_astronoMay reviewed Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Review of 'Lessons in Chemistry' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I'm struggling with how I feel about this one. On one hand, I related with so many of Elizabeth's experiences as a woman in STEM and thoroughly enjoyed six-thirty's character, in fact the dog was my favorite part of this book.
However so much of this seemed out of time, like the book either wasn't sure what era it was in or the author was combining multiple eras. At times it also felt like Elizabeth might be neurodivergent, others it felt like she was just an awkward scientist, so overall I wasn't entirely sure what her story was or how to interpret her actions. Elizabeth is also a terrible science communicator. The book shows women eating up Elizabeth's every science-heavy word, but in reality she wasn't actually making science accessible to these people with how she acted and how she spoke about it to them. That whole part of the …
I'm struggling with how I feel about this one. On one hand, I related with so many of Elizabeth's experiences as a woman in STEM and thoroughly enjoyed six-thirty's character, in fact the dog was my favorite part of this book.
However so much of this seemed out of time, like the book either wasn't sure what era it was in or the author was combining multiple eras. At times it also felt like Elizabeth might be neurodivergent, others it felt like she was just an awkward scientist, so overall I wasn't entirely sure what her story was or how to interpret her actions. Elizabeth is also a terrible science communicator. The book shows women eating up Elizabeth's every science-heavy word, but in reality she wasn't actually making science accessible to these people with how she acted and how she spoke about it to them. That whole part of the plot came across to me like an attempt to be inspirational with how Elizabeth inspired so many women, but as a scientist myself who's passionate about science communication it read like the author just wanted a shiny story about a quirky woman scientist in the 60s without putting too much depth into the character. It would have been much stronger if Elizabeth had shown that women can be scientists and are regular everyday people too, instead of leaning so hard into the "she's a scientist so can only speak like a scientist" thing.
