The Half Life of Valery K: THE TIMES HISTORICAL FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH

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The man sounded like he had been lying so fluently for so long that the truth was beginning to slip his mind.

We have 4 read-alikes for The Half Life of Valery K, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.City 40 really existed and Natasha Pulley based the story on actual (terrifying) events. It caused chills that nestled themselves deep into my bones while my stomach knitted itself constantly in a knot, and showed bitterly sweet moments building up a love story so subtly that I hardly noticed there was a romance at all. Add the rather blunt and simple but exceptionally effective writing and two incredibly flawed but likable main characters, and I cannot do anything but surrender and read all of Natasha’s other books. Because most of those people have no trade skills, so they’re assigned to general labour, which is usually mining, in minus sixty degrees, so they die. So you never hear from them.’

Without delving into big spoilers, I found the latter parts of the book a repeat of what's been done before in Pulley's previous work, and not even an imaginative twist of them. I think these issues come up time and time again because so much of the focus is on the eventual happiness of the main pairing, even at the expense of the side characters (who are usually women). They have to contort themselves to fit that narrative. Sometimes it works, but more often than not, their plotlines are rather reduced to clichés to make way for the couple. I was really intrigued by the setting and premise of this one. I am really fascinated with the USSR's nuclear history (it feels so morbid to say that, but it's true) so a historical fiction book set in the region of the previous-to-Chernobyl worst nuclear disaster in USSR history sounded right up my alley. Add in that there were LGBTQ themes, and I'm in. Ugh, but now I've just remembered Albert and I KINDA want to lower it a star. I mean, I know that octopuses are intelligent, but... REALLY??! I won't be that petty though... Pulley's latest genre-bending feat masterfully combines history, speculative fiction, queer romance, and more into an unputdownable whole. . . This is a stunner.”— Publishers Weekly, starred review on THE KINGDOMS I wouldn't recommend this title as a first read if you aren't familiar with Pulley's work. If that's the case, go for The Watchmaker of Filigree Street or The Kingdoms. But every one of her books is worth reading. She has a remarkable ability to create imperfect characters, caught up in their own inner turmoil, that the reader can't help but care about.What can you do when a government refuses to hear bad news about a deadly pandemic, climate change, a possible accident that will endanger the lives of millions, and instead prefers to broadcast lies and misinformation? Sverdlovsk was an ugly industrial city. Outside the airport, it was so warm that there was a misty rain glinting on the steps and the lamp posts and the bonnets of the taxis. There was no need for a coat, even. He was staring at the film of water moving under someone's windscreen wipers when the KGB lady hailed a taxi and put him in it. One boy was annoyed. ‘If you were truly loyal to the Party, you’d have been shot before you worked for the enemy though, wouldn’t you.’ The everyday conversations, and the important ones. Language: English Words: 3,897 Chapters: 1/1 Comments: 5 Kudos: 23 Bookmarks: 3 Hits: 158

Shekov cooks Valery a homemade meal. Language: English Words: 3,209 Chapters: 1/1 Comments: 6 Kudos: 20 Bookmarks: 2 Hits: 124 Valery can think of all these possibilities and more in just seconds, and the novel continues in this way. Every character is attempting to read dangerous situations with insufficient evidence. Every character has to both speak in and decode the double-speak that is necessitated under the authoritarian government. Inside the laboratory, Dr. Resovskaya briefs the scientists about the Lighthouse and why the area was intentionally exposed to radiation by the Soviet government in 1957: to study the effects it might have on an entire ecosystem. Excited for the work but confused by the facility's area radiation maps containing curious and contradictory measurements, Valery sets out into the forests to set up some experiments. When he discovers a hospital-gowned body floating in a nearby marsh, Valery and Shenkov work together to find answers. But as Valery goes deeper down the rabbit hole, memories of a painful past and one monstrous act frustrate his ability to trust even previously close associates. Return to the world of FIREFLY LANE—now a Netflix series—from #1 New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah.Valery struggles with his gender identity after coming to England and also struggles with telling Shenkov. Language: English Words: 2,612 Chapters: 1/1 Comments: 6 Kudos: 31 Bookmarks: 4 Hits: 133 Again, he wanted to ask what was going on; but if she slammed his fingers in the door, his bones would turn to powder. There are two main female characters in the book. Resovkaya, Valery's old advisor and the head researcher of the facility within City 40 named the Lighthouse. And Anna, a genius nuclear physicist who is married to Shenkov and has four adorable children with him. The other abnormal factor is that the radiation levels are dangerously high in the surrounding countryside. Valery grows suspicious of the official version of events and especially the official radiation readings after his unofficial readings contradict these. However, voicing a concern about these matters is inviting attention from the KGB. So anyone with doubts faces the choice of an uncomfortable silence or risking prison or worse.

There's a power outage at the Lighthouse. The only reasonable thing to do was cuddle for warmth. Language: English Words: 1,304 Chapters: 1/1 Comments: 11 Kudos: 37 Bookmarks: 3 Hits: 190 It’s a line that’s both fuzzy and constantly shifting for many of the characters, and it raises questions of culpability and judgement. Is it evil to put the potential needs of many ahead of the very real needs of a few? Does that math change if “many” is measured in millions and “few” is measured in thousands? Does the fact that we know in the modern day that most of the results of these radiation experiments were useless render those decisions and that math less moral in hindsight? For the technically minded, there’s a fascinating section on the various units that radiation is measured in ( roentgen, millicuries, rem, etc). Pulley has the gift of easing us through heavy subjects like nuclear physics with a light touch. The scientific details sound authentic.He befriends Shenkov, the head of the KGB in City 40 whose character I found unbelievable. Yes, people can hide their true essence but really! This big teddy bear of a man with a heart of gold who only wants to help other people has managed to pretend to be a cold-hearted, evil KGB agent for twenty-five years? Not one person suspecting he's secretly helping people? Sorry, not buying it. The Half Life of Valery K is an odd book because, on finishing it, I was full of the usual Pulley-related feelings. And then I thought about it more.