Lessons in Chemistry
by Bonnie Garmus 2022, Doubleday, New York
This is a story about a woman in the 1950’s who has a passion for science and wants to conduct research in chemistry. Unfortunately, she runs into many challenges, the primary one being that she’s a woman and is not recognized or respected as a scientist.
The primary character, Elizabeth Zott, is very outspoken and is fired from her job. The company she worked for didn’t really want to hire her in the first place, but they were forced to by a large doner. She subsequently becomes a chef on an afternoon TV show and demonstrates that cooking is basically science.
The plot of this novel is really very clever, but the character of Elizabeth Zott really stands out. The dialogue is crisp and funny, and this all adds up to a very enjoyable novel.
Some of the ingredients of this book are a bit hard to believe (a dog who can recognize almost a thousand words, a four-year-old girl who reads adult books), but if you can accept that it’s all fiction and read on, the book is really enjoyabe. I am glad, however, that it was set in the 50’s as it does make the story much more believable.
It is a delightful book to read and also very fast. It’s too bad that some of the terrible things described in the book that happen to women actually happen in the real world.
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