353 pages
English language
Published Feb. 9, 2018
In November 1944, eighteen-year-old June Walker boards an unmarked bus, destined for a city that doesnt officially exist. Oak Ridge, Tennessee has sprung up in a matter of monthsa town of trailers and segregated houses, 24-hour cafeterias, and constant security checks. There, June joins hundreds of other young girls operating massive machines whose purpose is never explained. They know they are helping to win the war, but must ask no questions and reveal nothing to outsiders. The girls spend their evenings socializing and flirting with soldiers, scientists, and workmen at dances and movies, bowling alleys and canteens. June longs to know more about their top-secret assignment and begins an affair with Sam Cantor, the young Jewish physicist from New York who oversees the lab where she works and understands the end goal only too well, while her beautiful roommate Cici is on her own mission: to find a wealthy husband …
In November 1944, eighteen-year-old June Walker boards an unmarked bus, destined for a city that doesnt officially exist. Oak Ridge, Tennessee has sprung up in a matter of monthsa town of trailers and segregated houses, 24-hour cafeterias, and constant security checks. There, June joins hundreds of other young girls operating massive machines whose purpose is never explained. They know they are helping to win the war, but must ask no questions and reveal nothing to outsiders. The girls spend their evenings socializing and flirting with soldiers, scientists, and workmen at dances and movies, bowling alleys and canteens. June longs to know more about their top-secret assignment and begins an affair with Sam Cantor, the young Jewish physicist from New York who oversees the lab where she works and understands the end goal only too well, while her beautiful roommate Cici is on her own mission: to find a wealthy husband and escape her sharecropper roots. Across town, African-American construction worker Joe Brewer knows nothing of the governments plans, only that his new job pays enough to make it worth leaving his family behind, at least for now. But a breach in security will intertwine his fate with Junes search for answers. When the bombing of Hiroshima brings the truth about Oak Ridge into devastating focus, June must confront her ideals about loyalty, patriotism, and war itself.
Ugh. Conflict resolution was non-existent for the one dimensional cardboard characters. Why the hell did I bother finishing this book?
3 1/2 stars
The plot itself was kind of predictable but the setting was very interesting. I don't know why not, but I never knew they built up a whole secret city, Oak Ridge Tennessee, to manufacture the raw materials for the first atomic bomb during WWII. I never heard of this city and never even gave much thought about how much work went into building this bomb... How the workers (mostly local women) were sworn to secrecy and had no idea what the work they were doing was actually to enrich uranium for the new bomb. They just thought they were "turning knobs" on a control board. So yeah, that part of the story, and it was kind of the main part, was enlightening.
