You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
wjreadsbooks 's review for:
The Chemist
by Stephenie Meyer
Stephenie Meyer tries a spy mystery/thriller in The Chemist and I wanted to like it, I really did. But it fell flat for me, because of how predictable everything was. I hoped that the first twist wouldn't go the way that I thought it would, but it did. Each time, every plot twist just seemed to meet my expectations rather than to exceed it or to challenge it in some ways. It's a serviceable story, just that it feels like it's been done somewhere else by someone else.
The Chemist is about a woman named Alex, since that's the name that she uses most often in the book, who used to work for a clandestine government operation. However, she was betrayed and her most trusted colleagues was killed. Since then, she's been on the run for three years from the division and has managed to stay ahead of them each time, with a combination of paranoia and her unique skillset. Alex was known as the chemist and was one of the best, able to create poisonous concoctions designed to bring her opponents to their knees.
Three years later, Alex is starting to tire of running and when one of her former colleagues claims that she will be free after she completes one last job for them, Alex agrees to take on the task. She's asked to deal with a man named Daniel. On the surface, Daniel is a high school teacher and a volleyball coach. However, her division is convinced that Daniel has links to a Mexican drug cartel and could have the plan to detonate a chemical weapon. Alex's job is to uncover the connections and to figure out what his end-goal is. However, neither Daniel nor Alex are what each other expect and the information that Alex manages to acquire from him makes them even more of a target than Alex was before.
The Chemist gets two stars from me because of two reasons. Firstly, Stephenie Meyer actually attempts something new here. Even if it may not be very successful. However, she does try to write outside of a genre that she's most well-known for and also writes in the third-person, as opposed to the first-person that she usually writes in. It keeps us more detached from Alex, such that we aren't very sure about Alex's past or what she could be hiding. The second reason is because Alex's skillset is actually pretty badass. As compared to Meyer's more passive heroines of the past, Alex is clearly more of a take-charge kind of character and does actively seek out answers.
However, there are plenty of flaws with the book. The twists are predictable. And the romance, as many of the other reviewers have mentioned, seems unrealistic and full of insta-love.
Once the romance is ignited, a lot of the other plot is sidelined as well which annoys me. I didn't sign up for a romance with dashes of a thriller in it. I signed up for a thriller with dashes of romance in it.
The Chemist is about a woman named Alex, since that's the name that she uses most often in the book, who used to work for a clandestine government operation. However, she was betrayed and her most trusted colleagues was killed. Since then, she's been on the run for three years from the division and has managed to stay ahead of them each time, with a combination of paranoia and her unique skillset. Alex was known as the chemist and was one of the best, able to create poisonous concoctions designed to bring her opponents to their knees.
Three years later, Alex is starting to tire of running and when one of her former colleagues claims that she will be free after she completes one last job for them, Alex agrees to take on the task. She's asked to deal with a man named Daniel. On the surface, Daniel is a high school teacher and a volleyball coach. However, her division is convinced that Daniel has links to a Mexican drug cartel and could have the plan to detonate a chemical weapon. Alex's job is to uncover the connections and to figure out what his end-goal is. However, neither Daniel nor Alex are what each other expect and the information that Alex manages to acquire from him makes them even more of a target than Alex was before.
The Chemist gets two stars from me because of two reasons. Firstly, Stephenie Meyer actually attempts something new here. Even if it may not be very successful. However, she does try to write outside of a genre that she's most well-known for and also writes in the third-person, as opposed to the first-person that she usually writes in. It keeps us more detached from Alex, such that we aren't very sure about Alex's past or what she could be hiding. The second reason is because Alex's skillset is actually pretty badass. As compared to Meyer's more passive heroines of the past, Alex is clearly more of a take-charge kind of character and does actively seek out answers.
However, there are plenty of flaws with the book. The twists are predictable. And the romance, as many of the other reviewers have mentioned, seems unrealistic and full of insta-love.
Spoiler
Like many of the other reviewers have mentioned, Daniel does not behave like a normal human at all — he isn't angry (at all) with Alex for torturing him. That is totally insane. Furthermore, he's convinced that he's loved Alex from the start but this is crazy behaviour, especially after he's aware of how dangerous she is. And I do not buy that a woman that's as badass as Alex would fall for someone that's as milquetoast as Daniel because his main two selling points are that (1) he's very normal and (2) he can cook.Once the romance is ignited, a lot of the other plot is sidelined as well which annoys me.