The Wives of Los Alamos is a book that sat on my shelf for a few years. I originally bought a copy of the book after hearing great things about it. But then I held off reading it due to the use of the plural first person point of view (“We”, “Our”, etc instead of “I”). Turns out that I was hesitating for no reason. After a few pages, I got hooked by the book and the plural first person POV didn’t bother me at all. To be honest, I think one of the strengths of this book was this rarely used POV.

The POV plays a big part in telling the story of this large community of women. While every one of these women is an individual, they also shared many of the same experiences. This is reflected in the writing, along with various other experiences some may have went through. Through Nesbit’s writing each woman has a voice as well as the community of Los Alamos having a voice together.

Aside from how well that all was written, this book is also informative about this time in history. I don’t know many details about the Manhattan Project. I know a little more about it now. But what’s best about having read this book is that it wasn’t overloaded with details. That’s not the goal. The goal was to show the effect of secrets on marriages, families, friendships. It shows how this secretive relocation altered the course of the lives involved and then after, the course of world history. I could have read a non-fiction book that spelled out all the experimenting, politics, and more surrounding the project. But The Wives of Los Alamosmade it all human. History shouldn’t always be boiled down to the facts. Real humans were involved, and a book like this one reminded me of that.

If this is what Nesbit has to share with readers for a début novel, I can’t imagine what’s in store for us with the rest of her career.

I decided to join in on TBR Thursday* so that I make sure to add new books to my "planning to read" shelf. Also, I am hoping to see if/when I do my book shopping is influenced by anything other than buying a book from my wish lists (such as in times of stress or loneliness - this deployment is in the final stretch). So here is what I have added to the pile (first ten listed on my NOOK under most recent):

If the Shoe Kills, Dressed to Kill, and Killer Run (Tourist Trap Mystery) by Lynn Cahoon because I read the first one and liked it enough to start picking up the series. I made the decision to read this cozy series over others after reading other less than awesome first books.

A Match of Wits (Ladies of Distinction #4) by Jen Turano. I really like this series of historical romance and I am working through the series. One of those 2016 challenges I am putting together for myself.

Out of Oz (Wicked Years #4) by Gregory Maguire. I think I was influenced to pick this up due to my new love for the show Once Upon A Time and my long term love with the musical Wicked. This was at sale price, so I figured I start picking up the books as they go on sale. Not planning on reading this one anytime soon; I prefer to have all the books ready to go before starting book one.

Trail of Kisses (Hot on the Trail #1) by Merry Farmer. I really love her writing and the twists she does on historical romance without going into crazy sauce. This is a new series and she put the book as free, a tactic she does with all her series (she also writes SF/F romance, which is not my bag). I still can't believe a traditional publishing house hasn't picked her up - or that she hasn't agreed to traditional publishing contract. She takes editing and proofing seriously.

Nightingales at War (The Nightingales #6) by Donna Douglas. I have picked up this series as books come up on the sale pages and now I only need book three to complete the series. This is my replacement series for Call the Midwife series (tv and book) by Jennifer Worth. I hope to knock out all six next year...just in time for book seven to come out.

The Wives of Los Alamos by TaraShea Nesbit. I picked this one up due to my background career in the military (Nuc/Rad, Bio, and Chemical warfare defense) and just sheer whim. There is a lot of hype surrounding this book so I hope I am not disappointed.

The Widow of Larkspur Inn (The Gresham Chronicles #1) by Lawana Blackwell. Honestly, I picked this book up because it was on sale and the cover (not the one shown in the BL database) was beautiful.

Whiskey Beach by Nora Roberts. Because when Nora goes on sale, you betcha I will pick it up - no questions or qualms.

This Wicked Gift (Carhart Series #.5) and Trial by Desire (Carhart Series #2) by Courtney Milan. I already had book one, so I picked up the other two to start the series in January, followed by the Brother Sinsters series so that I have 10 months of reading Milan. Yep, another reading challenge.

Pride & Prejudice, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, and Emma - picked up these for free to do my Austen challenge. I might add Lady Susan to the list. I also picked up for free Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte so I can start my Bronte sisters challenge as soon as the Austen challenge is complete. These challenges will take me deep into 2016. I hate looking for these books in the database so I didn't bother attaching book covers to this post.

*thanks to Moonlight Reader for starting this meme

The book begins with a series of queries about what might have happened to these inhabitants of Los Alamos before they abandoned their prior homes to follow their husbands to an unknown place. They had no idea what to expect and the author makes the reader aware of what questions or feelings they might have had at that time. The possible scenarios that caused these women to leave their homes and follow their husbands to unknown destinations is presented with many options, with humor and also a lightness that pervades the entire book, although their journey was of the utmost importance and was of a very serious nature.

The style of the author, using what has been described as first person plural, is off-putting to some, but I don’t think the author could have accomplished as much as she did with traditional prose. Using short sentences, which came in quick bursts, she opened a window up onto an unreal desert scene where each of the different kinds of people came with their families, or alone, in the service of their country. She was able to accurately describe an incredible, unusual experience that once took place in a remote, undeveloped area of New Mexico. It was a different time and the women of Los Alamos, as was the custom, simply followed their husbands, asked few questions, and continued to perform their household duties and to assume the responsibility of raising the family, even in this secret, isolated place. Forbidden to reveal where they were or to tell what their husbands were working on to their friends and family, they somehow created a thriving community and survived from 1943 until sometime after the war’s end. Although they were not privy to the secret experiments or goings-on, they surmised some information on their own as they gossiped among themselves.

Using a pattern of staccato thoughts, coming from the collective “I”, the author has managed to illustrate exactly what occurred in Los Alamos from the basic emotions of each inhabitant to the intellectual desert the wives occupied as they witnessed the veritable cornucopia of opportunity for their men. Every nuance of their relationships is exposed in these seemingly random thoughts occurring on each page.

It is a very quick read as the story jumps along, literally. Each paragraph imparted a message which almost jutted across the page too fast to capture. The effect of this very serious research with world changing implications, wore on each family, man, woman and child, in different ways and they each handled it in their own individual way. They had been traumatically cut off from all prior relationships and had to create new avenues of release. Until they abandoned their new community, at war’s end, to return to their former lives, they did not realize how much all of the relationships they had made there, meant to them. They became family to each other for lack of family of their own and they weathered every storm that came their way, most often, with grace and patience, although there were the moments of pettiness that often erupts in very close quarters. This was a good read.

When this book came out, I was very interested in it. "Oh," I thought, "what a cool premise! A historical fiction narrative of the women who were married to the scientists who developed the atomic bomb."

It was expensive, though. So, I passed. But, I kept my eye on it, and when it came up available for kindle unlimited, it was my chance. I had heard, though, that it was weird, and that is was written in first person plural.

What a strange POV choice. It's the POV choice that has finally defeated me. 

"WE WERE WARNED by our mothers, our grandmothers, our uncles, our fathers, our priests, and our rabbis not to marry them before the war was over; they worried we were making a hasty decision; they thought time would change our minds. Our fiancés were men they did not like, or they loved the men we chose but they thought we were too young, or they wanted us to finish college first. And when we did marry them we were told, Well, Virginia, you’ll need a broom and a dustpan. Perhaps we did not marry our first loves—men who in our memory were reduced to caricature—the athlete, the class clown. We married the scientists instead, men with thick heads and scrawny bodies. Or we had always loved the scholarly ones most of all."

I could have handled it if the author had used that POV for a paragraph or two, even at the beginning of each chapter, and then told the story in either the third person or, even, shifting first person POVs. But the whole book is like that.

By trying to express everything, it expresses nothing. There is no engagement, no connection, no character development. It is a soulless narrative, bereft of personality. All of that potential, wasted.

So, I'm out. Life's too short.