Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Amy  

historical fiction

Elizabeth Zott is intelligent, ambitious, beautiful, and a scientist. She really doesn’t have any friends but falls happily in love with a man—another intelligent, ambitious scientist. Elizabeth had been fighting her way through a terrible childhood and the male-dominated world of science in the 1950s.  After her life takes a drastic turn, and through a series of unfortunate events, she finds herself hosting a cooking show.

I had not planned to read this novel because of the title. I have no real interest in chemistry, as a study of science, and figured this novel would contain a lot of it. Thankfully, science is only a tertiary character in the novel. Lessons in Chemistry is mostly about the drive for equal opportunities for women. The 1950/1960s was the right setting for Elizabeth’s story.

The first half of Bonnie Garmus' novel was good but I was having trouble understanding why it had come so highly recommended.  In fact, some pretty terrible things happened and I was getting a bit depressed reading it.  But a little over halfway through, the story finally jumped up a level when Elizabeth’s light began to shine. I appreciated the positive view of librarians in this book as well as the messages around feminism. I enjoyed the dog’s point of view (and his name) very much. In fact, sometimes the story was so dark that his thoughts were the only bright spot. The collection of fun, quirky characters were terrific as were the fun coincidences within the story.

I often found myself incensed due to Elizabeth’s treatment by other people. In fact, the unfairness and cruelty made me want to stop reading a couple times. I guess the real world’s unfairness and cruelty has been bothering me so much recently and I hated to see even a fictional character suffer. Thankfully, the novel ended on a very positive note. This novel reminded me that the treatment of, and opportunities for, women have improved a lot since Elizabeth's time. However, it's maddening that 70 years later we still have a long way to go.

The narrator, Miranda Raison, did a great job.  The voice she gave Elizabeth was perfect. Her voice acting was also terrific.  She had a few voices in her repertoire. And her American accent is really great 99.9% of the time. But it was so obvious to me that she wasn’t American when she pronounced a few words unusually. (For example, she pronounced “been” like “bean”.) I was driven to look her up to find out where she was from. As it turns out, she’s British. I’ll give her an A-.