Based on letters written by Mileva, Einstein and friends of Mileva this book is fiction with a touch of truth. I always get a twisted feeling reading books like this. What is true and what is made up. I actually enjoy this very much but am not sure I am very good in seeing the difference. There is a lot of information in the author notes though about what is true and what not and the resources used for those who really want to know the truth.
The story is easy to follow. It shows the struggle young intelligent woman had to go trough to get educated. There is a lot of attention for the politics in that period too. The discussed science is kept very basic making it possible to follow for people with no knowledge.
The character and chemistry between them is the other big part in the story. I did like Mileva at the start of the book. Though insecure about a lot of things she knew her knowledge was worth something. That insecurity is getting a bigger the older she is getting and the more Einstein is getting a hold on her. So much it is getting annoying and I felt like slapping her. It stopped me from really enjoying the story.

The Other Einstein toys with the idea that perhaps Einstein's wife, contributed to his groundbreaking theories. Whether or not one agrees with this theory, the novel was presented in a realistic way that made the plot appear to be feasible. I would definitely recommend it to fans of The Paris Wife and historical fiction.

What The Book Was About
In the late 1890's, Albert Einstein was just a student meeting starting a college romance with the woman who would become his first wife. This future wife, Mileva, is one of the few women in his college physics classes in a pre-World War Nazi-sympathizing European environment which means that Mileva must be extremely intelligent to have earned entry into college. The book is about this woman who has overcome physical and emotional challenges, religious discrimination and lack of women's rights and who does not want to sacrifice all her accomplishments in order to start a relationship with Albert. Yet, once they start their relationship, she gives up not just what she has already accomplished, but also cedes the rights to her discoveries and her place in history. This book offers a fictional investigation of that story and forces you as the reader to draw your own conclusion on whether Albert Einstein was truly the genius he's known to be.

What I Enjoyed
I was very interested to read this fictional look at Mrs. Einstein's life I loved the premise of the story and the backstory that made it possible for Mileva to attend the university where she was to meet Albert - in the time and place in which she lived, she could only go to college if she was deemed unsuitable for marriage. Having endured the childhood she did, I could see her parents overcompensating and her being as educated as she would've had to be to become a college student. It made sense then, that she could be even more naturally gifted than Albert was, and even that she came up with the ideas that he is credited for.
I enjoyed the writing style and will probably pick up the print version of this book for my library.

What I Didn't Enjoy
What I didn't enjoy was why we had to choose to believe that either one or the other of the Einsteins was the genius, and that Albert had to be diminished, somewhat, for Mileva to shine.

Would I Recommend?
Yes. I think The Other Einstein would be a great read for young women interested in Science careers, not just to show how talented women are, but also just to see how difficult it was for women scholars in previous centuries. As a historical fiction, I think this is quite a well-researched novel and good read.

Interesting perspective on the challenges a woman faced with similar skill in a similar environment. Heartbreaking and frustrating in many areas but great to get a perspective into a relatively unknown historical figure.

Off course I know of the famous Albert Einstein and his theory E=mc2. However, more than his wild hair and his tongue sticking out on the famous picture was not known. So I was real curious about the wife of Albert Einstein.

Marie Benedict did an outstanding job in describing the academic world in the eighteenth century. Generally speaking, women were not allowed to be educated and only the few talented ladies, such as Mileva, were able to study. I was mesmerized by the descriptions of Mileva's struggles to gain acceptance in class and from her professors. How hard it must have been for those few women to face all those challenges. And I really wanted to knock some sense in Mitza when she got pregnant from Albert before they were married. All that her father had fought for and how he tried to give her a better future than just a housewife just went down the drain.

And indeed, it went downhill from then for Mileva. Albert proved himself a selfish bastard, by taking off her name on the papers they had written together. So, Mileva never got the credit for her work on the relativity theory, which made Einstein famous. As Mileva gets degrated more and more as a simple hausfrau by Einstein, it really upset me. How could a briljant physicist like her let someone reduce her to a mere housekeeper?


After reading this historical fiction, I found myself looking up facts about Albert Einstein and his first wife. Could it be that Marie Benedict was right? Was Albert the bastard she describes him to be? And did he really steal the work of Mileva as his own? Although there is not enough evidence to support the fact that Mileva really was the author of one or more papers of Albert, I think Marie has done an outstanding job in weaving the known facts about Albert's life (like the illegitimate daughter born before their marriage) with a story from Mileva's point of view. Even if she was a bit of the truth, I think it shows in a wonderful way how women had to work so hard to be recognized in history.
Four out of five stars from me. With special thanks to Sourcebooks for the ARC.

This beautifully crafted fictional biography of Mileva Marić describes her dedication from an early age to a life of science, partly as she discovers her parents believe her looks and distorted hip mean she will never marry, and partly due to her own natural enquiring mind and brilliance at mathematics. Knowing all too well the barriers that still occur in the academic world, especially in some countries, and the formalities of the more Germanic universities a hundred years on, I found the descriptions of her struggles to even gain a place on a university physics course easily believable. My concerns about the evidence for her early relationships with the young Einstein were allayed by the existence of letters between the pair, and whilst the story woven is in itself only too believable, it was good to know that there was actually some basis or inference from fact.

Mileva reminds me of a number of serious, focused girls entering a man’s world. The author was a woman in a very male-biased legal setting for many years, so I guess her experiences resonate with my own in business. The maintenance of strict propriety, the reluctance to speak unless totally sure of one’s ground (unlike men who can hypothesise freely), and the dedication to studying so that one is way beyond the competence expected of one’s colleagues, all ring true. Add to this Mileva’s background as a Slav in the early twentieth century (definitely a second-class citizen), and you can lift this setting into any ‘minority fighting for equality’ that you like.

Young Einstein had his troubles, too. He was bored by the establishment sticking to the old guard of physicists, and wanted to talk about the new theories emerging. He was also Jewish, which put him into and uneasy relationship with the university authorities. In Mileva he found an academic equal, and a minority one too, ready to dash off for an adventure against all that oppressed them.

Having sucked me into this elegantly told tale with excellent descriptive work on Zurich, it then led me into the ‘no, don’t do that!’ exclamation as the author takes Mileva inexorably downhill into obscurity. This progression was so real, and such a classic example of grooming, that I cannot believe it is not true, or at least all the keys to the real-life events.

I particularly liked the part near the end, where the author uses an encounter with Marie and Pierre Curie as a counterpoint to what Mileva’s life could have been, and with it the irony of Einstein’s own duplicity.

This is a very believable account of a woman to whom science probably owes a great deal, who has been buried in other people’s pasts. Thank goodness Mrs Stephen Hawking was allowed to tell her own tale.

This is a brilliant tale of a woman fighting the odds to become a recognised scientist in the early 20th century, and easily deserves 5 stars.

This novel tells the story of Albert Einstein’s first wife, Mileva Maric, who was a fellow student of his in an elite physics program in Zurich. As the only woman in the program, Mileva caught Albert’s attention immediately, and they formed a strong friendship based on their common interests. Mileva was a brilliant scientist in her own right, and she falls for Albert with the expectation that the two of them will share a life as equals in love and work.

As Albert Einstein gained fame and recognition, he cast a dark shadow over Mileva’s achievements. They supposedly shared their work, and yet Albert increasingly refused to acknowledge Mileva’s contributions. Mileva’s part in Einstein’s special theory of relativity has been debated for over a century, with no conclusion. In Benedict’s novel, she writes that Mileva was in fact the originator of the theory – but in her author’s note, she tells us that this is fiction, although the wives of famous men are often contributors behind the scenes.

Mileva and Albert had a complex, troubling relationship, according to Benedict. Although there seems to be a consensus that Albert did emotionally abuse Mileva, he is portrayed here as a monster, with no facets to his personality. It’s difficult to parse out the truth from this novel – of course it is a fictional account, but the author is portraying a historical figure and so it should be rooted in truth. However, historians aren’t in agreement over the story of Albert and Mileva, and that makes this a difficult novel to read. Even the author seems to have her doubts about the truth of her story.

I think it is best not to read this novel as historical fact – instead, Mileva can be seen as an example of women of her time: overshadowed by a famous husband, fighting for equality and paving the way for the women of today. Mileva subsumed her own ambitions in order to support her husband and raise their children, and she hid her own discoveries so that Einstein could take the credit.

The relationship between Albert and Mileva as portrayed by Benedict was difficult to read, especially the dark scenes of emotional abuse. As a character study, it was well written – but without a basis in reality, it might have been better if Benedict had written about a fictional marriage. This novel was filled with extreme suffering and all-consuming melodrama, and I would have preferred more intellectual conversation between Mileva and Albert – this is the story of Einstein and his theory of relativity, and yet it lacks any scientific content. As a novel, it was good – but I felt like the name Einstein was thrown into the title just to sell books, instead of actually telling us anything real about the famous physicist and his equally brilliant wife.

I received this book from Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

We all know who Albert Einstein was, but do you know Mileva Maric Einstein? Mileva was Einstein’s first wife and a physicist in her own right. They met while at University in Zurich and had 3 children together. There is controversy in the world of physics about whether or not Mileva played a role in the development of Einstein’s early theories. “The Other Einstein” is a fictional account of Mileva’s life that is very heavily based on the facts. Marie Benedict has beautifully crafted this story. I was riveted from the first page to the last. Reading this book shines a new light on Einstein, which is not always flattering, but may be closer to the truth than the view that we are typically given about him. Mileva’s story is a perfect example of how women of the time period often reduced their own ambitions so that a husband and children could shine brighter. Albert Einstein has been idolized by the world for his brilliance and the accolades are well deserved, but he was still human and susceptible to human failures. I thoroughly enjoyed this story and the author’s writing style make it approachable and easy to read. This book would be a great story for those who enjoy historical fiction or women’s stories.