violet’s Reviews > Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster > Status Update

this reads so much like a dystopian novel because the amount of work and effort and sacrifices that were made seemed like something that should have been taught in school or at least public knowledge, but it isn't!! so many heroic souls forgotten and buried (literally and figuratively) under the secretive government

wow the iron curtain really earned its name here bc the secrecy and denial in the face of a radiological disaster is insane to fathom??? the ussr: a tiny inconsequential accident happened, 2 dead, more coming, but no worries we got this. the new york times: 2000 dead in chernobyl!! nukemare!!! all of europe is in danger of being radioactive!!!!

holy shit how many officials and titles were there??? the author is doing his best to distinguish them and remind me who they were but the number of departments and committees..

yo ... turns out i'm familiar with the soviet flavour of communism and marx-leninism because i grew up surrounded by a very similar system (that's unashamedly inspired by the soviet union ofc)! wait we have that, wait that is a major problem with our bureaucracy too, wait the Party also has that influence, wait our mindset yadayadayada 😭

i loved both the hbo series and the accompanying podcast, which was how i found out about this book so im expecting this to be a very good read