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A review by ehmannky
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore
dark
emotional
slow-paced
4.0
A horrifying tale of corporate negligence in the name of profit that led to hundreds of people who came in contact with the radium corporations having early and often incredibly painful deaths. I found it amazing how far these corporations would go to defend their profits, and how it echoes so much of what's happening in today's increasingly unregulated workplaces. It always seems like it's about to get better and then for decades these women just suffered needlessly and cruelly all because some men didn't want to pay a small portion of their profits for the women's care.
The things I didn't like were the audiobook's narrator (I know that's not the author's fault, but I did not care for her style of reading) and I didn't care for the author's note. I don't know, I just didn't really care why she cared about this story. I also think that more time could have been explored making connections to contemporary working conditions and more focus on how radium is still negatively impacting corporate workers today. But this isn't an academic book, and I can accept it for what it is.
The things I didn't like were the audiobook's narrator (I know that's not the author's fault, but I did not care for her style of reading) and I didn't care for the author's note. I don't know, I just didn't really care why she cared about this story. I also think that more time could have been explored making connections to contemporary working conditions and more focus on how radium is still negatively impacting corporate workers today. But this isn't an academic book, and I can accept it for what it is.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical trauma, Death, Death of parent, Chronic illness, Medical content, and Terminal illness