Review: Lessons in Chemistry

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Elizabeth Zott has struggled against sexism all her life, she is a brilliant chemist but everyone from her college lecturers to her colleagues at Hastings Research Institute seem to think she's more interested in snagging a husband than cutting-edge chemistry research. As the only woman in the team she is expected to make the coffees, bring equipment to the male scientists and clear up after them, despite being more intelligent and having more insightful research. The only exception is the equally gifted enfant terrible Calvin Evans, Hastings' Noble prize winning chemist, all the other chemists hate him but the two of them fall in love.

Fast forward a few years and Elizabeth is a single mother to an equally gifted daughter, unable to get a job as a research chemist at Hastings, she has somehow been offered a job presenting a daytime cookery show for housewives, but Elizabeth refuses to kowtow to the network's sexist ideas about how she should look, how the set should look, or even what she should say. She's teaching cookery as chemistry.

See that describes the book, and yet it doesn't. There's a whole tragic, almost French farce surrounding Calvin's past which the reader guesses at, but could have changed his whole life if things had gone differently. The style sort of reminded of The World According to Garp, maybe it's just because I rarely read a book written entirely from the view of a third party narrator, but it also had that slightly surreal element to it, especially when we hear Elizabeth's dog's thoughts.

Kooky and quirky don't really hit the mark. I wouldn't say it was loud-out-loud funny, more mildly amusing with a dark underbelly. All of the main characters have something terrible happen(ing) in their lives. Most of the ancillary male characters are just plain awful, and the women aren't much better.

It was slow to start and the unemotional delivery took some getting used to, yet, by the end, I really enjoyed it. Very different.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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