Half Life, Jillian Cantor
Half Life, Jillian Cantor
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Half Life
A Novel

Author: Jillian Cantor

Narrator: Cassandra Campbell

Unabridged: 12 hr 50 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 03/23/2021


Synopsis

The USA Today bestselling author of In Another Time reimagines the pioneering, passionate life of Marie Curie using a parallel structure to create two alternative timelines, one that mirrors her real life, one that explores the consequences for Marie and for science if she’d made a different choice.
In Poland in 1891, Marie Curie (then Marya Sklodowska) was engaged to a budding mathematician, Kazimierz Zorawski. But when his mother insisted she was too poor and not good enough, he broke off the engagement. A heartbroken Marya left Poland for Paris, where she would attend the Sorbonne to study chemistry and physics. Eventually Marie Curie would go on to change the course of science forever and be the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. But what if she had made a different choice?What if she had stayed in Poland, married Kazimierz at the age of twenty-four, and never attended the Sorbonne or discovered radium? What if she had chosen a life of domesticity with a constant hunger for knowledge in Russian Poland where education for women was restricted, instead of studying science in Paris and meeting Pierre Curie?Entwining Marie Curie’s real story with Marya Zorawska’s fictional one, Half Life explores loves lost and destinies unfulfilled—and probes issues of loyalty and identity, gender and class, motherhood and sisterhood, fame and anonymity, scholarship and knowledge. Through parallel contrasting versions of Marya’s life, Jillian Cantor’s unique historical novel asks what would have happened if a great scientific mind was denied opportunity and access to education. It examines how the lives of one remarkable woman and the people she loved—as well as the world at large and course of science and history—might have been irrevocably changed in ways both great and small. 

About Jillian Cantor

Jillian Cantor is the author of award-winning and bestselling novels for adults and teens, including In Another Time, The Hours Count, Margot, and The Lost Letter, which was a USA Today bestseller. She has a BA in English from Penn State University and an MFA from the University of Arizona. Cantor lives in Arizona with her husband and two sons.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Terrie

"Half Life" by Jillian Cantor is a creatively and uniquely written Historical Fiction novel! It's 1891 in Szczuki, Poland when Marya Sklodowska is told by her fiancé, Kazimierz Zorawski, his parents will not allow them to marry. They feel Marya will never amount to anything, she is not good enough f......more

Goodreads review by Annette

Maria (pronounced Marya) Sklodowska before she became Marie Curie and before she left Poland for France, she was in love with Kazimierz Zorawski. And this story explores what-if… she stayed in Poland with her first love by inventing a fictional character of Marya Zorawski. In parallel stories, we al......more

Goodreads review by Mark

Radiotherapy, Nuclear Energy, X-Rays, Nuclear Weapons – if one sits back and contemplates the contributions (negative and positive) of this astounding woman to humankind, it’s enough to make your mind ache. As discussed during a GR update – I commenced reading this book just before another Emergency......more

Goodreads review by Janelle

This was such a good read, extremely hard to put down and had me quite emotional a few times during the book. It’s the story of Marie Curie’s life alongside the possible life she could’ve lived if Marya Sklodowska had never left Poland and married her first love, Kazimierz Zorawski. The couple were e......more

A fascinating read. This book includes a mostly factual biography of Marie Curie’s life as well as a separate fictionalized storyline of what might have happened if she had made a different choice early on in her life. This novel makes you wonder how your life choices have shaped who you are today,......more