Image from Walmart.com

I felt like I was doing cartwheels while reading Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, and I mean that in a good way. Or like I was watching Garmus do cartwheels. Her writing style, characters, and plot are so free-wheeling. The subject matter is often sad, serious, and even brutal, but somehow this book is both historical and feminist, and light-hearted and playful. Technically, it’s even magic realism, though I don’t hear anyone calling it that, because it’s also full of accurate and honest portrayals as well as “interesting factoids” (a la Olive from Ant Farm). This book is far from being just one thing. It is a fun story with that classic magic realism climax. It is a revealing of what it was like to be a woman in America in the 50s (historical fiction). It is a romance. It is feminist. It is well-written, popular fiction. It involves chemistry, rowing, dogs, cooking, television… It is (very much) a story about relationships of various stripes, especially female relationships. It is a portrayal of trauma (many traumas, really). It is a sketch of a unique and forceful character. It is replete with oddballs. And it is anti-religion (my least favorite part) in its pro-science-ness.

Elizabeth Zott is a chemist. But it’s the 50s and she can’t get no respect, especially when her path to a PhD is blocked by the patriarchy in a brutal and unfortunately familiar way. Now, she’s a lab tech who most coworkers assume is a secretary, and who absolutely none take seriously. She’s too pretty—and too female—to be a genius, after all. But Elizabeth Zott isn’t going to take any of this lying down. She is determined—and sometimes oblivious. Then one day she goes barging into the lab of a famous, revered, young chemist to demand more supplies and ends up setting off on an adventure that will take her heart and life in directions that she never saw coming.

This book had been so present in every bookstore and store around the end of 2023, had been mentioned on every year-end book list (though it was published in 2022), lingering at the edge of every bookish conversation… I was annoyed, actually. It was the kind of book that looked like one I wouldn’t like. I was unclear as to how good the book was as opposed to popular. And I had already been burned, months ago, by Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us after falling prey to the it’s-everywhere syndrome. (Sorry, Colleen, but not my jam.) My daughter said the same thing: she couldn’t get away from this book. And then I realized I had some winter blues going on, and decided to try out some local book clubs. The second one I penciled into my calendar was currently reading—duh, duh, duh!—Lessons in Chemistry. Not a shock, unless I was shocked the club hadn’t gotten to it yet. Now curious as well as annoyed, I purchased the book and started reading, hoping for a good book and a good group of new people.

This is the first ever book that I am reviewing after discussing it with a book club, with a group of people. I imagine this will happen in the future, but I reviewed Of Mice and Men years before I went to the first book club meeting of my latter life (like one week ago). In theory, I like the idea of reviewing on the blog before attending the discussion. I also like the idea of finding out what others think, first, just like how I like to check out the reviews on Goodreads, etc. before I finish up and post almost any review. I knew how I felt; I could retain that, right? Yeah, I think so.

Alternative cover image from Amazon.com

First and most obvious thing at group: I was not at all alone in a negative read on the cover (see image above). I don’t recall anyone out of the group of around 20 who defended the cover. Most people thought it looked like a romance when they saw the cover, and several said they dismissed the book because of that. One man said he hid it while reading in public. Everyone agreed that the cover did not reflect the content and wished that the publisher in America had gone with a different cover. And one woman said she noticed that many of the lowest reviews were from people who bought the book based on its cover and were disappointed it wasn’t a titillating, easy-read, romance. (See cover gallery HERE.)

I enjoyed the book. It was a page-turner and very easy to read. The language was playful, but mostly the story-telling was playful, and I had fun going with Garmus on her little adventure in literature. I liked the magic realism bits (I might as well tell you that the dog is a POV character) because I love magic realism. I also loved the insanity and neatness of the crash-bang ending after all the bits and pieces making their way into a tapestry that you don’t see coming until—!, because that is something I love, too (which someone at book club pointed out often goes hand-in-hand with magic realism). I appreciated the feminist aspects, partly because I have an interest in history and also because there are still echoes of everything she writes about in society today. I could relate to many of the obstacles and issues, many with the volume turned down. Elizabeth Zott is a super interesting and special character. You haven’t met her before in literature. She’s something else. (It is possible that she is on the spectrum or neuroatypical, but it’s not for sure.) I always love a cast of interesting characters, too, and this book is chock full of both heroes and villains, though none of the good guys lack foibles. All good, right?

Well, besides the few missteps that kept this book from my “perfect” or “favorite” list, there is also the not-so-small matter of how Christianity and religion are portrayed in this book. I don’t have a problem with Christianity being portrayed negatively in literature, exactly. I might be disappointed, but not surprised or even turned off by it. However, I have seen a trend lately both in books and in other media of turning the religious types into one-dimensional monsters while the rest of the characters get a much more rounded treatment. Lessons in Chemistry tries to give us just one character who is both of the faith and a “good guy,” but there’s only one way to do this in this book: make him a nonbeliever. Yes, a religious person without faith. (Actually, there was really more than one character like this.) Why is this the only way? Because all believers are dumb as rocks, even if they’re not monsters. The two main characters in Lessons in Chemistry appear to reflect the voice of the author here: only the gullible, uneducated, and unintelligent believe in a God or gods, especially these days. Cuz science. Which ignores reality, quite frankly. Ignores history and many of the smartest people in the world (including many, many scientists) who do believe in God and/or the supernatural. So I was totally offended by this. How could I not be? Garmus was basically calling me a moron while I was reading her little book (which I was otherwise enjoying)..

Still, it’s a fun book and I enjoyed it on many levels. I really thought its strongest points were regarding female relationships. Female-male relationships, some; romantic; partner; and friendship. Mother-daughter. Woman to herself. Woman to society and institution, like crazy. And definitely women with each other, which included both positive and negative female-female relationships. Essentially, Elizabeth Zott is this amazing Amazon woman who emerges from a lifelong stew of toxic relationships and—one little shaft of light at a time—she learns her lessons in interpersonal chemistry, which turns out to be the only thing that will save her and—who could believe it?—will make it worth all the pain. I especially keyed into the female relationships that were competitive, manipulative, and jealous. You don’t see those in books as much, but it was something I really struggled with growing up and have some more recent battle-scars from dealing with. I also thought this book shone when it came to characters changing and learning and growing. With the exception of maturing into belief (as she would see it), everyone except the real baddies were capable of improvement.

It’s a punchy book. Has great dialogue, including a lot of wit and humor. Interesting and a fun ride. The characters and voice are pretty amazing. There’s just the tiniest bit of magic realism (which is basically how magic realism works). Garmus really tackles some feminine issues, like equality in pay, domestic expectations, and female-female competitiveness in places where allies are needed. And many more. She’s a little hard on religion and Christians are monsters and unintelligent instead of dimensional characters like everyone else, which I have found in lots of stuff lately. Oh, and I forgot to mention that her foreshadowing is lacking hard-core in one of the main plots, so that’s a jaw-dropping moment that was handled really awkwardly (and my book club all agrees with me on this). I would give this book a big recommend, though, just like most people who are passing it around. Most readers will like it. I enjoyed it, for sure. Sorta similar to Where’d You Go, Bernadette?

This is Bonnie Garmus’s first novel, though she is no spring chicken. Her age and its success reminds me of Where the Crawdads Sing and Delia Owens, except hopefully we won’t find out that her book is a thinly veiled retelling of her complicity in a murder. Also, Owens was a naturalist writing about the natural world in a way that only a naturalist could. Garmus is not a chemist (she studied creative writing), yet appears to be a chemist by the way she writes about it. I guess that’s how research works. And imagination. Garmus is a rower and dog owner and mother, though, a Californian (who has lived elsewhere, too). She is also an open water swimmer, which is pretty cool but irrelevant to this book. She did work “widely” in the tech and medical fields, I think as a copywriter. (I can’t tell if those things go together, in her bio.)

Let’s see where she goes from here. She says she is writing another novel.

“She didn’t want children—she knew this about herself—but she also knew that plenty of other women did want children and a career. And what was wrong with that? Nothing. It was exactly what men got” (p14).

“Even the women who wish to be homemakers find their work completely misunderstood” (p26).

“And then there was the illogical art of female friendship itself, the way it seemed to demand an ability to both keep and reveal secrets using precise timing” (p48).

“Sure, grit was critical, but it also took luck, and if luck wasn’t available, the help” (p74).

“Because while stupid people may not know they’re stupid because they’re stupid, surely unattractive people must know they’re unattractive because of mirrors” (p150).

“’Probably going to argue you don’t have time.’ / ‘Because I don’t.’ / ‘Who does? Being an adult is overrated, don’t you think?’ he said. ‘Just as you solve one problem, ten more pull up’” (p160).

“’Life’s a mystery, isn’t it? People who try and plan it inevitably end up disappointed.’ / She nodded. She was a planner. She was disappointed.” (p210).

“’Men and women are both human beings. And as humans, we’re by-products of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural’” (p237).

“’Because quite often the past belongs only in the past.’ / ‘Why?’ / ‘Because the past is the only place it makes sense’” (p246).

Image from Penguin Books

Perhaps you already saw the 8-episode miniseries on Apple+. Perhaps it’s what has made the book extra-popular lately. Either way, both have been super popular, talked about by many people I have encountered. Here’s the thing: as some gal at book club kept saying, you should probably think of the show and the book as two different entities. I have heard through the grapevine that Garmus is not happy with the series, and I would understand completely. It’s one of those adaptations that completely misses the point of the book, discards the spirit and soul of the original work (like Anne with an E). Sure, there are some similarities in character names and events, but the series didn’t even keep the basic personalities of most of the main characters, including Elizabeth Zott (by my reading). It was impossible for Brie Larson to even play Elizabeth Zott as she should have been, because the plot changes and dialogue writing made her into a different character. There were whole plot lines scooped out, only to be replaced by plot lines that introduced entire, other issues (like race relations in the 50s). This meant that crucial themes were replaced. And my favorite character was replaced by someone else with her same name. Why? No clue. And the way the magic realism (read: the dog) was dealt with was pretty darn weird. Definitely disappointing.

Funny thing, though. I would not say this series was bad. Actually, it was pretty good. But if you are looking for more of the book, don’t look here. Maybe like Rowling or Riordan, Garmus will get a chance in the future to remake the book with its soul still intact. Until then, go ahead and watch the series because it’s pretty good, just not expecting Garmus’s story. Also, if you are not going to read the book, it won’t ruin anything for you. But trust me on this: it’s not the same thing, at all.