A review by hirvimaki
The Wives of Los Alamos by TaraShea Nesbit

2.0

I feel like this could have been a really good book. The subject material was well chosen and seemed to be well researched. The stories could have been both interesting and compelling. However, the choice of using first person plural made this novel almost unreadable for me. It was a constant and annoying distraction. What started as a whimsical Greek chorus soon became as irritating as sand in socks and then like a chipped tooth. In using the plural voice to avoid making the stories too character focused and keeping them as shared experiences the author made each of the experiences feel distant and, ultimately, unrelatable for me. By the end of the book I felt almost aliened by the lack of individuality. I like crawling inside of a book, walking next to a character and seeing through his or her eyes. I was unable to do that with this book and I wish I could have because, again, it could have been a really good book.