DNF Review – The Atomic Weight of Secrets by Eden Unger Bowditch

Reading level: Young Adult
Genre: Historical Fiction
Size: 320 pages
Publisher: Bancroft Press
Release Date: March 15, 2011
ISBN-13: 978-1610880022
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: ARC through NetGalley.com
Rating: Did Not Finish

I got an advanced reading copy of this book through netgalley(dot)com and was excited to read it.  It sounded right up my alley: children geniuses, mysterious men in black, adventure.  I enjoyed the very first part of the book, then the next section was incredibly hard for me to get through.  I got through maybe the first 100 pages and finally gave up because I keep falling asleep while reading it.

The story is about five children who get taken by their homes by some mysterious men in black and sent to a special school.  Why where they taken?  Where are their parents?  And who are these crazily mysterious men in black?

The book started out well.  I loved that it jumped right into a chemistry experiment by one of the child geniuses; I love chemistry 🙂  There is a lot of mystery around why the children are in that building together and around how they are trying to escape.

Then the book goes back in time to cover how two of the children came to be at that school building.  This was pretty boring.  I had a hard time getting through it.  I set down and picked up the book multiple times and just kept finding my mind wandering during this section.  I was just barely creeping through this part and it was painful, I kept falling asleep.  I finally decided that it was time to set the book aside and read something else.

Overall I think this could be a good read.  I just found the explanation of how this set of kids came to be at the school very boring.  I might pick it up at a later date and give it another try, but for now it was just too painful for me to finish.  If you like historical fiction at a middle grade level you might want to give the synopsis a read through to see if this book is for you.  I am assuming it picks up later in the book, but I just never made it that far.