I am way older than the target audience, but any teen/YA that's into history should find this book well written and enjoyable. I actually ended up doing more research on the true story background because I was so intrigued.

To start off, this book wasn't my favorite. I feel like it had a ton of potential but didn't quite live up to that. It begins with Julie. A modern art student who's gave up her college fund to help her mom. During the summer, resigned to working retail jobs, she stumbles on paintings that essentially glow in the dark. She's intrigued and begins to research how and who painted them.
The story bounces back and forth between Julie and Lydia, a Radium Girl in the late 1910's as we learn her story of the factory where they use the glow in the dark substance.
The book wasn't bad. My struggle was with the voice of Lydia. She was writing letters to her overseas boyfriend, fighting in the war. It felt to be a very young and childish voice despite the gravity of the situation. Her character never felt very established or like she had personality because she was mostly relaying what was happening. Her sister actually seemed to have more of the character.
Julie's plot and sections of the book were strong. I understood her character and her motivations. However, all of a sudden, her situation was heightened but the absurdity of it made it feel less real.
Overall, it wasn't bad but I felt like it was just someone who wanted to talk about the radium girls and tried to find a story to tell but wasn't entirely successful within it. But I appreciated that it was entirely young adult appropriate including the romance in it.
It was an easy read, it was quick and had some interesting moments but overall, I wouldn't recommend it.

For those who are slightly confused by or don’t understand the references in the jacket design, Megan E. Bryant’s Glow is a young adult fiction that blends a modern storyline with the tragic history of the radium dial painters employed at the United States Radium factory in Orange, New Jersey.

Three of Bryant’s fictional characters – Liza, Lydia, and Charlotte Grayson – work at the factory and while I absolutely loved the level of detail worked into their experiences, I couldn’t help feeling the historic elements of Bryant’s book played second fiddle to the modern mystery. The author obviously did her homework with regard to working conditions and the effects of radiation sickness, but I found the novel as a whole poorly balanced and wished Bryant had spent more time with the Grayson sisters and less on Julie’s needlessly dramatic personal life.

Don’t get me wrong. I felt the link Bryant created between Julie and Grayson girls grotesquely imaginative, but the supplemental details of Julie’s life felt unnecessary. Luke, for example is a conveniently single chemistry student who falls for Julie the moment they meet. The romance is clichéd at best, but his role in the mystery at the heart of the book is blatantly obvious from the moment he’s introduced. Rounding out the trio is Lauren, Julie’s best friend and poorly contrived foil. Bryant seems to have created the character to emphasize Julie’s misfortune, but I personally felt the effort banal and trite. The only character that annoyed me more was Julie’s mother, but even I admit my frustration on that point relates to the open-ended and ambiguous nature of her role in the story. I can’t speak for everyone, but it is my opinion that her subplot could have been omitted entirely without detriment to the narrative.

Lingering questions regarding the plausibility of an art enthusiast’s ignorance of the history of glow-in-the-dark paint also bother me, especially when the character in question harbors a distinctly defined penchant for chemistry. Pardon the observation, but I couldn’t put stock in the premise Bryant presented and found myself increasingly irritated with Julie as the story progressed. I suppose it is possible that she’d lack a base knowledge when the story opened, but the fact that she conducts enough research to create her own formula from strontium nitrate and europium undermines her integrity as a basic internet search for luminescent paint reveals the effect itself is created through fluorescence, phosphorescence, or radioluminescence. Call me crazy, but that last point should have piqued some interest.

I’m an unapologetically picky reader, but let’s consider this reality against the context of the story. At this point, Julie has already broken into the factory in Orange, perused what remains of the work stations, and been unnerved by a sign proclaiming the site is contaminated by hazardous materials. I might be going out on a limb here, but shouldn’t someone smart enough to dissect the chemical compounds of luminescent paint recognize the obvious link? Not in Bryant’s universe, but let’s be real. The factory itself was torn down by the EPA in 1998, long before the development of the GPS system that led Julie to 482 Dover Street in the first place, which makes it impossible for Chapter 11 and the discovery of key character Charles Graham to have unfolded as depicted.

Long story short, I’d recommend Glow for its representation of the historic material, but I’d caution those who don’t appreciate young adult themes to proceed with caution. As for me, I can only hope that I fare better with Stout’s Radium Halos or Mullner’s Deadly Glow.

Julie, who has recently given her college savings account to her mother to prevent foreclosure, stumbles upon a mysterious painting. When she takes the painting home, she discovers that it glows in the dark. Julie becomes obsessed with the paintings and the artist and searches for more paintings and the rest of the story. Weaved seamlessly into the story are the letters of Lydia, a young women who works in a factory painting glow in the dark numbers on watch faces. When mysterious illnesses begin the plague the young women of the factory, Lydia tries her hardest to protect her family.

I have always loved a story that makes me look for more. This was one of those stories. As I read through, the creepy nature of the art and the horrifying circumstances facing Lydia and her sister Liza captured my attention and imagination. I too would have been desperately searching for more paintings and the rest of the story right along with Julie. While Julie's story didn't particularly resonate with me, I couldn't stop reading because I was desperate to know what was happening to Lydia and Liza. As soon as the source of their illness was disclosed, I began research on it. That was when I discovered that the fate of Lydia and Liza was part of a historical event. I am excited to learn more about this aspect of history that was heretofore unknown to me.

Glow started off kind of...odd. The first two pages were a sort of prologue about light vs dark but when it segued into Julie's life, the plot took off. Julie is a talented eighteen year old artist who lives with her mom. Her father took off and they are having financial difficulties so Julie sacrificed her dream of going to art school. She used her savings to stave off foreclosure and has taken on two jobs to help make ends meet. One day shopping with her best friend in a thrift store, Julie discovers a unique painting that calls to her. With that first purchase, Julie discovers the Radium Girls and their history.

Very solid YA book. It's gritty without being too close to home and there are plenty of twists and turns to keep a reader guessing (my guessing was always wrong :) ).

a good read will tell all my friends about , i felt that i was there in the book