Reviews with content warning for Fatphobia - Lessons in Chemistry

Reviews tagging 'Fatphobia'

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

39 reviews

jeknee's review against another edition

I couldn't get beyond the visceral fatphobia in the first couple chapters. I still can't stop thinking about the hatred this author must have for fat people. Weak trope, do better.

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ecmiller's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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vj_thompson's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective sad medium-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? Yes

5.0

This book 🥹 I enjoyed this book so much more than I thought I would and wish more people would read it, or at least give it a chance!!

There is a reason this is a five star read. This writing is beautiful, intentional, and meaningful. Each word was written with purpose. Everything in this story; backstory, inner monologue, character, had reason. I LOVED how everything was wrapped up in the end. Of course I cried 😭 Ugh, please read!!

Last thought, Six-thirty is my favorite character. I highlighted so many of his parts. He is a wise dog.

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ciararenaud's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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ramalam98's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring sad fast-paced

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

4.0

I absolutely loved my reading experience of this, but I must admit that there is a lot I could criticise and part of this review has been me deciding how much these criticisms affect my rating of the book.

It's definitely a 3/5 when it comes to characterisation

I said to my friend who I was buddy reading this with that Elizabeth Zott felt like someone who had grown up in our times and timetravelled to 1960. Obviously there were women in that time who challenged the status quo and fought for radical change, but Zott just seems to do it in a very unrealistic way. She was weirdly naive and innocent about the world (cue tangent about "quirky characters that are autistic-coded but will never be called autistic because we can't have that" and the "awkward genius" trope, both of which are ableist) except when she needed to go on a Girl Power™ rant.

There was no explanation as to where she got these fully-formed feminist ideas from, especially considering that half the time she didn't seem to actually realise how misogynistic the world was, using social justice language that a woman growing up in the 1940-50s just wouldn't have access to. It got a bit repetitive for a modern reader.

Listen, I have strong negative feelings towards religion, and obviously Zott does too especially after the trauma of growing up with a scam-preacher father, but her "all religious people = bad" attitude goes so completely unchecked that I have to believe it was a main part of what the author is trying to say with the book. I do not believe that every person of faith should be portrayed as badly as they were in this book. Even the 'nice' one is still shown to constantly lie, and

Spoiler

doesn't even believe in God anyway

I also feel like Calvin wasn't actually portrayed as well as he could have been.

Spoiler

I feel like a lot of the emotion in this book is a retrospective "oh she loved him and now he's dead" whereas when he was alive I didn't actually like him all that much. There was also a "he didn't even do that much work" plotline that I felt sure was going to go somewhere but was completely dropped.

I do feel like everything was just sliiiiightly ~~(very)~~ overexaggerated too? She can immediately compete with male life-long rowers because uh *checks notes* physics equations. She and her (very young) daughter are geniuses in every field. Every male character is a caricature extreme misogynist; yes it was the 50's but jesus christ!!! And the vast majority of named women are shown to be simple-minded, ignorant, and judgy, except for one or two who get 'redeemed'.

5/5 when it comes to plot and some other aspects though

Six Thirty? Favourite character. He did feel a bit out of place and, honestly, completely unnecessary to the story, but I loved him anyway.

I also loved the overarching storyline and the way is was written, with dark topics not being shied away from but with other aspects shown with humour. Many awful characters got their just deserts in a satisfying way and I liked the overall way things wrapped up (though it was very sudden).

Conclusion

Honestly? Objectively this should be a 3.5-3.75 star read for me, but I enjoyed reading it so much that I can't go any lower than 4. It's by no means perfect and I do have a lot of issues, mostly with the main character, but I'll be thinking about this book for a long time.

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