A review by annegoodreads
Atomic Anna by Rachel Barenbaum

adventurous emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious medium-paced

5.0

Not only do we get different time periods from the 40s, 60s, to 80s, but also different points of view.  Manya/Molly travels into 1986 to warn her mother Anna about Chernobyl. Then the story backtracks to 1961 to Philadelphia where Molly is grappling with her adoptive parents’ secrecy regarding her birth mother Anna.  Molly copes by drawing her own comic series featuring her birth mother as Atomic Anna.  We learn the back story of Anna’s scientific genius back in 1938.  The time travel was really interesting in that it felt like realistic fiction.  When the “unified field theory” was explained in the book it actually made sense.  We then find Anna searching for her granddaughter Raisa in the 80s.  The long line of scientific genius within the female line of the family was so wonderful in that they each had a different area of expertise.  The power of each character is made greater by the other characters. As you time travel through the pages, empathy and respect builds for all three women.  This was such a nice read that felt dramatic but also fulfilling.  I felt smarter by the end and the science and math discussed in the story are still an enigma to me.  Atomic Anna puts a realistic yet dramatic spin to women in STEM pioneers.