The Big Read 2024
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Follow Elizabeth Zott as she journeys through life In the 1950s and 60s, when life for an intelligent woman with aspirations to work in the misogynistic ‘man’s world’ of science is not a easy one. Society conspires against her as well as she is a single mother. In a peculiar quirk of fate, she lands herself a job as a cookery show host!
Here is a woman who takes no nonsense from the men in her life who believe that a woman’s place is in the home where she panders the family. We learn a lot about chemistry in the book as well. Sometimes we laughed out loud while other parts are quite sad.
Our group read this book and with one exception enjoyed it. Here are some of the comments:
Is Elizabeth autistic?
Loved this quote from Harriet – “babies are blood sucking leeches”.
Elizabeth was unusual for this era when women were not expected to work after giving birth and certainly not in the world of science.
One of the criticisms was that the whole story was too much like a fairy tale with everything ending happy ever after. This was from the same woman who said she enjoyed it immensely.
The one exception said she got really bored with the story as it bounced around too much and she gave up on it. She admitted to being a slow reader with not a lot of time to read.
So overall 4.5*.