A review by strawberrymivvy
Trajectory by Cambria Gordon

medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I read a lot of WWII fiction, and whilst I did know this was targeted at the YA market, I did still expect more from it.  It ultimately went into too much detail about the maths, and not enough about what was actually going on in the world, and Eleanor's reasons for the decisions she made.  The ending also felt rushed, and the random "asides" to explain a plot point were irritating.

Eleanor is a high school student in the early 1940s who loves to work on maths problems in her spare time.  One day she's watching a maths competition and leaves her notebook behind, when the organiser chases her down to hand it back, she realises Eleanor was the only person in the room to solve the final problem, and ultimately recruits her to work on improving the trajectory calculcations for bombs.

This was very much OK only and did not give enough credit to the intelligence of even a YA reader