nutti72's review against another edition
2.0
Told from the perspective of a teen living at "The Hill" this historicial book is not quite as interesting as the more recent Green Glass Sea .
velvetlibrary's review against another edition
2.0
This book is an incredibly easy read, but still fairly well written. There was nothing wrong with it, exactly; I just felt there was nothing in it to be wrong.
The story takes place on in Los Alamos, New Mexico while a group of scientists are making the atomic bomb. Stephen, the protagonist, is living with his father, a physicist, on a top-secret military base. Along with his Russian friend Alexei (does that set alarm bells off for no one else?), he begins to do what he is best at and snoops around, trying to find out what the scientists are building. It is known only to the boys as "The Gadget".
Near the beginning of the story, one of the men working on The Gadget needs to be hospitalized, alerting the boys to the danger of this project. When they find him in the hospital, he makes little sense, but gives Stephen a pair of almost opaque sunglasses saying, "You need them more than I do." You'd think they'd play a really important role, right? Wrong. They're used once. And people without the sunglasses seem just fine.
I felt that the characters were quite under-developed and that the plot left much to be desired. I spent the whole book waiting for something to happen, the something happened twenty pages before the end and then everything magically seemed to resolve itself. I felt that not everything tied up perfectly at the end, and I was left wondering. Not in the good way. In the "I think the author forgot to write the last ten pages of the book" way. I honestly thought that the most interesting part of the book was after it had ended and there were some pages with trivia on WWII.
If you're looking for a quick, easy read, go for it, but maybe it might be more enjoyable for someone a bit younger.
The story takes place on in Los Alamos, New Mexico while a group of scientists are making the atomic bomb. Stephen, the protagonist, is living with his father, a physicist, on a top-secret military base. Along with his Russian friend Alexei (does that set alarm bells off for no one else?), he begins to do what he is best at and snoops around, trying to find out what the scientists are building. It is known only to the boys as "The Gadget".
Near the beginning of the story, one of the men working on The Gadget needs to be hospitalized, alerting the boys to the danger of this project. When they find him in the hospital, he makes little sense, but gives Stephen a pair of almost opaque sunglasses saying, "You need them more than I do." You'd think they'd play a really important role, right? Wrong. They're used once. And people without the sunglasses seem just fine.
I felt that the characters were quite under-developed and that the plot left much to be desired. I spent the whole book waiting for something to happen, the something happened twenty pages before the end and then everything magically seemed to resolve itself. I felt that not everything tied up perfectly at the end, and I was left wondering. Not in the good way. In the "I think the author forgot to write the last ten pages of the book" way. I honestly thought that the most interesting part of the book was after it had ended and there were some pages with trivia on WWII.
If you're looking for a quick, easy read, go for it, but maybe it might be more enjoyable for someone a bit younger.
iceangel9's review
3.0
The story is set in 1945, 13-year-old Stephen has been sent to stay with his father on a secret military base in New Mexico. His dad is a physicist working on a top secret project - bet you can guess which one. Stephen decides to discover what the "gadget" really is. What he learns could endanger not only his life and his father's, but the lives of all Americans. A really fast paced and gripping story. Boys will especially like it.
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