The Secrets She Keeps

The Secrets She Keeps by Michael Robotham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Excellent character development of every major character and a few minor ones. The reader knows at the outset that Agatha is a little off. Just how off is yet to be determined. Additionally, the perfect couple has a few secrets to be uncovered and processed. The pace of the story is well timed as are the revelations. I really liked the book and most of the characters.

The Orphan Keeper

The Orphan Keeper by Camron Wright
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The real reason I wanted to read this book so badly is that I stumbled upon LION, a movie based on the true story of a boy in India who finds himself far from home then further from home via adoption, and his quest to find his Indian family. I was fascinated and memorized by his account.

The truth about children in India who become homeless or sold is horrific and not for the faint of heart. In fact, I just finished another book (I forgot which one) of a girl raised to be a prostitute and her experiences in the sex trade, held hostage for years. The boy in ORPHAN KEEPER has a unique story in that he is kidnapped from a loving home and sold to an orphanage to be adopted out. He is treated well and ends up in a loving home in Utah where his new parents have no idea he is not an orphan. Because of the language barrier, the newly named Taj is incapable of communicating this until much later.

What I learned from the previous books I read about children in India, particularly when they don't even know the town they are from, is that most children die in the streets or in the sex trade. Which is why I am befuddled why he was targeted to be kidnapped with so many homeless children. The true story of how he was kidnapped is probably not well remembered and the recounting is postulated. But finding his way back home would take nothing short of many miracles to reunite himself with the family he forgets for a time in order to focus on going on in this new culture. In fact, I watched a short review of his story with the author of the book so I know some events were postulated, some were skipped, while others were simplified.

The story of Taj's memories returning was simplified for the sake of the flow of the book. In fact, Taj serves a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in England and is reintroduced to the foods and smells he knew so well as a child which stimulates brief snippets of memory. This is introduced differently but with a great deal of clever artistic license.

Great story. Recommend book for book clubs.

The Lost Letter by Jillian Cantor

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. It was bittersweet yet the ending left me feeling quite satisfied. The ways stamps were used to communicate was new to me and I kept guessing what happened to the main characters in current day. I didn't guess right until nearly the end. It was a perfect ending and a perfect book.

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm not going to sugar coat this. It is a heart breaking book. It is also incredibly inspiring. The author personalizes the girls that worked as dial painters beginning in the 1920s where radium was the new magic chemical. It healed, made your cheeks rosy, and was completely harmless. The girls were mostly very young, loved life, and had an optimistic future ahead of them. They were paid well to paint the dials with preciseness using their lips to point their brushes.

Naturally, we know how very dangerous radium is. One fact I found extremely fascinating is that radium consists of three known radioactive rays; alpha, beta, and gamma. Alpha rays do not do much damage as they can be stopped by something as thin as a piece of paper or skin. The other rays are the ones that burn the skin and cause damage from the inside out. Yet alpha rays are the most damaging if they get past the epidermis. Like if you lick your paintbrush into a point in order to paint a dial.

The book follows the women personally through their deteriorating health and then efforts to find medical help, compel the companies to pay for the medical help, and change practices. The corruption in the companies is appalling. The women use every bit of their waning energy to make changes in policy and be reimbursed for medical bills which have devastated them particularly in the wake of the Depression. They are pioneers in changing the policies of safety in the workplace and holding companies accountable for injury.

I feel like I got to know so many of the women personally through the narrative provided. It was historical and biographical yet almost written as a novel.

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