Review: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Finally read this overhyped book, and I have to admit I’m a little underwhelmed. It’s got a great combination of feminism and humor going for it—and really, which woman doesn’t relate to the injustice of being constantly ignored in favor of her male colleagues?

The plot, in brief, follows the life of an up-and-coming scientist, Zott, who—after being horrifically sexually assaulted—is left without a job or prospects. She eventually finds her footing in a new job and in love with her new partner, Evans (cliché much? And a bit of a discredit to women in the workplace—apparently, we can’t keep our feelings separate). They adopt a dog and go on to have a daughter.

So, Elizabeth is astonishingly brilliant, her partner is a celebrity scientist—also brilliant—and they adopt a prodigal dog and have a prodigal daughter (who can read Nabokov by the time she’s four).

While one is being amazed by the contrived brilliance flowing through the pages of Lessons in Chemistry, Zott lands a job on a cooking show and, of course, upends all stereotypes. Entertaining? Yes. Believable? Not so much.

What gets me down is the over-prodigal nature of the entire cast. And Bonnie Garmus’ need to embody the story of every wronged female scientist from the 1950s and 1960s into the single life of Zott.

And then there’s the obsession with rowing—which, to me, adds nothing to the plot. But as Garmus self-prophesizes early in the novel: rowers can only talk about rowing and little else. And that’s exactly what she does, being a rower herself.