Time Travel, Nuclear Science, Family Saga

Atomic Anna is a thought-provoking and emotionally resonant novel that melds historical fiction with speculative elements. Rachel Barenbaum's intricate storytelling and well-developed characters make this book a compelling read for those interested in time travel, ethical dilemmas in science, and multi-generational family sagas.

Loved this one just as much as I loved A Bend in the Stars.
I have always wondered about Chernobyl and you don’t see many books on it. Well this is the perfect Historical Fiction.

I am a member of the American Library Association Reading List Award Committee. This title was suggested for the 2023 list. It was not nominated for the award. The complete list of winners and shortlisted titles is at <a href="https://rusaupdate.org/2023/01/2023-reading-list-announced-years-best-in-genre-fiction-for-adult-readers/">

DNF. I don't usually like historical fiction much, but I thought he sci fi elements and the fact it's about CHERNOBYL (sooo interesting!) would hook me. Alas...the pacing was slow. The characters, unlikable (just how I like them!) weren't easy for me to tell apart. I fumbled through this whole reading experience, and maybe that's my fault, but how did I get so bored reading a book about a nuclear disaster?! Just not a fave for me.

Three generations of women are trying to change the course of history in order to prevent a nuclear disaster in Chernobyl.

1986, Anna Berkova is a renowned nuclear scientist in the Soviet Union working in Chernobyl. In Philadelphia during the 60's Molly is growing up with secretive, protective parents. She finds solace in the world of comic books. She pens her own, which is where the name for the novel, Atomic Anna, is derived. During the 80's, Raisa is a math prodigy who comes across issues of Atomic Anna, that lead her on an unexpected path.

The novel is both a race against time, as the nuclear disaster is eminent, and a bending of time. A real page-turner, highly recommend!

I read Atomic Anna quite awhile ago. I enjoyed the strong women component. My memory is a bit fuzzy. What I recall is the story about a Russian scientist working at Cheryonobyl, in Ukraine during the real nuclear accident. Then she is transported back and forth in time and place from the Eastern block to the United States. to save her daughter, and grand daughter. Which is basically the entire book. Her Grand daughter loves drawing comic book characters. Who are strong women. The novel is unique, fascinating characters. I loved the book and will recommend to my friends, and anyone who will listen.

This book was so inventive -- impressive! I think the timing of publication was probably unfortunate... should have been more fun to read but, you know. The world.

I don't know why, but this wasn't doing anything big for me. Second round purchase at best for most collections,

One of my first sci-fi novels, but I heard so many great things I was excited to give it a try! This novel centers around Anna, a nuclear scientist who accidentally gets shot into the future and must make necessary changes to save her family - Molly and Raise. Everyone has an individual and unique story line and point of view on life, and it was great to see a sci-fi novel centered around women - rare! I did feel like this book had some slow parts that made it hard to push through, but this book is complex and it is evident a lot fo thought went into the writing of this book.

I will not be able to finish this book. I read the first half of it and it just did not interest me personally. It is a great book and well written, but just not for me

"Atomic Anna," by Rachel Barenbaum, is a saga that connects the lives of four fascinating women: Yulia Kramarova is a beautiful and passionate individual who, in the U. S. S. R., shares an apartment with a brilliant nuclear scientist, Anna Berkova. Anna's daughter, Manya (Molly), longs to be a professional cartoonist and draws female superheroes with amazing powers. Raisa, Molly's daughter, is a math prodigy like her grandmother. Anna, Molly, and Raisa face daunting challenges during their tumultuous lives. When the tragedy at Chernobyl occurs in 1986, Anna—the nuclear plant's chief engineer—is swept off her feet by the explosion and travels forward in time to 1992. What she sees upsets her greatly, and she begins to reconsider her decision to prioritize her loyalty to the Soviet Union and her professional responsibilities over her devotion to those who love and depend on her.

The author poignantly delves into the minds and hearts of her characters. She demonstrates that each person is a product of his or her genetic makeup and upbringing. Anna falls in love and has a baby girl, but she gives Molly to Yulia and her husband, Lazar, who sneak into America illegally. Molly pays tribute to her birth mother when she draws "Atomic Anna," and she hopes to make a living creating and selling her comic books. Yulia is a strict parent, but she is powerless to prevent Molly from behaving recklessly when a charming but irresponsible older man pursues her.

The most meaningful aspects of this ambitious novel are the complicated relationships that these women forge with one another and with the men in their lives. Although there is deep affection between them, there is also anger and miscommunication. The domestic dramas play out against the backdrop of a drab life of deprivation in the former Soviet Union as well as the struggles of Soviet Jews who try to start over in the United States. The time-travel aspect of the story does not work as well, since it is so strange and confusing. However, after reading "Atomic Anna," readers will ponder this thought-provoking dilemma: If time travel were indeed possible, what would be the consequences of trying to reshape events before they occur?

Truly an excellent story. A bit of mystery, history, sci-fi, family saga, friendship, and romance. Atomic Anna will appeal to readers of all interests. I was skeptical going in, but so happy to report that this has been one of my favorite reads this year.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing the opportunity to read and review this new release.

#netgalley. #atomicanna

Thank you Net Galley and Grand Central for an ARC of Atomic Anna by Rachel Barenbaum. I lean more toward reading historical fiction, but this science fiction intrigued me and didn't disappoint! This book was about how a scientist who created nuclear power in USSR and then regretted the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. She used time travel to try to change the past to save everyone from that disaster as well as her family. This sweeping story tells tales from 1917 through the 1990s and is set in Russia, US (Philadelphia), and Germany. I love how the author weaved in all the science and history in this book. If you are looking for an interesting science fiction/time travel book, I recommend this one.

Overall, Atomic Anna is a book about brilliant, strong women that I thoroughly enjoyed. I highly recommend it, and I suggest that you set a good chunk of time to read it, as it took me some time to get through. As Atomic Anna is a story about time travel, there is quite a bit of jumping around in time. However, Barenbaum did a great job handling this. So much so, that I did not need to necessarily pay close attention to the dates. In addition to the dates, Barenbaum includes time in relation to a big event in the book. It really helped me keep track of things, and it is something I have wished other authors would do. While Atomic Anna discusses heavy topics at times, I could not put it down. Rachel Barenbaum’s writing enchanted me while I grew immersed in Anna, Yulia, Molly, and Raisa’s stories. There is a decent amount of science in this book, but Barenbaum did a solid job making it understandable to the common reader.

ATOMIC ANNA took my breath away. It's a multi-generational saga about a mother, daughter, and granddaughter who attempt to use time travel to stop the Chernobyl disaster and also right the many wrongs in their family's past. The book has the sweeping family saga feel of Tolstoy and the magical realism of Bulgakov and the historical fiction vibe of A Gentleman in Moscow. It's a must-read for any fans of Russian literature, family dramas, historical fiction, magical realism, and even sci-fi, plus it is disturbingly relevant right now with the current war in Ukraine. ATOMIC ANNA though is about way more than just an engaging, can't-put-it-down plot. Barenbaum digs into the complicated ways our pasts affect our future and the messiness of mistakes we've made and continue to make. Her three main characters -- Anna, Molly, and Raisa -- are relatable and real. I see myself in all of them, and see their challenges in their relationships with each other in my own relationships with my mother and grandmother. Did I cry at the end? You bet. Buy your copy of ATOMIC ANNA today! It's so good!!!

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.

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.

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.

Ok… I LOVED this book. I’m not a huge fan of historical fiction because I typically find them depressing but the time travel / fantasy aspect made it much more fun than a normal historical fiction. I know absolutely nothing about physics so I don’t know if any of the theory around the time travel is correct but frankly I didn’t care; she explained it in a way that was understandable and plausible to me and that’s all that mattered. I love how the author added levity and fun through the incorporation of the Atomic Anna comics while expertly and respectfully depicting the dark tragedies of this time period.

Barenbaum touched on so many important things with this book; the importance of comics and literature / literary characters for the youth; the complexities of being a woman in science and in the work place; the difficulties of being a working mother and a mother in general; the importance of family, both biological and found.

Honestly, this novel has something for everyone; feminism, history, science, art, comics, super heroes, time travel, world travel, family saga, young love, second chance love… you name it, it’s got it!

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.