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A review by greymalkin
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This book is complicated to rate. I adored the chemistry of the show, and really wish this was an actual show. I know of a few that are close, but none that teach chemistry through cooking in quite this manner.
I also appreciated the way that the casual sexism was depicted, both in offhand comments and attitudes even by the "good guy" Calvin, and those toxic attitudes internalized by the female characters. This is still a huge issue today and it should be called out because it is insidious and very hard to point to why small moments like that have such a lasting and terrible impact.
However because of the believability, this was also hard to read. Reading about such trauma and abuse is not easy, particularly when I was not prepared for it. I thought, based on the cover and blurb, that this would be more superficial than it was. And I didn't particularly like any of the characters, even the cute dog.
Also, ignoring the content of the events, there's a lot of plot points that depend on chance and luck, which ends up weakening the actual story. Starting with lots of bad luck/unfortunate events, and then having a bunch of good luck/happy happenstance happen and so "voila happy ending!" was not as compelling. It could easily have gone the other way and been a very different book. I'd hoped for something more inevitable or structured based on chemical mechanisms.
For those reviewers that feel like the events are exaggerated or unrealistic (there are dishearteningly many), please watch "Picture a Scientist" (https://www.pictureascientist.com/) to see only a handful of examples that are even more nauseating than what is conveyed here. And I feel that many who say "this seems fake, that kind of thing didn't happen to me" are maybe forgetting that the book was placed in the 1950's. Some things have thankfully improved since then, including issues like what a character toward the end of the book revealed. However even just a few years ago female-identifying freshmen at MIT were still being sent misogynistic messages telling them that they should just go home because they weren't smart enough or capable of doing science because of their sex. So it's not fixed by any stretch of the imagination.
<spoilers>I did spend part of the book wondering who Elizabeth was going to end up with in the end because it felt like it was being set up for that. But to my pleased surprise, she ends up without a romantic partner in the end, but lots of friends and family. I like that better.
Additionally, a minor note, but I saw in another review that pointed out how weird it was that chemist Elizabeth disdained the canned soup for all the chemicals in it. I agree. Given her background it seems extremely strange that she'd object to the soup on that basis. And at the time a lot of these prepared products were helping women by freeing them from being in the kitchen. I'd think that she'd be a huge fan of items that reduce the time that women need to be chained to the stove. You could spend an hour making cream of mushroom soup from scratch or open a can and feed your family in 5 min and then have 55 min to do things like apply to med school. If her objections to the soup were because it was a company that only used non-foodgrade ingredients or unsafe canning practices so that the soup was actually going to make people sick through botulism, then I'd say she has some merit to her complaint. But someone who calls salt sodium chloride would absolutely be someone who would argue that artificially produced MSG is totally fine since it's chemically identical to items that are found naturally in items like parmesan cheese and mushrooms.
I also appreciated the way that the casual sexism was depicted, both in offhand comments and attitudes even by the "good guy" Calvin, and those toxic attitudes internalized by the female characters. This is still a huge issue today and it should be called out because it is insidious and very hard to point to why small moments like that have such a lasting and terrible impact.
However because of the believability, this was also hard to read. Reading about such trauma and abuse is not easy, particularly when I was not prepared for it. I thought, based on the cover and blurb, that this would be more superficial than it was. And I didn't particularly like any of the characters, even the cute dog.
Also, ignoring the content of the events, there's a lot of plot points that depend on chance and luck, which ends up weakening the actual story. Starting with lots of bad luck/unfortunate events, and then having a bunch of good luck/happy happenstance happen and so "voila happy ending!" was not as compelling. It could easily have gone the other way and been a very different book. I'd hoped for something more inevitable or structured based on chemical mechanisms.
For those reviewers that feel like the events are exaggerated or unrealistic (there are dishearteningly many), please watch "Picture a Scientist" (https://www.pictureascientist.com/) to see only a handful of examples that are even more nauseating than what is conveyed here. And I feel that many who say "this seems fake, that kind of thing didn't happen to me" are maybe forgetting that the book was placed in the 1950's. Some things have thankfully improved since then, including issues like what a character toward the end of the book revealed. However even just a few years ago female-identifying freshmen at MIT were still being sent misogynistic messages telling them that they should just go home because they weren't smart enough or capable of doing science because of their sex. So it's not fixed by any stretch of the imagination.
<spoilers>I did spend part of the book wondering who Elizabeth was going to end up with in the end because it felt like it was being set up for that. But to my pleased surprise, she ends up without a romantic partner in the end, but lots of friends and family. I like that better.
Additionally, a minor note, but I saw in another review that pointed out how weird it was that chemist Elizabeth disdained the canned soup for all the chemicals in it. I agree. Given her background it seems extremely strange that she'd object to the soup on that basis. And at the time a lot of these prepared products were helping women by freeing them from being in the kitchen. I'd think that she'd be a huge fan of items that reduce the time that women need to be chained to the stove. You could spend an hour making cream of mushroom soup from scratch or open a can and feed your family in 5 min and then have 55 min to do things like apply to med school. If her objections to the soup were because it was a company that only used non-foodgrade ingredients or unsafe canning practices so that the soup was actually going to make people sick through botulism, then I'd say she has some merit to her complaint. But someone who calls salt sodium chloride would absolutely be someone who would argue that artificially produced MSG is totally fine since it's chemically identical to items that are found naturally in items like parmesan cheese and mushrooms.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual harassment, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Sexual violence, Death, Child abuse, and Sexual assault
Minor: Child death