First Thoughts
I went on a nonfiction phase for a while and requested quite a few nonfiction books on Netgalley. This was one of them because it combined my interest of nonfiction and my love for Russian history. If you do not all know, I am a fan of Russian history. I prefer tsarist Russia (so like Catherine the Great and Tsar Nicholas Romanov) but I’ll take any Russian history and I’ve always been interested in the Chernobyl incident since I watched the Chernobyl Diaries. This book piqued my interest for sure.

Readability
One of the first things I look for in nonfiction books is readability. If the book isn't easily understood then I’m not going to enjoy it no matter how interest the subject of the book may be. This book was pretty easy to read for the most part. It lost me here and there with the science aspects but honestly that’s to be expected with me. I also had a bit of trouble pronouncing the Russian names and keeping them all straight.

Content
Normally, I would put plot here but with nonfiction books there isn’t really a plot. The content was incredibly insightful. No stone was left unturned and everything was discussed. I’m honestly surprised that things were not worse considering just how much secrecy was going on.

I mean honestly. The Russians were so secretive about everything even though things were happening outside the country and the Russians were like “NOPE! Nothing to see here!” it was beyond frustrating to read. People were getting incredibly sick and no one beside government officials knew why. I was just seeing red during that part of the book.

Trigger Warnings
The trigger warning here aren't too terrible. It’s mostly graphic descriptions of burns and injuries that are bound to come with nuclear activity. It's sprinkled throughout the book as the author keeps checking up on the people who were injured. There is also trigger warnings for death.

Final Thoughts
Overall, this was fantastic. I learned quite a bit about this incident. I also learned about radioactivity and how dangerous it is. I will certainly be checking out more from this author and more about this incident.

Amazingly detailed and eye opening MIDNIGHT IN CHERNOBYL, by Adam Higginbotham, tells the fascinating story of that unforgettable night in 1986 when our world changed forever. Higginbotham sets up the incident by describing how nuclear power symbolized strength and technological advancement to the USSR during the Cold War and how the USSR went to great lengths to hide its faults, accidents, and/or errors in judgment when painting their image of nuclear domination. That style of strong image versus weaker reality was used throughout USSR in every aspect. When the Chernobyl event happened, it triggered a series of events that eventually toppled the USSR powerhouse and Higginbotham presents a clear case that Chernobyl was to first step in that collapse.
Higginbotham follows many people throughout the book, from the mayor and town planners of Pripyat (the town created to support the nuclear plant), to some of the wives that had to deal with leaving their homes without knowing the status of their husbands, to the firefighters and pilots as part of the effort to stop further calamities once the initial meltdown occurred. The most interesting, though, was the mid and upper management people Higginbotham wrote about and how their fates varied depending direct involvement, level of responsibility, whether they worked at the plant or were scientists that helped design the plant. The governmental fallout was equally interesting to read about and Higginbotham did a good job looking at the issues from both sides and described in wonderful detail how each side (the operators of the plant versus the scientists who designed the plant) was constantly pointing fingers at each other and pushing blame back and forth.
Enlightened and educated are the words I use when describing the impact that MIDNIGHT IN CHERNOBYL had on me when I finished reading the book. This book really cleared up many of my misunderstandings regarding the events leading up to the meltdown, the meltdown itself, and the aftermath.

This book is spectacular. One of the things I really appreciate about this book is how well it balances the many competing narratives---not only what was going on at the reactor site, but also in the town, in the Politburo, and in the many different Soviet offices that had a part to play in the story. It's all juggled with amazing dexterity. It's highly readable, making the science feel easy to understand. I appreciated how people who came back into the story were tagged with a reminder about who they were. Everything about the book is clear and easy to understand---which is no mean feat given the complexity of the material.

The only thing I was really curious about was that it didn't mention the helicopter that crashed, which is just one of those unbelievable parts of the story. In fact, because it wasn't in the book, I looked it up to see if my memory of it was faulty. It seemed like a weird oversight since the book is so comprehensive about the many struggles to clean up the site in the months after the explosion.

Overall, this is an excellent read and I highly recommend it. I definitely will buy a physical copy of this book when it comes out. I'm curious to spend more time with the notes section. Or to see if there will be additional items such as maps, charts, lists of the dead, etc. I find all that pretty difficult to navigate in an ARC.

Brillant work, Mr. Higginbotham! This will be the definitive and most comprehensive book on the Chernobyl disaster. This was very well-written, thoroughly researched and, despite being very detailed and technical at times, is very easily read.

Thank you, Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an ARC of this wonderful book!

A well researched story about the meltdown of at the Chernobyl Nuclear power plant. well written though somewhat hard to read at times, I fell it would be perfect for anyone interested in the event or in the nuclear field in general

historical-places-events, historical-research, historical-figures, nonfiction, Russia, nuclear-reactor

Worse than Three Mile Island in 1979 or Fukushima in 2011 was the disaster in Chernobyl in 1986. I have seen and read about the aftereffects on flora, fauna, people, land/water, and atmosphere for these past thirty years but nothing trustworthy about the causes and government response. This book does that, and its veracity is apparent by the amount of obsessive research in printed records and eyewitness accounts. Some aspects are best understood by nuclear physicists, but a little creative eyerolling is not a bad thing in such cases. The magnitude of incompetence tolerated and the political fallout, however, is easily understood by most of us.
For me, it was a Must Read, and I am thankful that I had the opportunity.
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Simon and Schuster Publishing via NetGalley. Thank you!

A very comprehensive story about the meltdown of reactor 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear power plant. It must have taken many long years of research to put together this book that reads like a novel at some points. As I read this, I could not comprehend how a country as vast and supposedly modern as Russia was could inculcate this level of dysfunction from the top of nuclear industry and have it permeate throughout. Almost everything that could go wrong to lead to a disaster of this magnitude went wrong from design flaws to shortcuts to untrained people in important positions, Chernobyl never had a chance. . It is a long book but Chernobyl has always interested me and I am glad to have read this story. If you have any interest in this story at all, pick up this book. You will not be disappointed.
Thank you Netgalley, Adam Higginbotham and Simon & Schuster for the ARC for my unbiased review.

Thanks to Simon and Schuster and Netgalley for the ARC of this title. I thought this was well-researched and interesting, and I felt my time was well-spent reading it. I think this title has a limited audience though; there’s not enough to grab the general reading public. I would recommend it to friends who have worked in the nuclear field.

Absolutely amazing read about this very real, terrible disaster. I was a child when this terrible event happened, so it was a fascinating read to me to fill in blanks on what I thought I knew. Amazingly comprehensive book, the author really digs deep on all the facts and builds a book that I highly recommend to everyone. Thank you for the chance to have an advanced read.