Radium Girls

Was very disappointed. I ordered in the expectation it would be about the real radium girls and not the collection of peoms shotrt stories and plays that it is.

Radium Girls by Amanda Gowin (not to be confused with books on the radium factory workers) is a beautiful, surreal collection of short stories. Each tale oozes with voice and a touch of the bizarre. The Pink Manatee, the longest story in the collection, is absolutely divine. Some of the stories are quite experimental and might not be to everybody's taste, but oh, it was to mine. Keep an eye out for repeating themes, such as twins. Gowin's Radium Girls is a gem.

I accidentally ordered this book. I thought it was the story of the girls that died from radiation poisoning.This book is an odd collection of the author's musings. ... I'm assuming while hallucinating.

I am equally impressed with brick sized epic novels and varying lengths of stories that move me...But it's been a long time since I felt like a writer was in my head looking out and so many of these stories felt like that. I'm not sure whether that's good or not, but I like feeling not alone in my head so much! I'm SO GLAD I stumbled upon this book... Thank you Burnt Tongue anthology for leading the way. If you like a little weird in your transgressive (?) fiction - oh, it's soooo good!!

The story is great but heartbreaking. This particular copy only goes to chapter 9, why I don't know

Radium Girls by Amanda Gowin is a masterful collection of stories, a play, drawings and never-random tidbits. Her work exists in the rarified air found only at high altitudes. With her wit and piercing intelligence, Gowin unfolds a series of portraits of exquisitely flawed and yet powerful women; each story shines with humor, heartbreaking pathos, artfully constructed dialogue, and wild beauty. Her fantastical worlds are filled with monsters, hard science, addicts, twins, trailer parks, magic, violence, mental institutions, ministers and zombies. She treats all of these subjects with insight and compassion. Gowin takes us deep into the interior minds of the marginalized and informs the familiar world in which we live with truths that cut to the brittle bone.Since this is a review on Amazon, I will add that If you are a fan of Margaret Atwood, I would highly suggest you buy Gowin's book. I seriously felt that same delicious tingly feeling while reading Gowin's book that I get from reading anything by Atwood.

Chapters not the whole book

<i>It's a gilded cage we live in. Best to never forget we're broken birds.</i>They say a great book never gives up all its secrets at once, and that's definitely the case with <i>Radium Girls</i>. I could tell right away these are the type of stories that require multiple readings to truly comprehend and appreciate. They're so short that by the time you start to feel grounded in the story, it's over. I don't think it's a coincidence that my favorite story by far was also the longest by far; the novella at the end, <i>The Pink Manatee</i>. I actually thought it was kind of brilliant to be honest, and it made me really hope Gowin writes a full length novel someday.I kept vacillating between 4 and 5 stars, 4 for most of the book, 5 at the end. Let's say 4.5, though, I have a feeling if I reread it a couple more times I'll be kicking myself for not giving it 5.

Fun, well written stories in a beautiful book

I bought this thinking it was another book of the same name. Took awhile to realise it was not. Some stories were quirky. But most were just all over the place.

I bought the wrong book and don’t have any idea how to return it. This book, with the same title as the book I thought I was buying, is a play.