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A review by jennybellium
The Wives of Los Alamos by TaraShea Nesbit
2.0
Like the concept, hate the execution. Hearing about the secret city where famous scientists developed the bomb while their families lived in barely-constructed houses has the potential to be an engrossing book. However, the conceit used in this just irritated me on every page - the author lumps ALL wives and ALL kids and ALL houses and ALL experiences into one weirdly generic story.
Something like this (not an actual quote): "We came from the east coast, from Germany, from England. We had two kids, no kids, a boy living with his grandparents, and then we had a baby who grew up to become a scientists himself, or we had a baby who grew up to hate science. They told us x and they didn't tell us x and they..."
I get it- and as an introduction, I think it could work. Shows the diversity of people and lifestyles. But she does this through the WHOLE book. It's irking me just recounting this.
Actual quote that kind of illustrates (assuming you can imagine this happening through the whole book:
"We took the car to the shop to get the oil changed. We dropped off our children's old bike tires, our worn-out bathing cap, and a bucket of nails our husbands left in the garage at the Junior Leagues' Metal and Rubber Drive. We bought a few more war bonds. Some of us had been smart enough to ask about gas and electric..."
So - using this construction - EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM took a bucket of nails somewhere, but only SOME had asked about gas and electric? I just can't handle the grammatical inconsistency.
Something like this (not an actual quote): "We came from the east coast, from Germany, from England. We had two kids, no kids, a boy living with his grandparents, and then we had a baby who grew up to become a scientists himself, or we had a baby who grew up to hate science. They told us x and they didn't tell us x and they..."
I get it- and as an introduction, I think it could work. Shows the diversity of people and lifestyles. But she does this through the WHOLE book. It's irking me just recounting this.
Actual quote that kind of illustrates (assuming you can imagine this happening through the whole book:
"We took the car to the shop to get the oil changed. We dropped off our children's old bike tires, our worn-out bathing cap, and a bucket of nails our husbands left in the garage at the Junior Leagues' Metal and Rubber Drive. We bought a few more war bonds. Some of us had been smart enough to ask about gas and electric..."
So - using this construction - EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM took a bucket of nails somewhere, but only SOME had asked about gas and electric? I just can't handle the grammatical inconsistency.