The Atomic City Girls

Title: The Atomic City Girls

Author: Janet Beard

Pages: 353

Genre: Historical Fiction

Grade: B+

Synopsis: The Manhattan Project started towards the tail end of World War II and ended up employing a secret city's worth of scientists, physicists and young women, because most of the other young men were off fighting in Europe or the Pacific. This story mainly takes place in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which was a city that was built from scratch specifically for the research behind the atomic bomb and for the isolation and enrichment of Uranium. The book follows a few different characters and most of their stories are from real-life accounts of the people who lived and worked in Oak Ridge.

My Review: I started this book believing that it was a non-fiction account, but after about a chapter I realized that it was more of a historical fiction than non-fiction.  After my initial disappointment I carried on and found that I enjoyed the book, even if it bounces around throughout the first 80% before finally linking the characters together towards the end of the book.