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A review by halfcactus
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
4.0
Read this because I saw Angela's rating and got curious haha I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would! It had a lot of things I did not like—canonically very attractive female lead, quirky romcom elements, anthropomorphized talking dog, and exceptionally precocious genius daughter—but surprisingly it all ended up working for me in the end. That, or I just get desensitized to it haha.
The main character is pretty much a Mary Sue in every way you can imagine—she's quirky, she's highly intelligent, she's conventionally attractive and charismatic, she conquers labor pains by erging everyday, and she's Definitely Not Racist—but she is all of these things to criticize the flaws of a patriarchal and ignorantly religious society, so it didn't really bother me. Okay, the white savior bits kind of made me raise my eyebrows, as did the fridging of an offscreen gay character to make a Point about homophobia and give a straight character a Traumatic Backstory, but I just skimmed through them.
The science/STEM storylines felt more like TV science, but tbh everything about this book felt like TV logic, and I'm not knowledgeable enough in either the field or the subject to make a comment on it. Would not recommend it as a realistic depiction of STEM struggles, however.
CW: Rape, sexual assault... a "bury your gays" fridging subplot
The main character is pretty much a Mary Sue in every way you can imagine—she's quirky, she's highly intelligent, she's conventionally attractive and charismatic, she conquers labor pains by erging everyday, and she's Definitely Not Racist—but she is all of these things to criticize the flaws of a patriarchal and ignorantly religious society, so it didn't really bother me. Okay, the white savior bits kind of made me raise my eyebrows, as did the fridging of an offscreen gay character to make a Point about homophobia and give a straight character a Traumatic Backstory, but I just skimmed through them.
The science/STEM storylines felt more like TV science, but tbh everything about this book felt like TV logic, and I'm not knowledgeable enough in either the field or the subject to make a comment on it. Would not recommend it as a realistic depiction of STEM struggles, however.
CW: Rape, sexual assault... a "bury your gays" fridging subplot
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
Moderate: Sexual assault and Grief
Minor: Homophobia