Did you appreciate the chronological presentation of information, moving back and forth between the two different communities impacted? Were you surprised at the amount of time passing?

Did you appreciate the chronological presentation of information, moving back and forth between the two different communities impacted? Were you surprised at the amount of time passing, especially between the first settlement in New Jersey and the later one in Illinois? 

It was beautifully handled and easy to follow. No, I wasn't surprised at the time it has taken--notice my verb choice. The issue isn't over--the cleanup is STILL going on and, you will notice, the companies were by and large able to weasel out of their responsibilities in that undertaking. Here in my small neck of the woods, they have been trying to clean up a mine for over 35 years and it still isn't done. Nothing changes, just the theme, the cast and the threat to human life.

I loved the way it followed their life in order. It was so easy to follow and understand. And I love the way when after they died it tells of their family also and what they did after their death of the loved one.

I did appreciate the order in which the story was written. At first I thought, how am I ever going to be able to keep up with all the people involved, but Kate Moore made it easy. I was surprised by the amount of time that passed, but after reading how long the symptoms took to manifest it made sense. Of course the slow court system didn't help either.

I found the story easy to follow and was glad to follow both companies and their workers through the years. I was somewhat surprised at the amount of time it took to bring this to light, but the symptoms were slow to present. The first cases weren't connected to radium poisoning (syphilis, etc.). The coverup by the company's kept the truth hidden.

Personally, I found it hard to keep track of so many people, many of whom seemed to have the same first names. I had the feeling the author was trying to fit every piece of information she had learned into the book. For me, it would have been more readable to follow just a few of the women in depth. That being said, I did like the parallel coverage of the two communities, which showed that neither was an isolated case and both were part of a larger problem.

For me, the pictures helped keep the characters straight until I got my footing through the text. I think it would have been difficult to choose which girls to include and which to leave out--each one's story had enough difference to make an impact.

Yes - I liked the way the information was handled by the author. I was able to refer to the list of characters in both of the locations at the beginning of the book. What began in 1917 and has gone on for the last hundred years, this book had to be written. Being that 1600 yrs. is the half-life of radium, the clean-up will have to continue far into the future.

As someone said it was a bit confusing to keep all the women straight. I was not surprised by the length of time it took for the case to be setting. Remembering that the Curies died after working with radium I don’t think men would have handled it so freely without protection. Men would probably have received more support.

I liked the format, with the shifts from the East Coast to MidWest. The chronology was mind blowing, how time kept passing, leaving more and more women and their families exposed and in danger- and then later how chilling that time felt as the radium companies hoped time would continue to pass quickly and kill off more and more of the complaints against them :(

The story was well told and I was flabbergasted by the number of years that had passed from the beginning to the end.