Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus | Book Reviews

Every year, thousands of new books are published in variety of formats and covering numerous areas. Some books are by well-known authors and awaited by a reader fan base to make it to the best-seller charts, while others enjoy moderate success, and there are some debut books which enjoy well-deserved success as they bring to readers something fresh, something adorable and something sparkling.

One of such books this year is Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. While the author has been writing for most of her life, this is her first published, full length novel that has become a favourite with readers. The blurb of the book was very appealing and so we added it to our reading pile.

And here are our views on this book on behalf of Team Thinkerviews.

Book Cover:

Let us take a look at the cover page of this book.

The cover page of this book has a vintage, funny and colourful theme. Divided into colourful red, blue, yellow and green quarters, the front page showcases a woman holding a television in the upper half. This old-fashioned tv screen shows a woman from bygone times. Bottom half of the coverpage has the book title and other details including the author’s name and complementary review titbits….

Overall, I found the cover page will attract browsers looking for an entertaining read…

Storyline:

When we meet Elizabeth Zott, in 1961, she is a successful TV personality, hosting a program called ‘Supper at Six’, where she is known to teach the whole nation to make food that matters. She is young, beautiful, has a bright daughter called Madeline (Mad), a dog called six thirty, and she feels like her life is finished. Why so?

To discover that, we learn about this intelligent, bright woman who has always wanted to be a scientist. But her masters course ended with an unfortunate incident where she had to defend herself against a rapist supervisor. This incident also ended her prospects for entry into a doctoral program. And she had to accept a job in the research institute located in Commons, California.

She is making the most of the limited opportunity she is given here, the continuous challenges and resistance she has to face because she is a woman, wanting to do nothing more than continue her research in abiogenesis and be recognised for the capable scientist she is. And it is here that she meets Calvin Evans, a brilliant, well-known, scientist who has achieved huge success at a very young age.

And so these two learn to work together and fall in love to the extent that everyone around them is jealous of their obvious chemistry. They are happy together, in spite of Calvin teaching Elizabeth the brutal sport of rowing, her persistent no to the thought of their getting married, and in this little world of theirs, they bring a dog called six thirty.

Then fate intervenes. And Calvin is dead, And Elizabeth is left with unfathomable grief and an unplanned pregnancy. She is fired from her job. All she has left is the house and the dog. And so she creates a lab of her own in her kitchen and starts correcting the work of her ex-colleagues for cash.

Eventually, Mad is born and Elizabeth find an unlikely friend in her neighbour, who becomes Mad’s babysitter. When a girl in Mad’s class starts eating Mad’s lunch, because guess what, the chemist is a fabulous cook, Elizabeth goes to complain. And Amanda’s dad, a tv producer, ends up becoming her second unlooked for friend, after they collaborate and create “Supper at Six”.

The show is successful, she has enough money to raise her child, and although the love of her life is gone, she is finding friends…Why then does she feel like her life is finished? Will Elizabeth Zott find the hope and the future she can look forward to?

Views and Reviews:

One of the best features of this book is how it draws you in, you wouldn’t want to stop reading until your reach the end. The writing is delightful, humorous and upbeat, which balances the serious and sad parts of the stories. The descriptions of places, people and situation carry an undertone of humour, for example, the description of the town in California, where the story takes place.

Where the weather was mostly warm, but not too warm, and the sky was mostly blue, but not too blue, and the air was clean, because air just was back then…

Elizabeth Zott is clearly the central character of the book. Today, looking back, you might use words like geeky, nerdy or something along that line to describe someone who comes across as socially inept because they don’t quite relate with the social norms. Such logic driven personalities are commonly linked with study of science and technological subjects. So in a way, she feels a stereotype, and so more out of place in the times, that did not yet have the terminology or extend the same treatment to such a woman in those times.

Elizabeth’s love for chemistry, her desire to be recognised as a scientist, her constant struggle in the male-dominated workplaces, the injustice she has to face, the jealousy she has to fend off, all of it will speak to readers who have and still suffer similar attitudes, on account of being a minority due to their gender, colour, faith, language, nationality, etc.

And then there is Calvin. Both Calvin and Elizabeth grew up without traditional families, and both made something of themselves. But that’s why its heartbreaking when Calvin dies after what seems like a very short period of love and happiness in their lives. It is very apt that the author brings us multiple characters who bring humour to the narrative which deals with so much sadness and heartbreak, through her observations about the world of rowing, of science, of marriage, of television and lot more.

Through Calvin and his pen-pal Wakely’s correspondence, we witness the debate about religion and science, how faith based organisations may fail their charges, how the polite people are sometimes treated as weak. How the daily lives sometimes become a grind and we seek solace in stories, fables, friendships.

Humans need reassurance. They need to know that others survived hard times.

We are in the 1950s and 1960s, and the author brings to us the workplaces and science of the times. As she has mentioned in some interviews, she read science textbooks of the time to get some of those facts. As Elizabeth struggles to make her place in her professional world, the threads about women’s place in society are brought forward. While at forefront might be the attitudes of 1950s and 1960s, equality and equity for women is not as widespread around the world as we might think.

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 own behaviours.

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.

The book is loved so much by readers I think, because how in spite of all the troubles Elizabeth faces, the book still manages to bring forth positivity, love of friends and family and hopeful messages to the readers. In addition to being a best-seller, it is also being adapted for silver screen and might soon make an appearance on Apple TV.

Summary:

A story of a brilliant woman’s quest to make her place in the profession of her choosing while she tries to create a better world for herself and her daughter…

ThinkerViews Rating:

Around 7.5 stars out of 10.

Quick Purchase Links:

• Buy - Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus - Paperback - Amazon IN
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• Buy - Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus - Audiobook - Amazon IN
• Buy - Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus - Paperback - Amazon US
• Buy - Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus - Audiobook - Amazon US

Over To You:

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