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This book was better than I expected it to be, and I expected it to be good. I devoured this in two sittings because I never wanted to put it down. I was so invested in these women's stories, in what happened to them. I think this is probably about as close to horror as a nonfiction book can get.
Fair warning, this book is a hard read. It's quite graphic about the women's illnesses which can be horrifying, and the way the company treats them is borderline cartoonishly evil which is also a bit difficult. Definitely worthwhile, but not for everyone.
The only negative thing I have to say is sometimes the writing seemed a bit too melodramatic. Exclamation points were used regularly, chapters would end on things like "they learned radium was dangerous, but no one told the girls..." and it seemed so unnecessary. It didn't detract from the book, but I did roll my eyes a few times. With such an intense story, the writing doesn't have to work so hard to keep the reader's interest.
But the story was everything. I was enthralled. What these women went through was horrifying and terrible and so seemingly easy to prevent. But no one bothered preventing it. Many of them were just teenagers when they worked with radium paint, and many were dead by 30. (Although I did kind of wish Moore had stopped referring to them as "girls" once they were adult women.)
The scope of the story was so wonderfully done. There were many women involved in two different cities and the book covered their lives from beginning to work at the factories until death, some of them in the 1920s and some not for decades. I had a bit of a hard time keeping up with the women because there were so many, but Moore did a great job of keeping details about them relevant to remind you who was who.
There was a point where I kind of expected the story would stop and just start summarizing later events, but it never did. Moore covered everything about this case. I think sometimes nonfiction focuses on a limited moment and everything beyond is secondary summary, but that wasn't the feeling I got from this book. It felt like nothing was left out and I loved it for that.
Overall, this was an important and well told story. I can't recommend it enough. It's easily one of my favorites of the year.
Fair warning, this book is a hard read. It's quite graphic about the women's illnesses which can be horrifying, and the way the company treats them is borderline cartoonishly evil which is also a bit difficult. Definitely worthwhile, but not for everyone.
The only negative thing I have to say is sometimes the writing seemed a bit too melodramatic. Exclamation points were used regularly, chapters would end on things like "they learned radium was dangerous, but no one told the girls..." and it seemed so unnecessary. It didn't detract from the book, but I did roll my eyes a few times. With such an intense story, the writing doesn't have to work so hard to keep the reader's interest.
But the story was everything. I was enthralled. What these women went through was horrifying and terrible and so seemingly easy to prevent. But no one bothered preventing it. Many of them were just teenagers when they worked with radium paint, and many were dead by 30. (Although I did kind of wish Moore had stopped referring to them as "girls" once they were adult women.)
The scope of the story was so wonderfully done. There were many women involved in two different cities and the book covered their lives from beginning to work at the factories until death, some of them in the 1920s and some not for decades. I had a bit of a hard time keeping up with the women because there were so many, but Moore did a great job of keeping details about them relevant to remind you who was who.
There was a point where I kind of expected the story would stop and just start summarizing later events, but it never did. Moore covered everything about this case. I think sometimes nonfiction focuses on a limited moment and everything beyond is secondary summary, but that wasn't the feeling I got from this book. It felt like nothing was left out and I loved it for that.
Overall, this was an important and well told story. I can't recommend it enough. It's easily one of my favorites of the year.