Book Review: Lessons in Chemistry
Title: Lessons in Chemistry
Author: Bonnie Garmus
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Publication Date: 2022
Rating: ★★★★☆
Lessons in Chemistry took me over three weeks to read. I don’t recommend taking that long to read a book. It’s hard to maintain the threads, the plot and what is happening in a book when reading takes that long. But life happens. My sister-in-law raved about this book, so I decided I would read it. The things I do for relationships!
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Elizabeth Zott is a no-nonsense, plain-speaking woman who loves all things chemistry. It is the 1950s and Elizabeth Zott is fighting against the social expectations of her times. She wants to be taken seriously as a chemist. In a male-dominated science and a male-dominated world, she fights to access the equipment she needs and to conduct research in the area that she is passionate about – abiogenesis.
When Elizabeth falls in love with Calvin Harris, a superstar in the science world and someone who works in her lab, Elizabeth has a strong ally at work and someone who understands her intellect. Both Calvin and Elizabeth are social misfits often finding the nuances of social life a challenge but together they are soulmates. Elizabeth refuses to marry Calvin, another thing that goes against the social expectations of her time. Instead, they live together and work together and adopt a dog that they name Six-Thirty (because that was the time he was found).
Calvin dies unexpectedly one day whilst he is out for a run, and it is after his death that Elizabeth finds herself pregnant and out of her job as a researcher at Hastings Research Institute. It is at this time that her work is ‘stolen’ by one of her male colleagues and he passes his findings off as his own.
After her daughter is born, Elizabeth finds herself working on television, as host of the program ‘Supper at Six’. She brings her knowledge of chemistry to the show, informing her audience of the different chemical compositions of food and the reactions that foods go through during cooking. She treats her audience as smart and wanting to learn. In the process, she gains an almost cult-like status and becomes a celebrity. All throughout this time, she is longing to get back to her research in chemistry.
The themes explored in this book include the place and role of the family, the role, and expectations of women in society, upsetting social norms and expectations, and honesty. Discussions on religion feature with Elizabeth declaring on national TV that she is an atheist (a big no-no for that time). Elizabeth’s daughter, Mad (referred to as Madeleine when convention calls for it) seeks to find out about her father and his history as she gets older. She drives the exploration of how the role of family impacts our sense of belonging and identity, and in doing so completes the story when the final twist is revealed.
I loved the characters of Elizabeth and Mad in this book. Elizabeth is incredibly determined, focused and to a degree unaware or unwilling to consider how she presents in public or impacts others socially. Mad is equally strong-minded as her mother. Elizabeth’s character jars against the backdrop of a conservative 1950s and 1960s background and she shows her daughter that there are other ways to be a woman. I also love how this book is not a ‘typical’ book for women. It’s not a ‘who dunnit’. It’s not a love story. It is somewhat of a finding your place in the world story but not one of a teenager growing up. It is a woman challenging the perceptions of what women did and their roles in the 1950s and 1960s.
An interesting thing that I found about this book was that the story was told from multiple points of view. It was all written in the third person point of view, but sometimes we were privy to the thoughts of Elizabeth, sometimes the thoughts of Calvin and sometimes even the thoughts of the dog, Six-Thirty. Many characters were included in this telling of the story, but it was done seamlessly and allowed author Bonnie Garmus, to get the story where she wanted it to go.
Something that I did not love about the story is the ending. Rather than tell you what happens and ruin the story (should you choose to read it), I feel that the ending wrapped everything up too neatly. There was also a sense of ‘how did that happen?’ And whilst things were explained, there wasn’t a sense of ‘Yes, that was good, and it worked!’ at the end. I felt cheated!
Lessons in Chemistry was an interesting and quirky read. I like that it is not your typical women’s book. I like that the topics and themes explored were different. I like the strong characterisations of Elizabeth, Mad and even the dog, Six-Thirty. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for something a bit different, but the story would most likely appeal to women.
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