Book Review: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Lessons in Chemistry
Author: Bonnie Garmus
Publication: Doubleday (April 5, 2022)

Description: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • GMA BOOK CLUB PICK • Meet Elizabeth Zott: “a gifted research chemist, absurdly self-assured and immune to social convention” (The Washington Post) in 1960s California whose career takes a detour when she becomes the unlikely star of a beloved TV cooking show.

This novel is “irresistible, satisfying and full of fuel” (The New York Times Book Review) and “witty, sometimes hilarious...the Catch-22 of early feminism” (Stephen King, via Twitter).

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Oprah Daily, Entertainment Weekly, Newsweek

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.

But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.

Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.

My Thoughts: LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY was an amazing story. Part historical fiction, part the birth of women's liberation, part love story, but mostly the story of a woman who is true to herself no matter what the world around her thinks or believes.

Elizabeth Zott is a chemist. She missed out on her Master's Degree in Chemistry when she was raped by her faculty adviser and then pressured by the police to apologize to her rapist. She's working a low level and low pay job at a research lab when she meets Calvin Evans, boy scientist extraordinaire. The two form a relationship based on their mutual respect for one another and eventually fall in love. But Elizabeth is opposed to marriage because she feels that it is just another way for her to lose her identity.

Before Calvin can convince her to marry him, he dies in a freak accident leaving her pregnant. Being an unwed mother in the 1950s isn't easy. She loses her job and makes ends meet by surreptitiously assisting some of the other scientists in the lab for cash payments. 

She hasn't given up her interest in her research and converts her kitchen into her new lab. She is also raising her baby daughter Mad with the help of her neighbor Mrs. Sloane who has raised four of her own and is struggling in a marriage with a man who is abusive. 

The story is filled with interesting characters from her obstetrician who is obsessed with rowing to a minister who has lost his faith to the women in the audience of her new television show who are eating up her recipes and her philosophy of empowerment. Even her dog Six-Thirty is a well realized viewpoint character. Elizabeth herself stands out as a women who is going to march to her own drummer no matter what anyone else thinks. 

The reviews say this one is laugh-out-loud funny, but I didn't find it working that way for me. I did find some parts of it amusing, but mostly I found the treatment of women in the 1950s as told in this novel to be appalling. Personally, I don't find rape or plagiarism or outright discrimination to be very funny. 

I don't know if I can say that I enjoyed this book, but I can say that I found it a compelling story and one I couldn't put down. 

Favorite Quote:

"I don't have hopes," Mad explained, studying the address. "I have faith."

He looked at her in surprise. "Well, that's a funny word to hear coming from you."

"How come?"

"Because," he said, "well, you know. Religion is based on faith."

"But you realize," she said carefully, as if not to embarrass him further, "that faith isn't based on religion,. Right?"

I bought this one. You can buy your copy here.