Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - Eine Frage der Chemie

The book is too long it’s very repetitive between allll the examples of sexism (which are important to the plot and tone but that many examples didn’t need to be included) and then the retelling of what happened to Calvin and to Elizabeth over and over for new characters that come in the pace is very slow because of this but picks up when the magazine gets involved it starts to really roll along after that it’s very very well written it’s fun to read it just needs more editing especially to be cut down

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deadwhiterabbit's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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stargazer_sarah's review against another edition

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emotional funny inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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karkei's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I forget how much women in the past had to fight for the rights we enjoy today. The inequalities have in no way been eradicated, but I feel so fortunate to be living in the time that I do.

Elizabeth Zott is not exactly a lovable character - she is stubborn and she is odd. But she definitely earned my respect.

The book was a page-turner. What an exciting premise. I would say that reading the blurb, I wanted to read more about how Zott changed the women’s lives though. I think it would have been interesting to see more of the lives of the women behind the screen watching her and the little impacts they made in their own lives, rather than the huge focus on Zott’s life itself. It would have been a better balance - less about how she got to Supper at Six, but more on how the show or Zott herself made an impact on others.

The reason I say this is because it was almost ironic that this story that supposedly champions women ended up being more about a man (Calvin Evans). Evans was the huge catalyst behind Zott’s story, his death was central to the plot and his childhood was what ended up giving Evans the life she wanted. I didn’t enjoy that.

Also, another little critique I have is that Zott’s beauty was brought up quite a lot. I know that they were trying to emphasize that men looked at beauty a certain way back then, but for the sake of the story, I think the story wouldn’t have changed much without the mention of beauty (e.g. Frask also got assaulted and went through something similar to Zott, even when she was highlighted to be quite unattractive). This is particularly the case when considering how Garmus went to great lengths to emphasize Evans’ unattractiveness. It was almost like Garmus herself was putting Elizabeth into a box and claiming she got where she did because a woman’s beauty helps her.

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