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andipants 's review for:
The Chemist
by Stephenie Meyer
Oh my god this was a slog. I would've DNF'd this nonsense at page 30 if it weren't my book club book this month. I wasn't expecting a whole lot — I'm actively not a Twilight fan — but a small, hopeful part of me was thinking maybe getting away from sparkly vampires and adding an action-spy-type plot might improve things. I was wrong.
There are two main components of the plot — the aforementioned action-spy-type stuff, and the romance — and they're both mind-numbingly stupid. The spy plot meanders along through eye-glazing science-y babble, convoluted twists, and overwrought, show-off-y schemes for 80% of the book, then suddenly kicks into action gear for the last hundred pages or so, but even then remains completely devoid of real tension — every problem that arises is put down again in a chapter or less, with no actual sacrifice on anyone's part. The plot twists are often hand-wavy and poorly explained(the family veterinarian? Fucking really?!) , and rely waaay to much on coincidence. And the romance plot is execrable. It's insta-romance of the worst kind, compounded exponentially by the fact that Daniel and Alex's first meeting is literally her kidnapping and torturing him. Hot.
The characters are pancake-flat, and the same delightful blend of Mary-Sue-ism and ingrained misogyny from Twilight is on full display — we have the one impossibly talented female protagonist (who's not like other girls, she's bad at makeup and flirting and emotions — can you hear my eyes rolling?) who is magically capable and skilled at everything she tries except for her Designated Weakness (in this case, the fact that she's physically small and weak). She's surrounded by men — there is one other female character in the entire book, and she appears late in the game and acts as little more than a prop to keep the plot moving. The dudes are tall, handsome, and preternaturally hard to kill. One is inexplicably obnoxious, the other is a mooning puppy, and neither has any personality beyond those traits. I did appreciate the inversion early on of having one of the guys be the squishy one the others have to protect, but it's kind of undercut by the fact that Alex still needs big bad black-ops dude to help her out. For a purportedly badass, self-sufficient heroine, she is surprisingly useless for much of the book.
Also, the writing is atrocious. Meyer consistently does this really annoying thing where she describes the steps a character is taking without actually telling what the purpose is. For example, early on, she's talking about Alex setting up her booby traps before going to bed, and there's all this weird, inexplicable (to the reader) activity taking place, and then suddenly there's a reveal — ooooh, she's set up a booby trap to gas potential intruders! Except this shouldn't be a surprise; the main character knew what she was doing the whole time. It just sounds like the author is trying really hard to impress the reader by hitting them over the head with a bunch of tech babble, and she uses this setup to avoid telling the reader important info for much longer than necessary. It's a cheap and transparent ploy to create artificial tension and make the main character seem more impressive than she is. And the description is often just fucking atrocious. When Alex has a swollen lip, she describes it as being puffed up like "flesh pillows". Um, ew. At one point, a character is described as wearing "a long flowy dress kind of thing". Seriously?
Please, someone give this woman an editor who passed freshman composition.
There are two main components of the plot — the aforementioned action-spy-type stuff, and the romance — and they're both mind-numbingly stupid. The spy plot meanders along through eye-glazing science-y babble, convoluted twists, and overwrought, show-off-y schemes for 80% of the book, then suddenly kicks into action gear for the last hundred pages or so, but even then remains completely devoid of real tension — every problem that arises is put down again in a chapter or less, with no actual sacrifice on anyone's part. The plot twists are often hand-wavy and poorly explained
The characters are pancake-flat, and the same delightful blend of Mary-Sue-ism and ingrained misogyny from Twilight is on full display — we have the one impossibly talented female protagonist (who's not like other girls, she's bad at makeup and flirting and emotions — can you hear my eyes rolling?) who is magically capable and skilled at everything she tries except for her Designated Weakness (in this case, the fact that she's physically small and weak). She's surrounded by men — there is one other female character in the entire book, and she appears late in the game and acts as little more than a prop to keep the plot moving. The dudes are tall, handsome, and preternaturally hard to kill. One is inexplicably obnoxious, the other is a mooning puppy, and neither has any personality beyond those traits. I did appreciate the inversion early on of having one of the guys be the squishy one the others have to protect, but it's kind of undercut by the fact that Alex still needs big bad black-ops dude to help her out. For a purportedly badass, self-sufficient heroine, she is surprisingly useless for much of the book.
Also, the writing is atrocious. Meyer consistently does this really annoying thing where she describes the steps a character is taking without actually telling what the purpose is. For example, early on, she's talking about Alex setting up her booby traps before going to bed, and there's all this weird, inexplicable (to the reader) activity taking place, and then suddenly there's a reveal — ooooh, she's set up a booby trap to gas potential intruders! Except this shouldn't be a surprise; the main character knew what she was doing the whole time. It just sounds like the author is trying really hard to impress the reader by hitting them over the head with a bunch of tech babble, and she uses this setup to avoid telling the reader important info for much longer than necessary. It's a cheap and transparent ploy to create artificial tension and make the main character seem more impressive than she is. And the description is often just fucking atrocious. When Alex has a swollen lip, she describes it as being puffed up like "flesh pillows". Um, ew. At one point, a character is described as wearing "a long flowy dress kind of thing". Seriously?
Please, someone give this woman an editor who passed freshman composition.