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A review by smalltownbookmom
Atomic Anna by Rachel Barenbaum
4.0
This was a thoroughly entertaining historical fiction, intergenerational family story with a time travel plot. Told from the perspective of three incredibly smart women whose lives are intertwined in ways we only fully discover as the story unfolds.
Anna is one of the nuclear scientists responsible for building Chernobyl and when the reactor goes of in 1986 she feels forever guilty, becoming obsessed with finding a way to go back in time and prevent the disaster.
In the meantime Molly is growing up in 1960s America being raised by Russian immigrants. A troubled teen, Molly just wants to pursue her art and her life gets off track when she falls in love and runs away with a drug dealer. Addicted to drugs and alcohol Molly ends up pregnant, scared and afraid she won't be able to stay sober, so she returns home to her parents to give birth to the baby.
When Raisa is born things are going well for the first few years until her father shows up again, dragging Molly back into the life she fought so hard to escape. In one timeline Raisa ends up in foster care, yet with intervention from Anna, she gets another chance and is able to grow up as a teen math prodigy.
The way these three stories came together at the end kept me on the edge of my seat. This book is perfect for fans of the tv show Timeless or The time traveler's wife. Great on audio with a full cast narration, including Natalie Naudus. Highly recommended and I can 't wait to read the author's debut novel next. I couldn't put this book down, even with its substantial length, I didn't get bored for a minute!
CW: drug addition, death of loved ones, parental imprisonment, parental abandonment
Anna is one of the nuclear scientists responsible for building Chernobyl and when the reactor goes of in 1986 she feels forever guilty, becoming obsessed with finding a way to go back in time and prevent the disaster.
In the meantime Molly is growing up in 1960s America being raised by Russian immigrants. A troubled teen, Molly just wants to pursue her art and her life gets off track when she falls in love and runs away with a drug dealer. Addicted to drugs and alcohol Molly ends up pregnant, scared and afraid she won't be able to stay sober, so she returns home to her parents to give birth to the baby.
When Raisa is born things are going well for the first few years until her father shows up again, dragging Molly back into the life she fought so hard to escape. In one timeline Raisa ends up in foster care, yet with intervention from Anna, she gets another chance and is able to grow up as a teen math prodigy.
The way these three stories came together at the end kept me on the edge of my seat. This book is perfect for fans of the tv show Timeless or The time traveler's wife. Great on audio with a full cast narration, including Natalie Naudus. Highly recommended and I can 't wait to read the author's debut novel next. I couldn't put this book down, even with its substantial length, I didn't get bored for a minute!
CW: drug addition, death of loved ones, parental imprisonment, parental abandonment