A review by oliviasantioni
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore

3.5

The book was interesting but very much a history lesson which isn’t my favorite hope of book. I did find the story compelling and interesting but also very depressing. I think it is an important story to know and understand the greater implications. Overall though it was hard to follow all of the lives of the different people and keep straight the lawyers, dial painters, their family members, the employees and people working for the companies, etc. there were just so many people involved there were a lot of times it took me a minute to realize who we were taking about. It also felt like there would be a brief pharagraph talking about one dial painter to then switch to another one. Kinda felt like I was getting jerked around. I understand they are all important and, from reading how much research went into the book, that there was a lot to cover about the girl’s personal life, but I think because the author really for to know all of the girl’s family it might have been hard for them to take a step back and read the book from an outsider’s perspective because, to me, trying to keep track of everyone was confusing. I would have been happy just focusing on a couple of girls and letting the rest just be “Dougs” (Brandon Sanderson Tress reference) but I know that is basically the opposite of what the author wanted.