Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel <— So this one was HUGE pretty much all of last year (constantly in the top 100 of all of Amazon Kindle) and the recommendations I received for it were incredible. My fellow readers were loving it, and it was obviously a hit considering it being front and center for so long.
Maryse: …reading one from Connie’s “Best Of” list – Lessons in Chemistry – so far so very good!
Connie: Oh, Maryse! How have you not read Lessons in Chemistry yet??? In my opinion, all men should be required to read Lessons in Chemistry and women, too, but men, more so. There is a love story, a painful heartbreak, plenty of humor, and lots of girl struggle and power but it is so much more. READ IT.
Mony: Just read Lessons in Chemistry and really enjoyed it! The characters (some quirky & some definitely not), the intense love between Elizabeth & __ (you have to read the book LOL), the stifling era (1950-1960s), women’s roles, even all that the real chemistry (LOL). Not your usual romance. A rich story and very insightful author.
Paula: …Lessons in Chemist followed by West with Giraffes. I read them all in a row and they were the best books I have read in years.
Kathy: Just finished “Lessons in Chemistry” and absolutely loved it
I just found out that Apple TV is making a mini-series out of it and it’s coming out October 13
So excited !!
I couldn’t resist, and when it went on sale (not a huge sale but a sale nonetheless) I happily one-clicked it. And I absolutely LOVED the whole first half of it. The writing was excellent, I loved the quirky/super independent nature of the heroine (I believe she’s also neurodiverse which comes out in her social interactions), and I was incensed with her every step of the way as she struggled in a male dominated career (and patriarchal society).
Elizabeth Zott held grudges too. Except her grudges were mainly reserved for a patriarchal society founded on the idea that women were less. Less capable. Less intelligent. Less inventive. A society that believed men went to work and did important things—discovered planets, developed products, created laws—and women stayed at home and raised children. 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.
Smarter (in most ways) than the men she worked with, many tried to take advantage of her in every way.
…she didn’t have to brace herself for the men who would invariably talk over her, or worse, take credit for her work. Elizabeth shook her head. When it came to equality, 1952 was a real disappointment.
For the most part, she kept them at bay, but eventually, push came to shove, and it could have destroyed her.
The lab tech, noting her growing dissatisfaction, asked her why she wanted to be a scientist anyway.
“I don’t want to be a scientist,” she snapped. “I am a scientist!” And in her mind, she was not going to let some fat man at UCLA, or her boss, or a handful of small-minded colleagues keep her from achieving her goals. She’d faced tough things before. She would weather what came.
But weathering is called weathering for a reason: it erodes. As the months went by, her fortitude was tested again and again.
Her strength and resilience (co-mingling with her obvious difference when it came to social norms) kept her moving and readapting. Strange or not, her lack of “care” in what people think of her (or how she “should be” in the world) kept her going. Thriving, even (depending on who you ask). Elizabeth is NOT a people pleaser. She walks to the beat of her own drum.
I loved her sweet romantic relationship. It was nice to see her in a different light, more tender, and fun, and connecting and lighthearted.
They were more than friends, more than confidants, more than allies, and more than lovers. If relationships are a puzzle, then theirs was solved from the get-go—as if someone shook out the box and watched from above as each separate piece landed exactly right, slipping one into the other, fully interlocked, into a picture that made perfect sense. They made other couples sick.
I also loved those that helped her (such as her neighbors). Their interactions were a total kick.
And I also couldn’t WAIT for the very thing that gave me a “blurb jolt”. Her TV show that she abhorred the idea of. But yet again, adapting, and doing it her way, and finding HUGE success and popularity through it.
It was all… good. But…
Tasha J: Are you still reading Lessons in Chemistry, Maryse?
Maryse: I’m stuck at at 77% of Lessons in Chemistry and again, parts I love and devoured and now I’m stuck and bored (also long winded). *sigh* …I’m struggling. While I enjoy the dog, and loved the first part (I’d say a quarter to a third in) I find it long and somewhat boring, now.
Her struggles in a man’s world are infuriating (and I totally connect to her on those) and I love reading those parts too. Also I DO love every scene when she’s on her cooking show. I devour those chapters and smirk. I LIKE the characters, I just find it not as exciting as I thought it would be.
Mony: I also struggled – with the last third – but continued. Lots of storylines thrown at us. Agree it wasn’t as exciting as the part beforehand – but I finished to get the whole of the story. Wondering if there’ll be a Book #2.
But despite my appreciating her very direct/independent ways (and chuckling at her lack of abashedness and her deadpan responses – I DID love that!!),…
Kate: Honestly there were moments where I could not stop laughing during Lessons in Chemistry.
Maryse: Definitely some fun moments. I did enjoy her deadpan remarks.
…as hard as I tried, I just could not connect with her. Probably because it felt like she pretty much… didn’t like… much of anything (except for her child, of course – TOTAL love there). I just couldn’t wait for her to enjoy her show, want it, laugh with it. But… I just didn’t “get that” from her at all. To me, it just felt like she was annoyed by… everything. As though so much was beneath her. And while I loved that her audience loved her (because despite how she didn’t like what she was doing, she still unintentionally – almost to her chagrin – always put on a good show), I just didn’t end up loving her.
And also I struggled believing that such a VERY young child could discuss theology and life and the like in such depth with a perfect stranger and move around as she did. She was SO young (and yes, of course considering her parents were geniuses – it would make sense that she would be one too), but… I dunno. Ya know? 🙁
I guess I just had to go with it (like I always tell you guys to do when I love a book with a “not so believable moment” LOL! 😂)
Anyway, all that to say, it took me AGES to finish the book.
Maryse: I need to finally finish “Lessons in Chemistry”… and see what all the fuss was about. I’m at 86% and it hasn’t wowed me, like it has other readers that are raving about it.
The beginning, I enjoyed (highly intelligent- even genius female scientist struggling with chauvinistic peers). Then something crazy happened and I was hooked.
Then, the second half was over the top for me, yet not exciting (except when she’s on her cooking shows – I did enjoy those), but I’m hoping the ending gets me.
I don’t think it will…
I devoured the first quarter/half, got a BIG HUGE SHOCK moment that stunned me and connected me HARD to the story (just you wait for that part – HOLY MOLY)… and then lost it once we were in the second half. But I finished it.
Oh and I absolutely LOVED the dog! That was the touch that kept me the whole way through.
So… 3.5 stars for me on this one. What did you guys think of it?
P.S. And yes, I will absolutely watch the show. 😉 😂
SCIENTIST IS THE STAR OF A COOKING SHOW!!
Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel
SCIENTIST IS THE STAR OF A COOKING SHOW!!
“…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...”
Connie: …In my opinion, all men should be required to read Lessons in Chemistry and women, too, but men, more so. There is a love story, a painful heartbreak, plenty of humor, and lots of girl struggle and power but it is so much more. READ IT.
Kathy: Just finished “Lessons in Chemistry” and absolutely loved it
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