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amcorbin's review
4.0
Not perfect, but still great. There was a lot here, and some aspects felt neglected. There was enough delight in language, in ideas, in the variety of people, though, that I could forgive a lot. The Tom Robbins comparisons are fair, to be sure, not just in the absurd and unexplained situations but also in the way that she reached for something greater in this novel and tried to encompass so much.
apermal2's review
3.0
I loved the premise. The three men responsible for the atom bomb are transported from the trinity site to modern day New Mexico. Learning about them and exploring their reactions to how their lives played out made for good reading. I found myself really caring about the characters. The only exception was Leo Szilard, who came across as a caricature.
I really liked it at the beginning, but it overstayed its welcome. As others have said, it could have been a really good 200 page novel. Instead, it just goes on and on. The end scene, in which a bunch of weird stuff happens that mostly seems pointless, is around 40 pages. Way longer than it needed to be.
She didn't just pack too many ideas into the book (which she did do), she also spent too much time on minutiae. People walking around rooms, eating food, watching other people perform mundane tasks; all of it is described in detail.
I also got really tired of the constant barrage of deep thoughts. Every thought seemed to be a revelation. Anything that actually was revelatory got lost in the shuffle.
Still, at times it was great. The dialogue was often witty. Many parts were laugh out loud funny. The history of nuclear weapons interspersed throughout was also interesting.
When she's focused and to the point, she's brilliant but the end result was just too scattershot. I really enjoyed parts of the novel, but by the end I was skimming pages.
I really liked it at the beginning, but it overstayed its welcome. As others have said, it could have been a really good 200 page novel. Instead, it just goes on and on. The end scene, in which a bunch of weird stuff happens that mostly seems pointless, is around 40 pages. Way longer than it needed to be.
She didn't just pack too many ideas into the book (which she did do), she also spent too much time on minutiae. People walking around rooms, eating food, watching other people perform mundane tasks; all of it is described in detail.
I also got really tired of the constant barrage of deep thoughts. Every thought seemed to be a revelation. Anything that actually was revelatory got lost in the shuffle.
Still, at times it was great. The dialogue was often witty. Many parts were laugh out loud funny. The history of nuclear weapons interspersed throughout was also interesting.
When she's focused and to the point, she's brilliant but the end result was just too scattershot. I really enjoyed parts of the novel, but by the end I was skimming pages.
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