Two young scientists are about to become apart of history. Alice finished her Phd and was surprised to receive an offer from Oppenheimer to be apart of a top secret project for the government in New Mexico. Caleb never quite finished his degree but an offer from the government to have a job and a salary that might just save his family’s home is too good to pass up. Working in the desert on a project they will become increasingly uncomfortable to be apart of, Alice and Caleb will turn to each other to help navigate the future they are influencing.
I really enjoyed the overall story of scientists slowly uncovering exactly what it is they are working on and struggling with the potential ramifications.
I did feel like the story jumped around a little, and the timeline could be a bit lost. It was definitely a slow start and took a minute to get into but it did pick up as it went. I think there were a couple of lose ends left at the end of the story that it would have been nice to have some hint of information on.
I liked that the love story was complicated because of the setting. This was not a normal time or place and it took its toll on the people living through it.
Thank you so much to @alcovepress and @netgalley for letting me have an advanced copy to review. Look for #thesoundofathousandstars October 8 2024
#bookstagram #booksbooksbooks #bookstagrammer #bookreview #bookrecommendations #booklover #bookworm #bookaddict #bookcommunity #reviewsofbooks #readers #readersofinstagram #readersofinsta #readersofig #readeveryday #readallthebooks

Alice Katz receives a mysterious call from the Office of Scientific Research and Development, and she was a student of Dr. Julius Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist and she accepts a job working on a secret government project, at a place called Los Alamos.

Here Alice meets Caleb Blum, a new recruit, and he’s been assigned to the explosives division. The pair find themselves working alongside young scientists and engineers who have quietly left their university posts and families to live in the desert in New Mexico. America is desperate to end the war and they have no clue what the Germans have been developing and it’s a race.

Alice and Caleb have concerns, about the substances their using and how safe it is, will it have lasting consequences and are enough precautions being taken, and during this time they developed romantic feelings for each other!

The narrative it told from three people’s points of view, Alice, Caleb and Haruki Sato's a survivor of the attack on Hiroshima and he’s known as a “Hibakusha” and this term means he was severely injured in the blast, suffered from the effects of radiation sickness, lost his family and later was discriminated against.

I received a copy of The Sound of a Thousand Stars by Rachel Robbins from the publisher and in exchange for an honest review. The author uses her grandparents real life experiences as inspiration for her debut novel and her grandfather was a scientist and the couple both lived at Los Alamos.

A story about the creation of the first nuclear weapon and the Manhattan Project and how America wanted to end the war. They targeted Hiroshima due to it being used as a base for Japanese military infrastructure, and however thousands of civilians were killed and suffered from horrendous wounds and were maimed for life. The pace and flow of the novel was a little slow at times, I did question the ethics around the development and use of nuclear weapons and four stars from me.

The book was a little difficult to follow. It seemed like the author was trying to tell two different stories, one about Alice, Caleb, and then the Japanese survivor, and the second about the making of the atomic bomb. I don’t think that I would reread this book

Interesting introduction to the Manhattan Project and an era of history and scientific discovery I don't know much about.

However, the romance angle was handled very clumsily and too many modern attitudes and behaviors.

This concept has a lot of potential for a Manhattan Project historical fiction. I love historical fiction, but this is a topic I haven’t read much about and was excited to learn about it through the historical fiction lens. Unfortunately the story at the 30% mark hadnt really dove into the history in a way that helped me picture the environment, the setting, and the criticality of the activities. The character development also has not allowed me to really connect with any of the main characters either. The romantic connection between Alice and Caleb felt rushed and forced.

I DNF’d at 30%.

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was so excited to read this. Historical fiction is my favorite genre, and I loved the AMC series MANHATTAN, so I figured this would be right up my alley. Unfortunately, this was a miss for me.

What I love about historical fiction is that you are transported to a particular time period where you look at events through a lens that you haven’t had the opportunity to do so before, basically learning about history by being immersed in it.

The writing in this novel had way too much telling. I was never truly there on The Hill. There was an opportunity to capture the feelings of excitement and fear from those who worked on the project, but this novel had none of that. Even the camaraderie amongst the wives could have been expanded more to create a clearer picture of the secrets lurking behind what they were building.

Most parts felt like I was reading a science text book. I expected a little bit of that, given the subject matter, but some of it went on for a whole chapter. Even descriptions of the scenery were flat.

Told in three POVs, I felt zero connection to any of them. They were very surface characters and any attempt at adding depth to them was quickly glossed over. The two characters that are supposed to drive the love story had zero chemistry.

This was almost a DNF for me, but I’m not a quitter and I was holding out hope that the book would redeem itself. The concept had so much potential, especially after seeing all the success the film OPPENHEIMER garnered, but this wasn’t it.

I was trying to get out of a reading rut and thought that this might help. Based on the Manhattan Project, it follows two different stories, that of Alice and Caleb, two Jewish Americans working on the Manhattan Project, and that of Haruki, a Japanese survivor of the atom bomb.

While the book was enjoyable enough, I did find the pacing to be a bit on the slow side.

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this ARC in return for my honest review.

4.5 stars! This is a very interesting and gripping book! My emotions were all over the place. Happy, sad, terrified, and empathetic. It's a story about a time in history that changed thousands of lives.

The characters are brilliantly written! I found myself connecting with all of them. They all sacrificed in some way. The ramifications of what they created and were a part of have effects even now.

I really liked the author's note! Her link to the past created this book. Her historical notes were fascinating, too!

I was provided a copy of the book from Alcove Press via Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This complicated romance asks devastating questions of our past while engaging in hopeful reflections on love. The attention to historical and scientific detail is impressive, and the prose kept me turning pages. I will definitely read Rachel Robbins again in the future!

This was an unexpectedly good read, since I never heard of this author or this book. I was interested in reading it since I recently read American Prometheus, and the Jewish angle is in my wheelhouse.

The plotline follows two scientists who are invited to join the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos. The story came across as surprisingly authentic and true to real life. The author certainly knew and researched her physics, but then again I am not a physicist, so I don't really know if it's all true; but it came across that way.

The writing itself is engaging, and the plot is well-paced and smooth for the most part. I found myself relating to the characters.
There's a very interesting subplot told backwards, interspersed with chapters throughout the novel. That might have been the best part. It follows a survivor of the Hiroshima bomb, and his story connects with the main story at the end.

There were a few issues I had with this book. One was the progression from a positive and inspiring story with a budding romance to what became a depressing ending. I found that jarring. I think the purpose was for the reader to see exactly that; what should have been an exciting experiment and time became something terrible unleashed on the world. But the tone was positive and turned negative. The novel lost its excitement when it lost its nuance and became too charged, and the last quarter of the book became boring and I skimmed a bit. There were some shocking tragedies toward the end, and they pulled me in and helped me feel for the characters. But the very end took that too far, in my opinion; it wasn't necessary to turn the whole plot upside down to pull the reader toward grief and make a point.

I also didn't appreciate the tropes about Orthodox Judaism being backward. It went so far as painting an Orthodox woman as illiterate when Jews are literally the people of the book. One of the top scientists in the project, Nobel prize winner Isidore Rabi, always remained connected to his Orthodox upbringing. There was an Orthodox Jewish man who won the Nobel Prize in mathematics a few years ago; there is a world full of sophisticated, educated, Orthodox Jews.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for an advanced copy for review.

Thank you net galley for the advance reader copy of this book. I like the plot synopsis of this that was posted but the actual book I could not get into. I may try another book by this author but this one was a super slow start.

The Sound of a Thousand Stars by Rachel Robbins is an interesting WWII-era historical fiction that involves Los Alamos and the questions that one asks about their own morals and loyalties during extreme times of conflict.

I have red a few things involving the scientists and labs involved in The Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb development, and this book added a more humanistic and dramatic element and perspective to my more factual knowledge and exposure.

Stepping back and thinking about the confusion, the desperation, the fear, and the daily struggles that could rock a person to the core…it would be so confusing and scary. Questioning your own morals and loyalties: whether to your own code, country, one another…definitely thought-provoking.

3.5/5 stars

Thank you NG and Alcove Press for this wonderful arc and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon, Instagram, and B&N accounts upon publication on 10/8/24.

I like the concept but thought it would be more historical fiction than romance. I didn’t like the romance element and felt it dragged the whole story down . By the end I just wanted it to be over . The historical aspect would have added so much more to the story if it had been explored instead of trying to write a romance novel

This was an interesting read.
Alice and Caleb were intricate characters who are drawn to each other in somewhat desperation but also attraction. I liked how their timelines end up crossing with Haruki.
This was a hard read at times as there is the struggle of life and death among the characters with what they are creating.


Thanks NetGalley for this ARC.

While I've read nonfiction about the Manhattan Project, Rachel Robbins' The Sound of a Thousand Stars is my first fictional Manhattan Project novel. Two young Jewish people arrive in Los Alamos, New Mexico to help the United States beat the Nazis. Alice (one of the only female scientists at the site) and Caleb (a poor man placed on the explosives team) find themselves questioning what exactly they are building, as both are kept in the dark upon arrival. In the midst of technological weapons advancements, Alice and Caleb draw closer to each other in what feels like part desperation and part attraction. Interspersed in this dual narrator novel are multiple, two-page insertions from a Hiroshima survivor named Haruki, with his story told backward. The way his story intersects with Alice and Caleb's is my favorite aspect of this novel.

Robbins did a great job with the main and secondary characters wrestling with the concept of humans being God by determining who lives and dies with such a powerful weapon. There is a bit of science lingo that went over my head, but I still understood the concepts. Some of the dialogue is crass from the other males working with Alice. This novels truly feels like a novel of survival and morality. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.