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A review by lostcanticles
Atomic Anna by Rachel Barenbaum
Did not finish book. Stopped at 58%.
dnf @ 58%
This started really strong with the prologue but as I read the succeeding chapters, everything just went downhill for me. I’m quite disappointed since the premise sounded so interesting. Three generations of women work together through time travel to stop the Chernobyl disaster? I thought I’d be hooked, and I was for a while. It was the writing the made me cave, I don’t know how to precisely describe it. This book was super easy to read, the writing was simple and this would have been something that would have worked in favor of the book for some but not to me. Yes, it was simple and it was quick, everything happened so quickly it fell flat. It was like the characterization was glossed over, the characters lacked depth and were really close to just talking heads to me. For a book that sounded so exciting, the execution was simple (maybe too simple) and it dragged. I did not find this to be a blend of scifi and family drama, it leaned more towards the latter more than anything. The science parts just breezed by. Another thing that threw me off was the dialogue, it lacked believability to me. I could say the same towards the characters’ actions and intentions (which could be pointed back to the lack of depth). Had I finished this, I probably wouldn’t have given a high rating either so I just didn’t.
What I did like but didn’t get to experience in full was how the comics were used in the story. It was a good weaving of storylines that were as of that moment, separate. I really liked the idea of this but the execution wasn’t doing it for me. I’m conflicted with whether or not I’ll come back to this, there’s a little chance. We shall see.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc!
This started really strong with the prologue but as I read the succeeding chapters, everything just went downhill for me. I’m quite disappointed since the premise sounded so interesting. Three generations of women work together through time travel to stop the Chernobyl disaster? I thought I’d be hooked, and I was for a while. It was the writing the made me cave, I don’t know how to precisely describe it. This book was super easy to read, the writing was simple and this would have been something that would have worked in favor of the book for some but not to me. Yes, it was simple and it was quick, everything happened so quickly it fell flat. It was like the characterization was glossed over, the characters lacked depth and were really close to just talking heads to me. For a book that sounded so exciting, the execution was simple (maybe too simple) and it dragged. I did not find this to be a blend of scifi and family drama, it leaned more towards the latter more than anything. The science parts just breezed by. Another thing that threw me off was the dialogue, it lacked believability to me. I could say the same towards the characters’ actions and intentions (which could be pointed back to the lack of depth). Had I finished this, I probably wouldn’t have given a high rating either so I just didn’t.
What I did like but didn’t get to experience in full was how the comics were used in the story. It was a good weaving of storylines that were as of that moment, separate. I really liked the idea of this but the execution wasn’t doing it for me. I’m conflicted with whether or not I’ll come back to this, there’s a little chance. We shall see.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc!