The Radium Girls

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a fascinating story, and it's truly disgusting and disheartening how these women were treated by men who valued their own profits and companies over human life. It's also extremely frustrating that radium regulation wasn't put into place until a rich, white man died from radium poisoning, despite women suffering and dying from it for over a decade by that point. These companies, and the people who own them and work for them, are truly deplorable, and I get more and more angry the more I think about them.

I appreciate so much that author Kate Moore gave voice to these women, and both their physical and mental struggles and their battles in court. For women who died too young, for no other reason than they were doing their jobs, she told their stories and immortalized them for all time. I kept flipping to look at their photos, to remember their stories, and to match faces with the many names.

My only complaint about this book is the attention to detail was so excessive that it moved very slowly for me. For a book I was invested in, it took me a remarkably long time to read - 12 days. I just wasn't motivated. Maybe I was too sad? Maybe I could sense how it was going to go? Who knows. In the end, I feel like the story could have been tightened up, and still maintain it's authenticity and truth.

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