The Sound of a Thousand Stars

A Novel

By: Rachel Robbins

Narrated by: Sarah Skaer

Oppenheimer meets Hidden Figures in this sweeping historical debut where two Jewish physicists form an inseverable bond amidst fear and uncertainty.

Sure to captivate listeners of Kate Quinn and Bonnie Garmus, The Sound of a Thousand Stars eerily mirrors modern-day questions of wartime ethics and explores what it means to survive—at any cost.

Alice Katz is a young Jewish physicist, one of the only female doctoral students at her university, studying with the famed Dr. Oppenheimer. Her well-to-do family wants her to marry a man of her class and settle down. Instead, Alice answers her country’s call to come to an unnamed city in the desert to work on a government project shrouded in secrecy.

At Los Alamos, Alice meets Caleb Blum, a poor Orthodox Jew who has been assigned to the explosives division. Around them are other young scientists and engineers who have quietly left their university posts to come live in the desert.

No one seems to know exactly what they are working on–what they do know is that it is a race and that they must beat the Nazis in developing an unspeakable weapon. In this atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, and despite their many differences, Alice and Caleb find themselves drawn to one another.

Inspired by the author’s grandparents and sure to appeal to fans of Good Night, Irene, The Sound of a Thousand Stars is a propulsive novel about love in desperate times, the consequences of our decisions, and the roles we play in history.

©2024 Rachel Robbins (P)2024 Random House Audio

I never expected to learn as much as I did

A thoroughly researched story based on family, anecdotes, and real history, came together and poignant fascinating and exciting story
This book is so creatively written by having two stories that merge in the middle. One story going forward in time and when going backward in time all around the poignancy of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.
I love this book and I’m sorry that it’s ended. Very, very well worth reading.

Amazing look at the times we never hear about.

This is well written, and god writing matters.
It draws the curtain away a bit about how The Manhattan Project workers worked on the process for the bomb, the very scary nature of what they were working with, and that small closed society.
It also addresses how woman in science ( and likely other professions as well) were treated.
There were a few things that needed some fact checking, mostly medical things (there would not been multiple beeping machines at a patient bedside at that time. They didn’t exist).
It felt like it was a stretch that an out of wedlock baby would have been ok with either the people in that community or with a high society mother.
Small things.
It was a good read, and I liked that it addressed how some of the scientists felt after the bomb.

Disappointed

I am sorry to say I simply cannot finish this book. The historical issues—not so much history of the Manhattan Project, but issues with history of the time 1944—are inconsistent. The first one to catch my ear was when Alice is conversing with Oppie and she points out the window and says, ". . . view of the desert." I live in Los Alamos. Nowhere around Ashley Pond can one get a view of the desert, let alone out a window of a building in the 1944 Tech Area around Ashley Pond. Another blooper in Chapter 4, June 1944 is when Alice is in the dark room with other soldiers processing film. She gets testy and one of the soldiers tells her, "don't get your pantyhose in a wad." Pantyhose were not invented until 1959. Another blooper takes place in November 1944 with a description the women wearing "strappy sandals and sun hats." November in Los Alamos is cold and wintery. Women would not have worn summer clothing. I have a list of many other little issues like this that made it very difficult to continue listening.
The book is advertised for listeners of Kate Quinn. It does not come close to Kate Quinn. The author may have used her grandparents diaries as the basis of her story, but many history facts still needed to be checked. Honestly, I blame all the inconsistencies on her editorial team for not checking these historical facts.