What do I do in my desperate attempt to battle a reading slump? Pick up a nonfiction about radium and how it affected the lives of the girls who worked in the watch making industry back in the day. Dark AF.

Nonfiction is something that I don’t pick up naturally. So when I decided to browse the genre in my library, it came as a surprise to me. What drew me initially was the cover. I mean, look at at it! Gorgeous! It was an instant borrow. I didn’t even read what it was about. I just went for it. And oh boy – it was a difficult read.

The book is about the radium girls – female workers of the watch industry basically applying this glowing material to watch dials. These basically chronicles the journey of the girls from the beginning of working in the factory through the trials that came years later.

I was lost in the pages in an instant. It was definitely a roller coaster ride of emotions for me. I was excited for them getting their first jobs, getting their own money. I was raging for them when they were placed in harms way by these corporations wanting to sell these watches. When they were not protected enough while working with radium. Then what little protection they had was taken away. I cried when each one of them experienced the fatal effects of radium to the human body. I cheered with them as they surge on to fight against the companies they worked for to get what they deserved for working in such greedy companies.

When I said I was hooked the first second I started listening to it, I was hooked. I wanted to see how the journey ended for these women. It was a rough journey, definitely one of the most difficult reads I’ve ever experienced. And I loved every single minute of it. The fact that my anxiety was definitely triggered while reading this book is a positive thing.

So if you are feeling up to reading some history and what kind off pushed OSHA that we have today, I recommend you pick up this book.