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candacesiegle_greedyreader's review against another edition
5.0
Valery Kolkhanov is six years into a ten year sentence in the Gulag. He's been doing okay, even now that he's noticed his bones fracturing for lack of calcium. He never thinks about his life Before, when he was a biochemist, but suddenly, his old mentor springs him from the taiga and plops him down at her new lab in a radioecological research facility known as City 40. He's given a stopwatch with instructions about how long he can be outdoors before becoming sick from the radiation.
It's 1963 and the Soviets are terrified that the Americans will discover City 40 and bomb it, but it only takes a day for Valery to realize that the real danger is in the program itself. He's horrified to realize that six years of keeping his head down in the Gulag is lost when he's back in his own field. He can't help but point out the bad math in the calculations of danger which puts him more and more in contact with the KGB agent in charge of City 40, who's already told Valery that he has shot a scientist this week who made the same observations. But somehow, he does not shoot the little skinny starved biochemist then and there. What's that about?
"The Half Life of Valery K" is creepy and frightening, but punctuated by humanity, hope, and even love. It's impossible to put the book down without wondering when you'll be able to get back to it. Natasha Pulley's characters are surprising and filled with contradictions. The suspense almost hurts.
Then you find out that the story is based on a real, utterly terrifying incident while in real time Russian soldiers are surrounding Chernobyl as they invade Ukraine. This Soviet-era historical novel is scary and hell and not to be missed.
It's 1963 and the Soviets are terrified that the Americans will discover City 40 and bomb it, but it only takes a day for Valery to realize that the real danger is in the program itself. He's horrified to realize that six years of keeping his head down in the Gulag is lost when he's back in his own field. He can't help but point out the bad math in the calculations of danger which puts him more and more in contact with the KGB agent in charge of City 40, who's already told Valery that he has shot a scientist this week who made the same observations. But somehow, he does not shoot the little skinny starved biochemist then and there. What's that about?
"The Half Life of Valery K" is creepy and frightening, but punctuated by humanity, hope, and even love. It's impossible to put the book down without wondering when you'll be able to get back to it. Natasha Pulley's characters are surprising and filled with contradictions. The suspense almost hurts.
Then you find out that the story is based on a real, utterly terrifying incident while in real time Russian soldiers are surrounding Chernobyl as they invade Ukraine. This Soviet-era historical novel is scary and hell and not to be missed.
vaporization's review against another edition
3.0
So I adored The Kingdoms. It's probably one of my favorite reads of the year. And so I was very excited to check this out. I'd read some Natasha Pulley books before The Kingdoms and thought they were just okay, but I thought The Kingdoms marked a shift in her writing towards stuff I really liked. But I guess it was just a one-time thing because I didn't like this all that much.
I don't know how to feel about this. It's kind of unsatisfying. Some of the language used seems out of place for the setting. Also, writing historical fiction with a culture that isn't your own is always contentious. I preferred The Kingdoms, even though in many ways it has a lot of the same features and issues as this book, even the mildly unsatisfying ending. This book just didn't have enough for me to overlook the parts I didn't like.
I don't know how to feel about this. It's kind of unsatisfying. Some of the language used seems out of place for the setting. Also, writing historical fiction with a culture that isn't your own is always contentious. I preferred The Kingdoms, even though in many ways it has a lot of the same features and issues as this book, even the mildly unsatisfying ending. This book just didn't have enough for me to overlook the parts I didn't like.
pleasantboat's review
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I really enjoyed this book, from the beginning you are flung in the deep end and you are pulled into Valery's life. It was interesting seeing how he compartmentalised different aspects of his life, and how that unfolded over the course of the story. The science involved was also immersive - it was interesting figuring out character motivations along with Valery, and seeing how his limited POV influenced me. I particularly enjoyed the sympathetic way that most characters were portrayed - their situations were all difficult, and the author didn't shy away from that. My only gripe, and it's a small one, is that the ending felt quite abrupt, and that some characters didn't seem to have the reaction to their circumstances as I might have thought.
esseastri's review against another edition
4.5
Typical of Natasha Pulley books, Valery is soft and quiet with a bitter edge of reality, but without that hint of magic that characterizes her other novels, this one felt way more bleak. Which I suppose is correct for a story about the Soviet Union's radiation-related cover-ups? It was unsettling to know that this book is based on real events, and it's made me think way too hard about nuclear-waste practices, but honestly? I read all 370 pages in one day, so I'd say it's good. Or maybe I am just a huge sucker for Natasha's writing. One or the other.
redheadreading's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
2.0
As much as I love the way Natasha Pulley writes and find it endlessly readable, this one really doesn't work for me. I think the starkness of the setting and topics being handled shone a spotlight on how much her work follows a formula (particularly in the main relationship - we always tend to have a big burly man paired with a seemingly fragile but actually flinty man and there's a hefty amount of, for want of a better word, "woobifying" and focus on their size and power difference) but I also just felt like as beautiful as her writing is, it doesn't really work so well when the setting is stark and bleak. It definitely worked better for me in The Kingdoms which felt like it was more inclined to engage with some of the brutality, whereas aspects like the gulag here just felt very skimmed over? Some bits of this I did really like, it's just that the bits I didn't like weigh so heavily in the other direction that I will expand upon below!
When Josef Mengele is dropped in 86 pages into the narrative, it felt extremely fucking jarring, and the more we dance around human radiation trials and KGB activities the more it jarred with the romance that's being pushed as one of the main focuses? I can see that lots of people loved this and gave it five stars, heck I thought it was a sure thing that I'd love this! The fact that this is based on a real city and the suffering depicted actually happened just makes me feel even grosser about it being used as a romance backdrop. It doesn't really feel to me like we're engaging with morally complex people and whether they deserve love or whatever because Valery just gets to have a lil cry about being involved in literal Nazi human experiments and then gets to be exonerated of all responsibility by his love interest?? Also, now I'm just in spoiler town, is it supposed to be heart-warming that Valery takes it upon himself to cheerily explain to Shenkov's child that she has cancer and is going to die, without checking with either parent first?? These are just two scenes that continue to utterly baffle me but there are more
When Josef Mengele is dropped in 86 pages into the narrative, it felt extremely fucking jarring, and the more we dance around human radiation trials and KGB activities the more it jarred with the romance that's being pushed as one of the main focuses? I can see that lots of people loved this and gave it five stars, heck I thought it was a sure thing that I'd love this! The fact that this is based on a real city and the suffering depicted actually happened just makes me feel even grosser about it being used as a romance backdrop. It doesn't really feel to me like we're engaging with morally complex people and whether they deserve love or whatever because Valery just gets to have a lil cry about being involved in literal Nazi human experiments and then gets to be exonerated of all responsibility by his love interest?? Also, now I'm just in spoiler town, is it supposed to be heart-warming that Valery takes it upon himself to cheerily explain to Shenkov's child that she has cancer and is going to die, without checking with either parent first?? These are just two scenes that continue to utterly baffle me but there are more
aliena_jackson's review against another edition
4.0
This is definitely a book that I absolutely loved, but I have to engage with using an abundance of caution. Natasha Pulley keeps on with the misogyny, and the weird romanticization of Mother England.
the_history_shelf's review against another edition
5.0
Read my review at BookBrowse here: https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/4493/the-half-life-of-valery-k
uwu_emo's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
informative
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0