Reviews

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore

biancaherres's review

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dark informative slow-paced

3.0

Interesting but went on for longer than it needed to 

mccullah's review against another edition

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informative sad slow-paced

4.25

aurora_because's review

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3.0

The first 150 pages could have been 20 pages. It was the same exact story about a dozen girls told exactly the same way, so that no character development occurred, and you don't actually care about any of the girls until the second half of the book because you can't keep them straight anyhow.

I honestly can't believe how many people were excited about this book and called it "fantastic" when the writing was fairly mediocre by all accounts. I'm all for a workers rights success story, but this just wasn't told as well as it might have been.

Fitting, though, to finish it on May Day.

thebookrepository's review against another edition

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informative sad slow-paced

3.5

emilyb_chicago's review against another edition

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3.0

Very detailed and heavily cited, Radium Girls is very much a factual accounting of the world that these girls lived in. The detail and repetitiveness of girls terrible illnesses are reviewed in great detail and it is very hard to read. If you are looking for fact and detail, then you will love this book.

The first two sections cover different factories but tell essentially the same story. I personally would have preferred them merged. I found the last section the most interesting. It described the evolution of the legal fight between the girl(s) and the companies. The epilogue was well written - a summary with details and very interesting.

I am glad I know this information, but feel like fewer citations and some heavy editing would make this book much more readable. I was one of the very few from my book club who got through the entire book.

kjanie's review against another edition

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emotional informative medium-paced

4.5

cheryltill's review against another edition

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But too dry to push through before the library loan expired. Might try again another time

agrinczel's review against another edition

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3.0

I wanted to rate this higher, but it was just too.dang.long! The info that wasn’t repeated (again & again) was fascinating, and I think the author wanted to tell ALL of the girls’ stories which is respectful, but I think I would have enjoyed an abridged version much better.

The audio version was also difficult to listen to because I could hear the reader swallowing during the pauses - once you hear it once you can't un-hear it :(

hellomalea's review

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informative inspiring sad medium-paced

4.0

madds_1395's review

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emotional inspiring sad medium-paced

5.0