A review by lachateau
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

funny hopeful informative lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

“Humans need reassurance, they need to know others survived in hard times. And unlike other species which do a better job of learning from their mistakes, humans require constant threats and reminders to be nice.”

“Chemistry is inseparable from life—by its very definition, chemistry is life. but like your pie, life requires a strong base. In your home, you are that base. It is an enormous responsibility, the most undervalued job in the world that, nonetheless, holds everything together.”

First of furthermore, I expected this book will require lot of historical background—or, to be precise, something passed through like what written in American Prometheus about Oppenheimer. But surprisingly, this book was far from that. I honestly didn’t find the urge about thing that called ‘historical’ along the way, it’s more like a memoir about Elizabeth Zott.. with many scientific things as her background. They even didn’t provide an enough reliable resources for this book set on 1960, it’s more like a modern scientist that had life at that time being said. 

The language usage! It’s so humorous and funny, if you walked on the street and found your friend read one of the page from this book, you wouldn’t expect the main character the her whole family was working in laboratory-chemistry-scientific field. It’s like a woman empowerment and how a woman thrive to be mother for her family, her career, and herself. Why do I say so? Because you will find many phrases that showed Zott from her early career until the top. I also love how she made a philosophy chemistry on her class to make (us) easier to understand, or those who have been working on that field finding this book more relatable to close to home. 

The inner-connection to find in her pathway, how the fairytale becomes the base-core of humanity. Two signifies the lead hardness, although pencils don’t actually contain lead. They contain graphite, which is a carbon allotrope. Unlike ink, graphite is erasable. People make mistakes, a pencil allows one to clear the mistake and move on. Scientist expect mistakes, and because of it— they embrace failures. Some of the values that I learned so much from this book as how it is applicable for my study and my life. 

Lessons In Chemistry, like its title, is a lesson we learned about chemistry in life. This book is a diary, a journey, and little punching bag, and a family. Even though the genre bejng said is out of my expectations, but the story is really valuable for my preference. That I eventually understand if life has never been fair, and yet we continue to operate as if it is—as if once we get a few wrongs straightened out, everything else will fall into place. If you need a historical fiction with its detail events of time, this book probably wouldn’t provide you that extend—otherwise, if you look for the scientifically proven of how life works from the PhD and their family (well, it suddenly remind me of my thesis advisor. As how she told me about her family on our discussion… and I found it so endearing! She is so lovely, I adore her so much) then this book was made for you.