Lessons in Chemistry

Oh man this one deserves the popularity! It was vivid and immersive. It toed the line wonderfully between heavy and comedic. The characters were so well-rounded. They were perfect for the story but also believable. I especially liked how Garmus wrote Six-Thirty to have an entire mental life as a complete character.

Fun and funny with some serious and difficult topics. I enjoyed. Book club pick. I listened. That was good.

Incredibly moving book. I spent the first half incredibly angry at the end of each chapter,then the second half incredibly emotional. It's been a while that I've connected so much with the characters and their story. 

1DISCLAIMER I AM RIPPING THIS BOOK APART , I AM ALREADY IN ABAD MOOD , AND THIS BOOK DIDNT HELP , IF YOU LIKED DONT READ

A fantasy book , with a good premice and bad execution with a fundamental misunderstanding on how institutional sexism work , or anything else really


“Bovary's a great example,” she said. “Here, where Emma licks her fingers? Some believe it signifies carnal lust; others think she just really liked the chicken. As for what Flaubert actually meant? No one cares.” 1


She intend it as a superbole probably but it illustrate perfectly this book lack of subtlety in this author writting , I promise you the reader is not a moron and dont need to be lectured by textbook tirades , show dont tell
Also those characters are caricatures , the pure archetype no more no less , Zott is not a product of her time with revoluyionary ideas , she is the self insert 21 century woman , who is a cartoon scientist genuinely , she travelled through time and dont fit at all , and brought with her some social justice textbooks probably ,i understand the feminist message but why not a more organic one , she lived all her life with the same ideas hammered at her , she isnt going to have the same mindset at us
her colleague are infruating , but i let it slide , it could be , even if the odds of a whole research department not understanding their own results , the whole departemnet not some of them , all of them , are morons , that need help , tbr how do you think they arrived at their positions ? they had an advantages in comparison to zott , but a harvard graduate is still an extremelly sharp individual
no one is that important

also her show would have got out of air the second she oppened her mouth , suspension of dibelief to what level tho , it 50 ies usa , she is going to get a communist allegation , and loose everything , the mom of five just becoming a doctorate like that is, cmon , she have five kids and no support , the poor woman already in the trenches

also this book have a strong r/atheist vibe , those edgelords kinda ambiance going for it , look at this woman lowkey proving atheism , wich girl no she isnt , also every single religious figure is crooked or evil and just lying to others about faith , i am no christian , but is it hard to fanthom some people actually are believers , i understand maybe she intended to have some exploration of religion for financial or political but it fell flat as the rest of the book



in sum , dnf a third through , could have been a good , insightfull read but this is a big fumble , but any surface white feminist might appreciate it , solvimg structural issues and racism one virtue signaling at the time
i am not trusting tiktok again should have learned my lesson

I enjoyed reading this. The MC was interesting and stiff, but still likable. I loved six thirty adding his viewpoint. I would recommend.

The books ending improved it some for me but I think its still more like a 2.5 star read. There was a general lack of nuance both in the characters and in the message.

Most of the male side characters were just plain bad people with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Their internal thoughts were “women are dumb and let me teach them a lesson”. It got old fast. The main character never missed an opportunity to beat me over the head with speeches containing messages about feminism, inequality in gender and race and how we need to fight the patriarchy.

I approve the messages but the manner in which they were delivered felt forced and preachy, like the writer didn’t trust me to understand on my own. It irritated me to be honest. I almost DNFed it but decided to see where it would go.

This was a fun, quick read. I hesitate to rate it a 5, but it is better than a 4. A 4.5 would be more accurate. The characters were fun, even if they were a bit hard to believe. The plot was intriguing and had a few fun twists and turns. There were a few subject matters that are usually hard for me to read about (suicide, sexual violence) but they were handled well.

Elizabeth Zott terbiasa terluka sejak muda. Meskipun diremehkan, difitnah, dilecehkan, dan dijegal langkahnya oleh para lelaki di laboratoriumnya, Elizabeth Zott terus bertekad membuktikan bahwa dia kimiawan berbakat. Tak ada yang mendukungnya, kecuali Calvin Evans, si genius pendendam yang disegani semua orang.
Akan tetapi, hidup tak pernah berhenti memberi kejutan. Apron menggantikan jas laboratorium, panci menggusur tabung reaksi. Siapa sangka perempuan itu akan menjadi bintang acara masak paling populer di Amerika?
Berisi kisah tentang Elizabeth Zott, seorang ahli kimia perempuan di era 1960-an yang penuh dengan diskriminasi gender. Meskipun jenius, Elizabeth dipecat dari pekerjaannya dan dianggap tidak pantas berada di laboratorium.
Namun, Elizabeth tidak menyerah. Ia menemukan cara baru untuk berbagi pengetahuannya tentang ilmu kimia dengan menjadi bintang acara memasak di televisi. Dalam acara tersebut, Elizabeth tidak hanya mengajarkan resep-resep lezat, tetapi juga menyisipkan pelajaran tentang ilmu kimia dan pentingnya kesetaraan gender.

Fantastic. Reminded me a bit of a not-fantasy Matilda, where the mother and daughter are both Matildas. It's not literally the story of Matilda, but gave Matilda vibes.    Location: California  Historical Time: Mostly 1955-1962

Great story and great characters! Loved how the book was written! Definitely a must-read!

This was amazing. So inspiring. An amazing woman doing awesome stuff in a time where is was even worse to be a woman than it is now 😭 very inspiring and full of laughs with a few almost tears

such a good read. 
the cover fucking sucks tho

A lot of the book, especially the first half, was hard to get through. I felt a lot of anger toward the main character's antagonists, who were all reflecting the norms of society at the time. It was especially blood-boiling to read about women not supporting women. Obviously, the book has a happy ending, with redemption for a few of the characters, but yea, I didn't know if I was going to be able to get through it.

this is probably gonna be in my top 5 books for the year. the characters are all SO GOOD. the way things tie together and relate to one another in ways i wasn't expecting. the humor is impeccable. i was brought to tears or close to them multiple times. and i've never been so proud of a fictional character before. Elizabeth Zott is a treasure.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus★★★☆☆   3.5/5—A story carried purely by its supporting cast and dry-wit humour.The beginning was such a drag, middle was great, and the ending was a bit too fairy-tale like for what had happened in the story. I almost put the book down literally the first chapter in because she was waxing poetics about how precocious Madeline was and I nearly dropped the book right then and there. Sorry, I really just don't care to read about a genius 5 year old kid that could read beyond her age - I don't think this is as special as you think it is.I probably wasn't convinced by the story until 30% in when the dry humour really started to kick in. I'll admit - I while I understood and vaguely appreciate the attempt of feminist messaging that the story tried to push, I greatly disliked the way it was delivered both plot and character-wise. Elizabeth Zott is in short, fairly disagreeable, and was just a blank-slate vehicle to push the feminist message and story. I believe there was a line where she says “This is water, or more commonly known as H2O” and I just had to roll my eyes - this woman is pretentious. This whole “This is water, or more commonly known as H2O” spiel that sort of went on throughout the whole book (her insistence on calling the name by it's molecular make up first and foremost) deterred from the message and felt unrealistic. As a woman that works in a specialised subset of a very broad industry, industry jargon makes it harder for the average layman to understand and to even begin to want to understand - it's alienating at best, especially in Zott's time. I've literally seen people's eyes glaze over when they ask what I do, when I do not make an effort to explain as plainly as possible. I find it difficult to believe that these broadly uneducated women watching her on the television would be so moved as to suddenly change their lives - in fact, I imagine the average woman of the 1950s or 60s would probably scorn her. I wish Zott's feminist approach was a bit more realistic for the its time. Zott's approach would not be too out of the ordinary in a modern setting. However, its place in a very conservative time is jarring and unbelievable. In fact, her know-it-all attitude would be off putting to most people in this day and age, honestly.The light at the end of the tunnel was certainly the supporting cast. When Garmus wanted to make the character likeable, boy were they likeable. When they weren't - well, unfortunately, that may simply be the majority of the characters. While I'm glad it wasn't an “all men are terrible” story, it was pretty damn close to it. Pine, Hariett, Dr. Mason, and even Frask's little redemption arc were truly what made me enjoy the story.The ending was a little bit too tied up neatly for me. I was not crazy about how she went back to Hastings, disliked how there were no depiction of how she became a well respected scientist (or even tangible proof of her capabilities), her research is all conveniently funded by Calvin's wealthy mother. I feel like in the end, she has neither proved her worth nor achieved her goals with her own two hands, which seems a bit odd in regards to the message the story was trying to push.Overall, I wish the story had tackled the difficulties women faced in her time period with a bit more nuance. I think it would have been nice to dive a bit more on what it's like to be a single mother in a very misogynistic society; or what if Mad was just an average child with a brilliant mother, and her dealing with that difference in maybe drive and achievement; or if Calvin had just lived and she was able to forge her own path despite the adversities she faced. Side-note: I greatly disliked the anthromorphism of Six-Thirty (cute name though). It added nothing to the story, and felt out of place for a story following the life of a scientist. Similarly, the weird spiel on religion that had no depth to it whatsoever. I think the choice to be religious or not is an interesting topic that has persisted throughout centuries and will continue to persist, but the way Garmus went about it was questionable. Frankly, it added nothing to the story apart from contributing bloat - and I say this a staunch atheist.Although I realise this review is fairly negative, I did enjoy reading this story. It was a fun little afternoon read on a slow Friday, and for being so disappointed by debut novels I've been reading lately, this one was fairly impressive. The prose somewhat reminds me of bedtime stories written for children, but not necessarily in a bad way. Lessons In Chemistry doesn't provide any profound takeaways, and I would recommend a light-hearted, unserious approach to this when reading.

Das Buch war gut geschrieben und auch spannend, obwohl es kein genre ist dass normalerweise dafür bekannt ist. Aber natürlich ist auch die message und die story sehr gut. Es geht um Frauen in der Wissenschaft und die hauptperson ist einfach hartnäckig sie selbst, wie sie auch sollte.

People either hate or love this book. I picked it up with no expectations. I considered watching the show, and I like to read books before movies/shows. I really loved it. I know nothing about chemistry, so I wasn't evaluating the character based on her knowledge or presentation of science. I really did laugh out loud in moments, and I don't usually do that. I think the book is meant to be a bit outlandish, so my advice would be not to take the coincidences and slightly unbelievable things too seriously. Just enjoy the narrative.

I don't often write reviews for books, but this story surprised me in ways I did not expect. I don't remember how it ended up on my To-Read list but I am glad it did; 95% of what I read is Sci-Fi / Fantasy.

I'm am not sure if it is because I never read this genre, or if it is because I am male, but Lessons in Chemistry drew me in and filled me with all the emotions. All the main characters are enjoyable and I personally felt deeply happy/sad for Ms. Elizabeth Zott throughout her journey.

I hope that anyone who reads this can experience it like I did. I was also happy to find out that there is already a show made which I will certainly be checking out.

3.5/5 This was a good book, however I wasn't a fan of Elizabeth and her personality. But after thinking about it, I felt she was on the spectrum, but since this was the 50's & 60's, that was not a thing.

Where is the funny?

Loved this. Miniseries was so enjoyable, and the book is even better.

Як на мене, то атмосферу цілої розповіді можна зрозуміти вже з одного цього випадкового фрагмента:
"Що може бути краще, аби вибити ложку з рота великого цабе? А після того як остаточно зруйнує любовну ідилію Еванса і Зотт, покине бідолашну й спокійно повернеться до вкотре вагітної дружини та діточок-горлопанів. План був простим: спершу треба підірвати повагу Зотт до самої себе. Жінок так легко зламати."
До цього всього важно додати застереження щодо ґазлайтинґу, спроби зґвалтування та самогубства.

“Урокам хімії” можна дати точнішу назву “Уроки фемінізму, або приклади несправедливості, з якими доводиться стикатися жінкам і не тільки, але в дуже концентрованому вигляді”. Сама по собі історія не оригінальна, але написана досить непогано, текст читається легко, а сюжет досить цікавий.

Хоча я би посперечалася з добором творів і авторів, які згадуються в тексті. Саме через них було кілька моментів, коли здавалося наче авторка просто намагається приплести більше імен, щоб твір виглядав серйозніше, але мене це більше збивало, заплутувало і розчаровувало.

One of the best I've read with a great ending. This is now a Miniseries on Apple+ Network!
David N.

What a wonderful, quirky book.

Can I give this a 10 out of 5? Please.

It's one of those writers that when you read them you feel you're seeing the world crystal clear. The writing is so smart, the development is so good, it doesn't get boring, it skillfully jumps back, forward and within without never losing grip of the main storyline and it's so damn powerful and beautiful at its core.
It really made me scream, laugh, burn in rage and impotence and cry.
It is, truly, a wonderful reading that I really hope that anyone who reads it finds it as staggering as I did.