Atomic Anna

by Rachel Barenbaum

“Atomic Anna is a dazzling work of ingenuity and imagination.”― Téa Obreht,National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Inland

From the author of A Bend in the Stars, an epic adventure as three generations of women work together and travel through time to prevent the Chernobyl disaster and right the wrongs of their past.

Three brilliant women.
Two life-changing mistakes.
One chance to reset the future.

In 1986, renowned nuclear scientist, Anna Berkova, is sleeping in her bed in the Soviet Union when Chernobyl’s reactor melts down. It’s the exact moment she tears through time—and it’s an accident. When she opens her eyes, she’s landed in 1992 only to discover Molly, her estranged daughter, shot in the chest. Molly, with her dying breath, begs Anna to go back in time and stop the disaster, to save Molly’s daughter Raisa, and put their family’s future on a better path.

In ‘60s Philadelphia, Molly is coming of age as an adopted refusenik. Her family is full of secrets and a past they won’t share. She finds solace in comic books, drawing her own series, Atomic Anna, and she’s determined to make it as an artist. When she meets the volatile, charismatic Viktor, their romance sets her life on a very different course.

In the ‘80s, Raisa, is a lonely teen and math prodigy, until a quiet, handsome boy moves in across the street and an odd old woman shows up claiming to be her biological grandmother. As Raisa finds new issues of Atomic Anna in unexpected places, she notices each comic challenges her to solve equations leading to one impossible time travel. And she finally understands what she has to do.

As these remarkable women work together to prevent the greatest nuclear disaster of the 20th century, they grapple with the power their discoveries hold. Just because you can change the past, does it mean you should?

Genres: Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Fiction, Time Travel, Historical, Fantasy, Russia

Audible Audio

First published April 5, 2022

About the author

ATOMIC ANNA is Rachel's second novel. The New York Times Book Review said it was “masterfully plotted." And the LA Review of Books called it "propulsive and intimate." Rachel's debut, A BEND IN THE STARS, was named a New York Times Summer Reading Selection and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection.

Rachel is a prolific writer and reviewer. Her work has appeared in Harper’s Bazaar, the LA Review of Books, and more. She is a Scholar in Residence at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis and her podcast, Check This Out, is sponsored by the Howe Library and A Mighty Blaze. She has degrees from Harvard in Business, and Literature and Philosophy. She is an elected Town Meeting Member in Brookline, MA.

Reviews

[Jasmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Atomic Anna is a sci-fi time travel novel centred around the Chernobyl nuclear accident.

1986: Anna Berkova, an esteemed nuclear scientist, is asleep in her bed when she suddenly time travels to the exact moment of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Somehow, she has travelled to the future where she meets her estranged daughter Manya, shot in the chest, begging Anna to save her daughter Raisa.

Philadelphia in the 1960s: adopted Manya, now called Molly, lives with her grandparents. Recently, Molly started writing a comic book series titled Atomic Anna. It’s her dream for it to be published. But her life takes a turn when she meets and falls in love with Viktor, a charming but toxic man.

Philadelphia in the 1980s: Raisa is a self-taught math prodigy living with her grandparents. She’s a bit of a loner until she meets her neighbour Daniel. Raisa grew up reading Atomic Anna, and oddly, new editions have been cropping up and seem to be asking for her help.

This sci-fi novel follows the lives of these three women. The plot’s pace is even, although the timeline skips around quite a bit.

Atomic Anna tackles the phrase “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” It explores the risks of producing nuclear weapons. It asks whether it’s possible for a weapon to be created but not used and who controls it.

I am happy I read this, as science fiction is not a genre I read often. I am far from a science buff, but the author did a great job explaining everything in simple enough terms.

I would recommend Atomic Anna if you want a story that blends sci-fi, historical fiction, and thriller.

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing for providing me with a copy to review.

https://booksandwheels.com

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of course I LOVE this book!! I poured my heart into every page. I hope you love it, too.

[Carrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Atomic Anna by Rachel Barenbaum is a science fiction fantasy novel that is based on the real life historical event of the Chernobyl disaster. The story in Atomic Anne is one that is told by changing the point of view between the characters and with different timelines for the characters.

Anna Berkova is a nuclear scientist who was sleeping when Chernobyl’s reactor melts in 1986 and at that exact moment Anna’s dream of time travel actually came true. Anna traveled a few years into the future where she saw her adult daughter, Molly, get shot. Even though Molly and Anna had not been close with Molly being raised by adoptive parents Anna knows she needs to do whatever she can to save Molly and she needs her granddaughter Raisa’s help.

I’ve always had an interest in reading fiction based on real life events with it seeming to bring even more life into a story so I thought Atomic Anna by Rachel Barenbaum would be right up my alley. Unfortunately this one wasn’t a hit as I sat down to read it I found that the pacing seemed kind of slow in my opinion which made the story drag for me. Then as I got to know each of three generations of women they all felt too similar and not really likable and overall I’d kept wishing for more from the scifi side than what i was finding so I wasn’t a huge fan leaving this one at two stars.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

For more reviews please visit https://carriesbookreviews.com/

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again: I am SO behind here on Goodreads. My apologies. I devoured ATOMIC ANNA on THE LIONESS book tour in May. It was fantastic, everything I love in a novel: breathtakingly alive characters, a plot with twists that left me dazzled and off-balance, heartbreak and hope. . .and Chernobyl. And bad parenting. And super smart women. It's a gem. Rachel Barenbaum is a great storyteller with an imagination that is robust and profound.

[🩶 April • A.M. Flynn • 🩶 · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 STARS*********This started out sooo good. Then it just continued to lose me in the plot. The premise is such a great idea too! I am disappointed. Women scientists who go back in time to stop Chernobyl from happening? Yes please.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Atomic Anna in one day - couldn't put it down! Rachel Barenbaum does a fantastic job of weaving the different strands and stories of three generations of strong women. Anna, Molly, Raisa and supporting characters Yulia, Lazar, Daniel, Yasha are all battling their own demons while trying to do what they think is right for their loved ones. It's at once a brilliant meditation on responsibility to family and society while also a fun, page-turning tale of time-travel. I loved it and can't wait to recommend this to friends. Book clubs will also find a lot to discuss here!

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. So why Atomic Anna and why now? Well, a year or two ago, I happened upon a notice for a book fair in Chestnut Hill Square, outside Hummingbird Books, featuring local authors, in Newton/Brookline Massachusetts. Naturally, I found my way there! Biali had just opened up and they had these delicious mini pizzettes passed around. There were so many local authors, and so many whose books I had read or whom I knew. I was like a kid in a candy store. And I only had a half an hour to spare. It was my first time visiting Hummingbird Books. It is indeed quite an amazing store, and Newton has quite a few. This one is incredibly elegant and homey all at once.

Shocking that I pared myself down to four books, but Atomic Anna had to be one of them. I really liked the last book I had read by Rachel Barenbaum, which may have been her first, and she beamed. I just found her lovely. And I was drawn to the book. But also drawn into the idea that she might even attend our local book club meeting. She really seemed to want to. I felt connected to her. Later it turns out another person in my group, who at the time I hadn't met yet - (could this fair have possibly been three years ago? How old is Hummingbird Books? Could that have been 2019 or 2020?) Anyway, Rinky was there too at the fair, and she also spoke to the author and also bought the book. But this Spring had me very very busy (total understatement), and we had planned our books and hosts for the entire Fall and Spring way back when. Which is kind of funny, since my Book Club is called the Impromptu Book Club. We read what we want to read at a time that is convenient for us. Its a book group for moms too busy to be in a book group. But everyone humored me and allowed me to guide us to make some decisions for the Spring. At the time, Rinky said she would call the author and see if we could get her to come. By the time we were organizing for Holli's house, and it was close to, I put it this way.... Rinky may or may not be calling the author, who may or may not be coming. I think its a small group for Atomic Anna, in our true Busy Lady Dynamic Impromptu Group Style. Rinky just received my forlorn message recently, and the author never really had the opening to get in touch. She has "people". Its not like we were able to either of us return to the personal connection.

But..... as I was reading it. I thought maybe that was a good thing. Because I wasn't loving the book, and I wasn't quite sure what others were making of it either. I was struggling with questions for the author and I knew we would get a biased version of what people actually thought. I felt it was better that the author wasn't necessarily coming. But those of you know me, know I hate to diss or pan books, especially when I think the author is going to read my review. Authors work so hard on their novels. Its more than a baby. Its an expression of self, and of ideas you have lived with and worked up for a really long time. Its your writing and the time you took to bear it, and your beloved characters and plot choices. But I do have some thoughts about the book, and I might start off with some associations. First - since I was reading it anyway for Sunday nights' book group meeting, I was pleased that in a timely way, the book was also helping me fulfill another Goodreads challenge. I had to pick a book that was sitting on someone elses' gameboard, and its #67 on Heather Reads Book's Gameboard. That worked, and I was pleased to see someone else had found it and picked it out.

Second, in this same Goodreads Group, for the other year long challenge, we had to figure out our favorite "tag" or genre or kind of book. That took me a long time to figure out. But once I hit on it, I knew it was right. My favorite "tag" is thought-provoking. I love when a book makes you consider something far larger than the plot. Morality, or complicated choices, , or possibilities. I knew I was in the presence of a thought provoking book. I felt that from moment one. And I really take to that. I do expect it will be an interesting discussion.

But, I have a quirk. I have never heard anyone else express this quirk, so it may be a "just me" thing. I do not mind dual timeline novels. I read so much WWII, not to mention the Seven Sisters series, and other folks who use this format in my beloved other favorite genre: Historical Fiction. Channel Cleeton comes to mind. So does Beatriz Williams and Lucinda Riley. I don't mind dual timelines in the least - while I am aware that my Goodreads friends are rather sick of them. But my quirk - I really hate jumping around in time. If you are going to have two timelines, or a time traveling jumper or two, please make it Linear. So I can keep the characters awarenesses and thoughts and the storyline straight. This is narrated by three people, a mother, a daughter, and a granddaughter, at various ages and times in each of their lives. Decades ago, people just LOVED the Time Traveler's Wife. I somewhat detested it, and just couldn't understand the rave. It was far too jumpy for me. I felt like this one had that feeling. Like I couldn't quite get my bearings in the story. Like I knew I would understand things more later. I hate feeling so disconnected that way. And that was the feeling of 80% of the book. But then. The last 80 pages, where time catches up, and its all coming together at the same time? All of a sudden, I was into it - actually sort of loving it. I had all the right gasps in the right places. All the anticipation and thoughts and wonderings and boom. Once it came together, I was totally in it. It worked for me. It was exciting.

Most to all of the characters in the book made the very best decisions they could in challenging situations of extraordinary adversity. Many felt regret, fear, like they had damaged their children, and everyone around them. Everyone wanted a do over, in one way or another. Everyone was seeking answers, connection, redemption. Everyone questioned both their own actions and motives, in the past and present. Everyone wondered what the right thing was to do, and why? And was it selfish? Should time be changed, and would they survive the change and survive it together and stay connected? It was thought provoking for sure, but by this point, feeling provoking too. It was hard not to love the excitement of it once it all came together. Fabulous ending all the way around. I got my redemptive end, and I think all of the characters did too in their own ways.

Not much of a comic book gal. Or a science gal. Or a math gal. But the book made me think and feel. Ultimately by the end, I connected with it. And that is how I landed with 3.5. But knowing myself, I will like it far more, after we talk about it in 36-48 hours. That is always how this goes.

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was resistant to this book’s questionable charms, which is a bit of a disappointment. I’m usually a sucker for a good time-travel story, like The Time Traveler's Wife or Somewhere In Time or Time and Again. Is that the problem with this book? Is it missing that one crucial word? Should it be Atomic Anna Time?

{Buffalo Bill} “What time is it, kids?”
{Peanut Gallery} “It’s Atomic Anna Time!”

If you don’t know what that’s a reference to, you need to build yourself a time machine.

I’m afraid this book’s problems go a lot deeper than the title. There’s the gaping plotholes, irksome anachronisms and some real pacing issues. At the heart of the book is exactly what makes Anna “Atomic.” What is it that gives her the power to travel back and forth in time? The answer is pretty much “radiation and stuff.” Really? “Radiation and stuff?” We’re going back to Marvel comics in the ‘60s? That’s when “radiation and stuff” created half their characters, whether it was Peter Parker’s radioactive spider bite or Bruce Banner taking a Hulk bath in gamma radiation. That’s the best this book could come up with? I know that there’s nothing to base time-travel science on since it doesn’t exactly, you know, exist. But it should at least seem somewhat plausible, or it can spoil the fantasy. In Michael Chricton’s Timeline (there's that word again!), the time machine took up all the space in a mammoth warehouse. Imagining this gigantic contraption put some flesh and bone on the fantasy of time travel, something I found sorely lacking in Anna.
The plotholes that pop up undermine an already shaky foundation. This one that slithered in near the beginning bothered me for the rest of the book. (EDIT: It looks like I was wrong about the following part when I originally wrote this. Instead of being a plothole, it's yet another anachronism. It's covered in the comments section) Anna travels from 1990s Russia to 1970s Philadelphia. She finds the people she’s looking for. They get on a bus and she follows them. Just how does that work? Did this woman who has never been to our country travel back in time with United States currency to pay for her admission onto a bus? And she’ll certainly draw the attention of the people she’s supposed to be surreptitiously following if they’re facing towards the front of the bus and see her get on or argue with the driver because she can’t pay the fare.
What annoyed me the most was how often my literary nemesis snuck in. That would be “the anachronism!” I hate anachronisms! One thing I learned about Rachel Barenbaum is that she was born after MTV because the '70s are foreign territory for her. She has one of her characters using a calculator in 1970. No they’re not. Certainly not what we would associate with the word “calculator”, which would be what was first known as the pocket calculator. Or, as we know it today, our damn telephones. But miniaturized calculators weren’t mass produced until about 1974. I guess this character could have been using the only model of calculator available in 1970, which was a tube-monstrosity weighing about ten pounds and costing about $1,000, but I highly doubt it. That’s right… I researched calculators for this review! I wish Ms. Barenbaum had done the same when she was writing her book.
In that same year, the same character talks about going to a “disco bar.” A whowhatnow? There is a chance that someone living in 1970 New Jersey might have gone to the Big Apple and visited a discotheque, but discos, as a place, didn’t exist yet in 1970. Certainly not like the infestation of discos whose spread was just a few short years away. And that’s what they were called; discos. No one referred to them as “disco bars.”
All of this contributes in dragging down a story that takes far too long to get to its ending. The last thing a time travel book should do is waste a lot of what it’s traveling through. And the ending itself was half predictable with a dose of way too much sugar. I certainly wouldn’t say that Ms. Barenbaum is a bad writer. I found some of her characters compelling, and I felt that she captured the stifling oppression of the Soviet Union in all its gray paranoia. But the shoddy time travel story had me checking my watch. My Mickey Mouse watch. Look it up while you’re traveling back to watch Howdy Doody.

[Matthew Galloway · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of those book that ramped up to about four stars early on, but once it reached the end I was pretty disgusted with it. It explores a lot of interesting topics and ideas -- from clever layering of time travel jumps to postpartum depression, complicated family relationships, prejudice against immigrants, gaslighting and emotional abuse, and so on. It brings up many ethical conundrums -- do you save who is here or a zillion people from the past? Should you change the past at all -- even major tragedies -- when you have no idea how that will affect the future? And then... The novel takes a huge nose dive when it says it doesn't care about all those things and, perhaps, none of it matters (including the gaslighting and depression) because... LOVE. And that blood ties are all that matter. Plus we can throw in some stereotyping about another country that some simple research could have cleared up quick. I honestly found the end of the novel kind of gross in how it washed away all their real world problems... and in how this one major character who seemed to cause a bunch of issues because of her holier-than-thou attitude apparently is just right. Barf.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this from a Goodreads giveaway in exchange for an honest review.
Anna Berkova is a brilliant nuclear scientist in the Soviet Union. Having had a large role in developing the technology for Chernobyl, she is obsessed with what she could have done to prevent the meltdown in 1986. When the reactor meltdown occurs, Anna is sent through time to the future, where she encounters her daughter about to die. Having developed a time machine, she makes multiple trips in an attempt to prevent the Chernobyl disaster. She is also seeking to change the coarse of her family's futures for the bad choices that were made. But is it morally right to create and use a time machine as questioned here: "it would be used as a weapon and kill countless people. Think about it; by changing lives in the past, you'd erase people today. In an altered timeline, their parents might never meet. Then they'd never be born. Who judges what to change and what to keep?"
An interesting multi-generational story of family filled with suspense, romance, and the consequences of "playing God". It started out a bit slow, but gained intensity and became hard to put down.

[Guylou (Two Dogs and a Book) · Rating 4 out of 5]

📚 Hello Book Friends! What do four generations of exceptional women, a time machine, a comic strip, and the Chernobyl disaster have in common? They are the premises of ATOMIC ANNA by Rachel Barenbaum. In 1986, Anna is a brilliant Russian scientist, but she is haunted by her mother’s abandonment, and her abandonment of her own daughter. While working in Chernobyl on her time travel theory, she experienced her first jump in time at the exact moment the nuclear reactor melted. She is propelled in the future and faces the daughter she gave away a long time ago. This encounter will incite Anna to travel through time to alter the future to save her family or save the people of Chernobyl. Will she succeed or make things worse? You have to read this brilliant book to find out.

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[Stacy40pages · Rating 4 out of 5]

Atomic Anna by Rachel Barenbaum. Thanks to @grandcentralpub for the gifted Arc ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

In a journey through decades, we meet Anna who was involved in Chernobyl’s reactor, her daughter Molly coming of age in the 60’s and getting drawn into drugs, and Molly’s daughter Raisa, lonely and a genius with math.

I love a good time travel book. However I’m not very scientific, so it has to stay light in the tech area. This one was perfectly done. I was so invested in the story and characters that I was all about the science aspect as well (which as lightly done). I love how we got to know generations of the same family, in two different countries and with differing troubles. The ending seemed to happen pretty fast, especially for a lengthy book, but I was very satisfied.

“There was no correct time - only relative time, which meant the present, past, and future were blurred.”

Atomic Anna comes out 4/5.

[enchantingprose · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is phenomenal. The storyline captivated me from page one and I just could not put it down. It became my obsession for 2 days.

The writing is so poignant and elaborate. This was a huge task to be a novel about historical fiction, coming of age and a bit of sci-fi with the time machine part. It all worked together like a perfect cocktail. This book is 400 + pages but so fast paced it basically goes by on a blink of the eye.

I loved all the characters. My main gals are flawed, raw and perfect.

I feel like maybe the writer has mom issues ? With all the need of hearing someone say I’m proud of you. But that’s neither here or there. Read this book if you need a change from your usual.

This book is a smash hit.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Atomic Anna has a great concept: a Soviet atomic scientist named Anna accidentally discovers time travel during the Chernobyl disaster. She uses this discovery to visit her estranged American daughter and grand-daughter, who gradually work out what's going on. Unfortunately I found the execution disappointing. The depiction of the USSR is simply not convincing. I winced when the phrase, "But here's the thing," was used in 1943 Moscow, then was utterly incredulous when someone says that Stalin, "murdered millions" to an NKVD agent in the late 1940s. I'm pretty sure that wasn't common knowledge until well after Stalin's death and also that even being accused of criticising him in such a way would have got you a one way ticket to the gulags! This anachronistic style reminded me of Natasha Pulley's novels, particularly The Half Life of Valery K as that's set in the USSR and deals with nuclear power. Pulley gets away with it by also throwing in plenty of charming whimsy, however Atomic Anna has a grittier tone that made it very hard to overlook. The narrative structure, which jumps backward and forward in time, would also have worked better had the decades sounded different from one another.

The other major difficulty I found with appreciating Atomic Anna is that Anna's family drama is supposed to be more interesting than the Chernobyl disaster. Indeed, Anna is repeatedly told, in subtext and actual text, to use her time machine to look after family rather than saving Chernobyl. This was not what I expected or wanted from the novel. I was hoping for some examination of how difficult it would have been for one person with a time machine to prevent the disaster, the potential to inadvertently make it a lot worse (if Chernobyl had exploded most of Europe would be uninhabitable), and whether the fall of the USSR would be delayed/prevented if it didn't happen. After reading Svetlana Alexievich's incredible Chernobyl Prayer: Voices from Chernobyl, it was a shame to find this catastrophe treated as a shallow plot device. Neither was there any of the creeping terror of radiation poisoning that worked well in The Half Life of Valery K. I assumed Molly's frequently-mentioned digestive ailment would be radiation or time travel related, but this was never explained so presumably it was Anxiety Stomach.

I initially thought to give Atomic Anna three stars, but reviewing it has resulted in revising this down to two. Part of this is undoubtedly my expectations not matching the novel itself; another part is unconvincing and anachronistic writing. The sci-fi world-building also had its flaws. It seemed like Anna's machine jumped between alternate timelines, but the narrative was more focused on the theory than the practice of time travel. Some rules were set out, however this was among the less satisfactory time travel depictions I've come across. Perhaps the clincher was the ending, which expected me to care about Anna, Molly, and Raisa rather than everyone who suffered as a result of Chernobyl. I did not find them convincing or appealing enough characters for that to be the case, thus was disappointed. My expectations were quite high, but I don't think they were wholly unreasonable given the promising blurb.

[Clued-in With A Book (Elvina Ulrich) · Rating 5 out of 5]

What It's About: In 1986, renowned nuclear scientist, Anna Berkova, inadvertently makes her first jump and travels to 1992, during the Chernobyl reactor meltdown. She sees her daughter Molly bleeding out from a gunshot wound and with her dying breath begs Anna to go back in time to prevent the disaster and change their family's past.

My thoughts: I have to admit that I am a sucker for time travel stories although I don’t often read sci-fi books! There is just something about time traveling that I love so much since I was a kid. So, naturally this book grabbed my attention and I loved it so much! It was better than what I expected! It was so well-written and well-plotted with three strong female protagonists - I couldn't ask for more!

This story navigates through the POVs of Anna, Molly and Raisa in their respective timelines. I loved all the POV equally. Their individual stories in their timelines are all unique and different and I loved how all tied up nicely in the end and made sense!

Now I am not a science person but the author's explanation on the time travel theory is easy for me to understand. I really appreciate that!

I also loved how instead of chapters, this story has nine different parts and each part has a saying/teaching from Pirket Avot (Chapters of the Fathers) which is a compilation of Jewish ethical teachings and maxims, and it ties in with what that part of story is about. My favourite is, "Do not judge your fellow man until you have been in his position."

In a nutshell, regardless if sci-fi is your genre, you do not want to miss out on this book! It has a bit of everything - historical fiction, sci-fi, mystery, and thriller. It is a book about family, friendships, redemption, sacrifice and choices - a book that will tug at your heartstrings!

***Thank you Grand Central Publishing for this gifted ARC copy. All opinions expressed are my own.***

[Skip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having enjoyed Barenbaum's first novel, A Bend in the Stars, I was excited to read her new novel. Her hallmark is mixing family drama, science, and history in a creative way.

Anna Berkova is a famous nuclear scientist in Russia, but her safety systems fail, leading to the catastrophic Chernobyl reactor meltdown. Anna's brilliance allows her to develop a time machine, and she dedicates herself to avoiding the disaster. Meanwhile, she cannot handle the stress of her personal life and sends her young daughter (Manya/Molly) to America with her BFF. Molly struggles in America, especially her feelings of abandonment and falls for a gangster, who believes in her comic book talents. Things go badly for Molly and her now husband, and their brilliant daughter, Raisa, whose immense talent in science is like her grandmother, Atomic Anna. As the books skips back and forth in time travelling segments, Anna finds herself in her science lair on Mount Aragats with Molly, who is dying from a gunshot wound and who begs her to go back in time to save Raisa. Anna is forced to decide whether her family is more or less important than preventing Chernobyl. A touching story of three generations of women in Russia and Philadelphia' Little Russia. Recommended.

[Christie«SHBBblogger» · Rating 3 out of 5]

Title: Atomic Anna
Series: standalone
Author: Rachel Barenbaum
Release date: April 5, 2022
Cliffhanger: no
Genre: historical fiction, time travel

As a huge fan of Rachel Barenbaum's A Bend in the Stars, I probably would have been excited to read her follow up regardless of what the plot happened to be. I was extremely impressed with her writing and was already looking forward to seeing what she came out with next. Then I read the synopsis for Atomic Anna and this book became one of my most anticipated reads this year. Why? Because I'm kind of obsessed with time travel novels and there aren't nearly enough out there for me to get my hands on. Beyond that, what really excited me was the prospect of weaving multi-generational female family relationships into that time travel plot. How would time travel help or hinder these women's relationships? Their careers, personal lives, their personal demons? Anna made a lot of bad choices that affected her own personal happiness as well as the generations to follow. The question was whether or not she could pinpoint where so much began to go wrong and reverse it before it even happens.

I'm going to be real when it comes to my feelings about Anna. She was a brilliant woman academically, but when it came to her personal life, she was hopeless. I had a really difficult time liking her for the majority of the book. I admired her intelligence and strength of spirit, however, she was quite selfish in many ways which made it really hard to feel an attachment to her. There were many points of view in this novel, but Anna's is really the central point to everything. Anna's mistakes in regards to her husband Yasha, and their child Molly would ruin so many lives. Yulia and Lazar contributed by being secretive and controlling with Molly causing her to spiral down into addiction, which in turn led her own daughter to suffer because of it. While I did sympathize about Anna's experiences leading up to this, because of the way the storyline is set up, Anna doesn't really go through a gradual progression of enlightenment. She tries to fix things without digging very deeply within herself for the answers, and because of that always seems to fall short of making significant progress. It happens all at once, at the climax of the story, so things felt quite rushed in that regard.

Anna's daughter Molly grows up in America, but she doesn't feel at home there. She's too American to be Russian like Yulia and Lazar who raised her, and she's too Russian to acclimate with the other kids in her school. She loses herself in her art and rebels against the traditional, boring boundaries her parents try to keep her in. If there was any kind of communication and honesty between them, so much could have been avoided. She feels unsupported and unloved and goes looking for it in the worst place possible. From Molly's chapters, you witness so many mistakes on her part you just want to shake her. And that brings us to Raisa, my favorite character of the book.

Raisa was brilliant like her grandmother, but unlike Anna, she was not at the root of the disastrous events in her life. She suffered because of her mother and grandmother, none of it was from her own making. She was a genius, really, and deserved the chance for the bright future she had every capability of achieving. Out of the three women, she was also the only one to have a healthy romantic relationship instead of a toxic one. Raisa had a maturity about her that was so refreshing to read, and I realized I was looking forward to reading her chapters the most. I loved seeing her sweet relationship with Daniel develop, as well as watching her forge a path back to her mother and grandmother before the conclusion.

I thought that the plot was very intricate and it all came together in the end, however it became somewhat chaotic with the different POV switches, multiple timelines, and alternate realities. This book is the opposite of linear. It's kind of a jumbled, jarring, knot of time that you have to pick apart one tiny, twisted piece at a time. That may not be a downside for some readers, but for me personally it caused my reading pace to lag at times. Overall, I did enjoy Barenbaum's writing style once again, and she impressed me with her very original story. It's definitely unlike any other time travel book I've read before so it gets major points for that. I'm very excited to see where this author takes us in the future.

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[Almira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Science fiction is not a genre I normally read, however, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and then the Russians overtaking the Chernobyl nuclear power plant early in the war (2022), this book appeared with the Chernobyl connection, I thought it would be interesting to read.
I do remember the "meltdown" of the Number 4 reactor in 1986.

As this was also a time travel with the Russian woman who "created" the nuclear chain, leading to the disaster, wanting to travel back to 1986 to stop the event from happening, I wondered IF the author might have backed herself into a corner - after all, the event did happen, and undoing it would have been very interesting.
I didn't have a clue as to how she was going to justify an appropriate ending.
But she did, and I was pleased with the outcome.

[Elizabeth Shelburne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely *love* this book! Barenbaum has written a stunning epic about three generations of time-traveling women using their heads and their hearts to change their lives and the history of the world. This is a gorgeously-written story of family, science, love, and an abiding faith in something better. I can't wait to recommend ATOMIC ANNA to every reader I know!

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thrilling, whiz-bang time travel courtesy of three generations of passionate, genius women—each blinded at times by ambition, fear, resentment, and regret— who must collaborate over time and distance to stop disaster on the large scale and within their own troubled family. A stunning, wild ride!

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took far too long to read this, yeesh. Though I don’t quite know, had I wrapped things up sooner, if I’d like the book better or worse. I think I’ll give it a low four.

This is a book about family and second chances. And also Russia/the USSR and science; a fascination with Einstein’s work and the use of gravity ties this in, a bit, with Berenbaum’s first novel, A BEND IN THE STARS. Here, she’s using electromagnetism and other concepts that shout “science!” to me to posit the idea of a time machine that even I can understand is a bit bogus. :P Even if the phrasing makes me, a complete ignoramus, wonder if this is how a nuclear engineer might see the world. But anywho.

I’d say the specifics of time travel aren’t exactly the point, except that Anna and later her descendants have to devote a lot of time to fixing the device. Anna and her granddaughter, Raisa, are indeed very motivated by their work. But I’d also say they’re more motivated by their family—saving it or confronting it. And Anna’s work arguably has as much to do with the atomic bomb (see the title?) and Chernobyl as it does with her secret pet project of time travel.

So, to recap (though as a time travel book, it ain’t linear!): the nuclear reactor meltdown at Chernobyl in 1986 sends Anna, one of its chief scientists, spiraling through time until she reaches a remote, wintry facility in 1992. Inside, she finds her estranged daughter dying of a gunshot wound, and she makes her mother promise to save her daughter.

Returning to the site of Chernobyl, Anna finds herself on the run lest she be held wholly accountable for the meltdown. She finds her way back to the remote outpost, with which she has some past history, and starts work on her time machine. She wants to save her daughter, Molly, her granddaughter, Raisa, oh, and stop the Chernobyl catastrophe from occurring.

Berenbaum labels all her chapters by their relation to Molly’s death day. There’s the “present” day storyline, where Anna works on her time machine and in fact changes some history along the way through her jumps. Then there’s the past narrations, where we get to know about Anna, Molly and Raisa’s formative experiences in a way that doesn’t feel like backstory, cos, yanno, time jumps. :P Convenient that way.

There’s a lot in this novel about family trauma and addiction and, of course, major geo-political realities. It also touches upon Jewish identity and antisemitism in the USSR, similar to how Berenbaum’s first book did with regards to the end of Imperial Russia. One thing I didn’t mention in my review of A BEND IN THE STARS is how the author started all of her acts with seasonal quotes about the Jewish year, meant to complement the straightforward time frame of that book. Here, she quotes segments of Pirkei Avot, aka the Wisdom of the Fathers, aka ethical teachings from the rabbis. This is meant to hue to Anna’s arc—both in her work of creating weapons of mass destruction, and also the questions she asks herself about who she can save.

I felt for the characters, but with the pressing nature of the time machine plot, their arcs were too fleeting. Anna’s shifting perception of the USSR definitely didn’t have enough time to grow. I probably liked Molly’s backstory arc the best—her frustration with her (adoptive) parents in the U.S., her drug addiction, her devotion to her art and the familial-to-geopolitical questions it posed. With Raisa we get to see how these issues are passed down—parenting issues seeing as Molly was absent most of Raisa’s life, and scientific genius from Anna.

There’s some talk with deconstruction and degenerative properties with the time machine, so I’ll transition into a metaphor here: I couldn’t buy what Berenbaum and Anna were selling about stopping Chernobyl. It’s way too easy a fix, though perhaps appropriate in a novel that is named for a fake comic book. :P But seriously, I couldn’t suspend my disbelief. (To spoil things a bit: the endgame of this book, aka when we get a look at the final timeline, doesn’t reference whether Chernobyl still happened, so.)

So I guess it goes back to the family bit, and whether I believe Anna would put herself through a degenerative process to “save” them. Maybe I wish there was more talk about how difficult it is to save people, even with a time machine. Maybe that would be too on the nose. The ending is more about Anna confronting her own past than that of her descendants, which I really liked. Maybe my struggle, as it often is with literature, is about the blending of genres. My science fiction-loving mind wants the time machine to be more explored in worldbuilding. My literary fiction mind wants the characters to be much more fleshed out. And the me on BookTube who decided this novel was “historical fiction” is kinda rolling my eyes. Maybe if the geopolitics of the USSR played a bigger role, a la THE PATRIOTS by Sana Krasikov. And I still remember falling hard for those familiarly-related characters!

Still, having read this author’s two novels, I sense intriguing themes? Will she write more about scientific genius in her next book? Russian history? Jewish families? And will I pick up her next work? Guess TIME will tell /bad pun we’ll have to see!

[Kristenelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is easily the most enjoyable book I've read in a long time. I think this is my favorite scifi book released in 2022. It is definitely going on my Hugo ballot.

The scifi element in this book is time travel. It is super fun. There is some talk about waves and gravitons and nuclear power. But, ultimately, this is a story about family and trauma and redemption. It is beautiful.

It almost feels like historical fiction because much of it is set in the past due to the time travel. We are following three generations of Russian Jewish women. The oldest generation was a Soviet scientist who worked on designing Chernobyl and then witnessed its meltdown. The "present" in the story is in the 1990s.

This story wholly engrossed me. I cared deeply for all of the characters and felt all their joys, devastations, and hopes. The history and science was fascinating.

I listened to the audio which was wonderful.

[Ric · Rating 4 out of 5]

A time travel story that centers around the Chernobyl disaster? Sounds great to me and you know, it was pretty good. The problem was that it was only pretty good because it was way longer than it needed to be. There were a lot of times in this book that the story just dragged on and felt so slow and boring. I enjoyed the family drama that was the main story of this book though, and the POVs that we followed through the story were great. My favorite was probably Raisa, but all of them were good. The time travel mechanics were a little weird but all in all this was a fun book, just not quite as fun as I thought it would be going into it.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a thoroughly entertaining historical fiction, intergenerational family story with a time travel plot. Told from the perspective of three incredibly smart women whose lives are intertwined in ways we only fully discover as the story unfolds.

Anna is one of the nuclear scientists responsible for building Chernobyl and when the reactor goes of in 1986 she feels forever guilty, becoming obsessed with finding a way to go back in time and prevent the disaster.

In the meantime Molly is growing up in 1960s America being raised by Russian immigrants. A troubled teen, Molly just wants to pursue her art and her life gets off track when she falls in love and runs away with a drug dealer. Addicted to drugs and alcohol Molly ends up pregnant, scared and afraid she won't be able to stay sober, so she returns home to her parents to give birth to the baby.

When Raisa is born things are going well for the first few years until her father shows up again, dragging Molly back into the life she fought so hard to escape. In one timeline Raisa ends up in foster care, yet with intervention from Anna, she gets another chance and is able to grow up as a teen math prodigy.

The way these three stories came together at the end kept me on the edge of my seat. This book is perfect for fans of the tv show Timeless or The time traveler's wife. Great on audio with a full cast narration, including Natalie Naudus. Highly recommended and I can 't wait to read the author's debut novel next. I couldn't put this book down, even with its substantial length, I didn't get bored for a minute!

CW: drug addition, death of loved ones, parental imprisonment, parental abandonment

[Jessi - TheRoughCutEdge · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

If you could go back in time and change an event, would you? That’s the basic premise of this story. The idea is to find a way to travel back in time and fix two pivotal mistakes. The big questions are, what else changes when one adjustment is made, and is it worth it?

Okay, I can see some people really enjoying this one. It has a lot going on and some good stories within the story.

However, I struggled with 75% of the it. So much was happening, so many different timelines with some convergence but it had me constantly wondering where it was going and if it would ever truly make sense. It did, but it took A LOT to get there. There was also a fun comic book aspect that had serious potential but went no where.

I respect the complexity of writing that went into this, it just didn’t fit well with my reading style.

Thanks to Grand Central Publishing for the gifted advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Kelly Ford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved Rachel’s debut, and her second novel delivers the same excitement and page-turning experience. A juicy and epic—yet intimate! How does she do it??—tale with time travel, family, intrigue, Philly, Chernobyl, romance (y’all know I love it), and women in STEM. 💪 And also, COMICS! I LOVED this book. SO GOOD.

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for allowing me to read this ARC!

Content Warning: death (including that of children), murder, violence, alcoholism, drug addiction, anti-Semitism, misogyny, sexual harassment, war, homophobia (mentioned).


Anna Berkova is a famous nuclear scientist, the brilliant mind who created Chernobyl and its reactors, and in 1986, she is sleeping peacefully in her bed. When the reactor melts down, causing one of humanity's greatest catastrophes, Anna also accidentally jumps through time. She finds herself on Mount Aragats in 1992, and her daughter, Molly -- dying from a gunshot wound. Molly begs her to go back in time and save Anna's granddaughter, Raisa, from whatever unfortunate future is coming for her. Exploring Anna's life as she goes from wartime Berlin to making nuclear weapons back in the USSR, Molly's as she grows up in 1960s' Philadelphia drawing comics and falling for a gangster who will make her life hell, and Raisa's as she tries to come to terms with her family's past, present and future, all three women will be forced together in the hopes of preventing total disaster -- Chernobyl's, and their family's.

What a powerful, moving novel! I've had some rough reading patches this year, especially with ones I've been eagerly waiting for, so I was so happy to find that Atomic Anna struck all the right notes for me. At its heart, this story tells the history of a family in all its bloody secrets, love and drama, but it also takes a look at life for Soviet women -- both those who remained in the USSR, and those who left. From the very first page, I was spellbound, intrigued by the time travel questions that have captivated human minds for centuries: if you can change something, does that mean you should?

The three main women are all fully-fleshed out, with an authenticity that makes their chapters all equally enchanting. I liked the mixture of historical detail with science, and I felt that Barenbaum seamlessly joined those two different elements together. Out of all three, Raisa is probably my favorite, although I have a soft spot for them all; there were elements of their personalities that were similar, a sort of passing down of strength and intelligence, but also things that set them apart from one another. Raisa has such a powerful voice, and I loved that in spite of her family's complicated past, she fights to both understand it and also to not let it change the person that she is.

As someone who has only a rudimentary grasp of math (and who it does not come easily for), I really enjoyed living through the minds of these scientific women who rose above in their determination to understand the world and ask difficult questions. The writing is simple, distinct, and makes it easy to fly through page after page. This is not Barenbaum's first novel, and I certainly will now be going back to pick up her debut. I think all of us are fascinated by time travel -- how could we not be? Regret is one of the most fundamental human emotions, and aren't there so many moments where we wish we could turn back the clock? The ideas Barenbaum expands on are beautifully done, questioning the morality of nuclear science and the ethics of changing even the smallest events of the past.

The inclusion of their family's Jewish religion and culture was wonderful. They struggle with it and what it means for them, in times and places where being Jewish is enough to end their lives completely and totally, loving, hating and questioning it in equal measure. The Jewishness of this book is a core element, unable to be extracted from its Russianness or Americanness or female-focus. There are Shabbat dinners, discussion of what it means to be Jewish, bar mitzvahs, the lurking horror of memories of pogroms and destruction. Perhaps it sounds simple, clichéd, but it's beautiful. I applaud Barenbaum for the love and hope in this book, even as it remembers and discusses darkness and fear.

It is, perhaps, timely that this novel is coming out now, when we are recalling Russia's past and also fearful for its present and the future Putin is creating. While we fight for the Ukraine and the voices of Ukrainians, it's important to remember that there are Russians also fighting against this act of cruelty and inhumanity -- just as people rose up against the Soviet regime not so very long ago.

Highly recommended, and in particular, recommended for mothers and daughters.

[Edens Book Den · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the authors first book, A Bend in the Stars. It’s so beautifully written and the story is captivating. When I saw the author had a new book coming out I knew I had to read this. Atomic Anna opens with an incredible prologue! Anna, who is a Russian scientist, time jumps at the exact moment Chernobyl explodes. When she comes to, she is lying on a mountainside in the snow. She sees a cabin in the distance that has a slight familiarity to it, but she also senses danger. As Anna enters the cabin and goes deeper inside, she sees blood and someone lying on the floor. She’s alive, but she’s been shot. To Anna’s shock the woman claims she’s her daughter, Molly. Anna is confused, but upon seeing a family heirloom on Molly, she knows it must be true. Her dying daughter then proceeds to tell her, “You must change things,” that “They failed,” and that Anna has to “Save her granddaughter.”

I was riveted from the beginning! It felt like a mix of the tv show The Americans meets Timeline. Time jumps/ time travel, lots of family secrets, science, and espionage. There were a few main characters and their decisions that had me so frustrated. I’m leaving that information vague because there are so many twists and turns you need to just start reading and enjoy the story. The timeline runs over most of the 20th century so there are many different story arcs to the characters. This is a very somber read and at times heartbreaking too. It does have a satisfying ending.

The one drawback and the reason for the 4 stars and not 5 is we are sometimes being told of events that took place. I would prefer to have the feeling of experiencing each specific event with the characters. It’s a minor thing since the story is never boring or dull, but I really wanted more of each event and timeline.
I did feel like this book could have definitely been turned into a series of books. I cannot deny the way the story is weaved and told is just brilliant. 4/5 stars!

I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

[Janine Ballard · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at 28%.

Atomic Anna is a science fiction saga dealing with time travel, Chernobyl, World War II, and the second half of the 20th century, as well as what is owed to family vs. what is owed to society.


Anna Berkova is a Russian physicist who designed the safety procedures at Chernobyl. The book begins in 1986 with the Chernobyl disaster, which activates a time travel device she once built but never figured out how to use. Anna travels six years into the future and lands at a research facility that was, she later learns, secretly built for her by her former lover, a man named Yasha. Manya aka Molly, the daughter Anna gave up as a baby or young child (I didn’t get far enough to learn exactly how Molly was when this happened) and sent to the US with friends, is there, an adult, shot and bleeding to death.

Molly tells Anna that their granddaughter/daughter, Raisa, can be saved if the Chernobyl disaster is averted—something they have already tried to do once and failed. A couple of hours later Anna travels back to her time and home. She is horrified to witness the disaster, uncomprehending of how her safety procedures could have failed, and stricken with guilt. Since she designed Chernobyl, she also has to escape or she’ll be made an example of, and she finds the same research facility where she met Molly and holes up there with only a caretaker for company.

Interspersed with the chapters about Anna are others about Molly’s childhood and teen years as she grows up in 1960s Philadelphia. Molly knows she was born to Anna, whom she doesn’t remember, but her loving parents, Yulia and Lazar, won’t tell her much more than this about her origins (I wondered how she learned Anna existed, give all their other secrecy about Anna). Molly eavesdrops on them when she is ten or so and learns that Anna designed the Russian atom bomb.

Molly, who already loves comics, begins writing and illustrating a comic book called Atomic Anna, where superhero Anna saves the world. It’s her way of denying the horrible truth she learned about her biological mother. Molly also has recurrent stomach pains (I wondered if this had something to do with exposure to radiation as a baby, but it wasn’t answered in the section I read) and is a bit of an outcast at school during her teen years. When Viktor, a shady but glamorous man in his mid-twenties begins to court eighteen-year-old Molly, she ignores some red flags and the warnings of her parents because she likes his attention so much.

Meanwhile, in Russia, Anna works obsessively toward the goal of preventing the Chernobyl tragedy by researching and experimenting with time travel. Flashbacks also take us back to World War II and the beginnings of her friendship with Yulia and later Lazar, as well as her decision to work on the atomic bomb to stop Hitler (Anna is Jewish). Eventually an experience the older Anna has with time travel changes her timeline and she learns more about Molly’s life. She decides her to veer from her goal of preventing Chernobyl and instead go and help Molly who is in a difficult situation.

Atomic Anna has an interesting concept, but I found the writing rote and the characters kind of flat. Anna wasn’t that likable and neither is Molly. I didn’t feel an emotional tug to draw me into their stories. Dark events kept happening and there was foreshadowing of more to come. That was one of the reasons I quit.

I only made it 28% into the book but for those readers who are interested in reading the book, I’ll mention that there’s a queer element—Anna is attracted to Yulia as well as to Yasha (Molly’s biological father). I didn’t think her attraction to Yulia would go anywhere, though. Yulia loves Lazar and he is a good person. I also didn’t sense that Yulia was attracted to Anna or to any other woman. This book isn’t a romance.

For me, the ineffectiveness of Atomic Anna also has to do with the fact that I remember the Chernobyl disaster. It happened in my lifetime and this feels too soon for an alternate universe account and a treatment that seems a little superficial. My dad is a physicist and that probably made some of the made-up physics in this book a little hard to go with, too. Anyhow, this is a DNF.

[Zibby Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Atomic Anna is the story of three generations of women from one family who work together and build a time machine to stop Chernobyl. It's also about healing relationships and going back to find a way forward. The book brings up many questions: how do you heal a mother-daughter relationship? How do you find love? And, how do you find that future that you want?

The time machine element of this story reminded me of Back to the Future, only in Chernobyl-style. The book dives into the moral and ethical question around controlling time, "If we could go back and change time, should we?" I also loved how the women got so much agency. Anna makes a whole Marvel creature align with Atomic Anna as a superstar, which is how she exerts control over the uncontrollable universe around her.

To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/rac...