Union collapsed.
It was also hard to read because the chapters were all transcripts of people talking - and people talk in a very different way than they write, jumping from topic to topic, forgetting where they are in the middle of a sentence, saying something and then immediately backtracking. That said, this book is an essential chronicle of how people experienced the disaster that was Chernobyl. Anyone interested should find this compelling, if difficult and disturbing, reading.
This book was so hard to read. I kept having to stop and take a break. And then I procrastinated so I didn’t have to read any more of it. I’m relieved I finally finished. Of course, the struggles I faced reading it are farcical in comparison to what the people of the Chernobyl disaster experienced.
I found the book hard to read because it was so painful, people describing the worst time of their lives. These memories were interspersed with the occasional gung-ho Soviet who, ten years later, in the face of all the evidence, refused to admit anything had gone wrong, that it was all Western propaganda designed to tear down the achievements of the great Soviet Union. And this five years after the Soviet Union collapsed.
It was also hard to read because the chapters were all transcripts of people talking - and people talk in a very different way than they write, jumping from topic to topic, forgetting where they are in the middle of a sentence, saying something and then immediately backtracking. That said, this book is an essential chronicle of how people experienced the disaster that was Chernobyl. Anyone interested should find this compelling, if difficult and disturbing, reading.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Body horror, Cancer, Infertility, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, Abortion, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Terminal illness, Vomit, Animal death, Classism, Death, Alcoholism, Gaslighting, Gore, and Chronic illness
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