Lessons in Chemistry

 Lessons in Chemistry (2022) by Bonnie Garmus

Synopsis (from back of book): 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. Elizabeth's unusual approach to cooking ("combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride") proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn't just teaching women to cook. She's daring them to change the status quo.

Don't get me wrong, this is a good book. But let me get something off my chest at the start--"Laugh-out-loud funny" (from the book blurb), it ain't. There are a lot of heavy topics in here--from misogyny to attempted rape to suicide to atrocities committed in the name of religion. The book had me thinking--about how difficult it was (and still is) for a woman in a man's world; about how we need to do so much better as humans. What I didn't do was laugh. Not once.

But, as I said, this is a good book. It shows where women were...and unfortunately too often still are. There were moments in the 70s where it seemed that women and girls were making progress. I never felt growing up that there wasn't anything I wouldn't be able to do just because I was a girl. I had parents and teachers that encouraged me in every area that I wanted to explore. But something went wrong and well...just look at what the Supreme Court has been doing lately to see where we are now. 

I was rooting for Elizabeth throughout the whole book and enjoyed watching her come full circle back to "real" chemistry. I do wish that we could have represented her as a brilliant woman without making her so abrasively awkward--but I also understand why she is the way she is. And nice girls don't usually finish first in a boy's world anyway. ★★★★

First line: Back in 1961, when women wore shirtwaist dresses and joined garden clubs and drove legions of children around in seatbeltless cars without giving it a second thought; back before anyone knew there'd even be a sixties movement, much less one that its participants would spend the next sixty years chronicling; back when big wars were over and the secret wars had just begun and people were starting to think fresh and believe everything was possible, the thirty-year-old mother of Madeline Zott rose before dawn every morning and felt certain of just one thing: her life was over.

Last line: "Abiogenesis," she said. "Let's get started."