Reviews with content warning for Cancer - The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women

This story is told in 3 parts, the first part is very information forward and reads like a college paper with little emotional draw and very repetitive information because there are so many women who were affected. The 2nd part is where the story picks up and starts to be more of a narrative of what happened. For this reason this book really is an extraordinary recounting of what happened and the neglagence that these women faced. Highly recommend this read.

Content Warnings

mmccombs's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark informative sad medium-paced

4.0

This almost felt like reading a horror novel, it was absolutely harrowing. I thought this was very propulsive and I loved that this was mostly told from the direct perspectives of the women and families involved. Sometimes the writing felt a bit cheesy and repetitive, but on the whole I couldn’t put this book down. The descriptions of each woman’s slow and painful deaths were sometimes a bit much but did capture just how bonkers it is that these people were literally dissolving and somehow these corporations were still able to wriggle out of responsibility. Absolutely maddening, describing how profit and capitalism will always take precedence over the wellbeing of workers, clearly showing how labor rights are disability rights and vice versa. If you want to be equally upset and informed, this is the book for you!

Content Warnings

badger_ti_robespierre's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

Should be required reading

Content Warnings

lovetlr's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Really enjoyed the human element of the radium girls

Content Warnings

bmpicc's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional informative inspiring sad medium-paced

4.5

Do not read if you have dental anxiety! I remember people talking about radium and the shining women. I don't remember anyone discussing their teeth, jaws, shattering bones, and unnecessarily early deaths. This was an incredible story.

Like Moore's book 'The Woman They Could Not Silence', I appreciate learning at the end the laws added to the books, the why behind her decision to write the book, etc. I'll be following this up with the graphic novel.

"You fight and you fall and you get up and fight some more. But there will always come a day when you cannot fight another minute more.”

Content Warnings

mostlybees's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark informative sad slow-paced

4.0

Content Warnings

kafarm6's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging informative sad tense medium-paced

3.5

It was just so gross 🫠
But I do love learning how a) all arguments we hear today are old af b) every bad event in history ever has had at least one person saying “this is bad you should stop”

Content Warnings

More...