Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

 

First of all, can we just talk about that COVER ART???

Thank goodness for a book about a woman where the cover is not a vista and her back looking away from us.  Ugh.

THIS BOOK WAS AMAZING.  Not at all what I expected.  Garmus does a tremendous job of balancing a very serious topic (the suppression, sexism and yes, abuse, women faced particularly in the 1960's - trigger warning here for one particular scene told in reminiscence - is that a word? It is now) with some of the most amazing banter and hilarity of domestic life you will ever read.  And this was her debut!!!  She said she was inspired by a bad day at work where she herself experienced sexism, and writing this book was a way to reassure her that things were not as bad as in her mother's time, hence the 1960's setting.

Elizabeth Zott is brilliant.  She is a scientist who is "on to something" in her lab, and her boss can't stand that Elizabeth is so much smarter than he is.  He fires her for no good reason, even as she argues with him that what he is doing is unfounded and illegal. 

So, Elizabeth is in need of a new job so she can take care of her daughter.  Elizabeth is very straightforward, all about the facts, and seemed almost unemotional in her determination to make things work.  She lands a new job without even meaning to when a fellow parent who works at a TV station asks her to host a cooking show.  After all, cooking is chemistry, right?

Well, she does it, but she does it HER way, which does not make the producers happy.  But it sure makes the viewers happy and the ratings soar as Elizabeth makes no bones about how cooking should be and how women should live.  This gets her in trouble, but ratings are ratings!!

There is a lot to unpack here as Elizabeth faces her life struggles in the 1960's.  It was painful as a woman of the next century to read about how women in the work force were treated back then.  I am not suggesting everything is equal now, but this story really brings out how little recourse women had back then and how reliant they were forced to be on their husbands or fathers.  Elizabeth is very independent, even when she falls in love with another scientist who respects her, loves her, supports her, and still lies to her.  Well, he does, even if it is just to protect her.  Theirs is a beautiful and happy time together for sure!  But still.  You get my point.  And, there is a little bit of an Owen Meany feel in some of this once we learn about Elizabeth and Calvin's childhoods and events all culminate very unexpectedly and very ironically.  (crytpic, much??? ha, go read it for yourself!)

The ending brings a full circle event that was a bit too far fetched for me from a reality perspective, but I still loved the idea.

I laughed out loud at the name of and viewpoint of the dog (yes, that is what I said!).  I loved that Elizabeth rips out her kitchen to create her own damn lab.  I hated how many instances of lying to women - all of the female characters in this book, including the daughter, were lied to - there were, which was the norm. (is??)  This book will make you mad on one hand, and glad for the progress - so far - on the other.  But mostly, this book will make you root for Elizabeth, as she uses her brain and her knowledge of chemistry in the kitchen to show women all over what they can really do and be.  You go, Mrs. Ellis!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

 

I read this in one day.

WHOA!!!  What a ride!  I enjoyed Foley's book The Guest List on audiobook and was wavering on this one until my mom lent it to me and said it was a good one.  A bit dark, a lot mysterious, an unexplained disappearance and so many secrets and reveals!!!

Like The Guest List, Foley gives us several points of view in this story.  Confusing at first, but oh boy does it ever come together.  Family drama, siblings who think they know each other and have we mentioned Paris yet?  Oui, mon amis, tres bien!

(That's all I've got after two years of French in college, which was a hot minute ago...but I digress.)

I started taking notes while I read on most of my books this year, and my notes for this one contain mostly questions that begin with WHY is that happening and WHY did that character do THAT. And one of the best quotes: "Women deserve a chance at a new life."  Quite the deep theme here really.

So, we have a Melrose Place type setting in Paris - a gated apartment house where the residents each have their own eccentricities.  Except in at least two cases it is not really eccentricity as much as life trauma.  Jess comes to stay with her brother, who is not in his apartment when she arrives even though she just spoke to him.  None of the residents seem to know where he is but they obviously knew him and she begins to worry, to snoop, to suspect that SOMETHING is not right here.  

Ya think????

How Foley pulls it all together kept my eyes on the page for an entire rainy day at the beach this summer.  I have never been so thankful for rain.

If you are looking for a fast paced, dysfunctional family thriller, this is your jam.  Is there redemption in the end?  I'll say.  But you'll never see it coming.  Love it.

The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker

 

The second book of The Golem and the Jinni, I enjoyed this one just as much as the first one!  The story of this bizarre friendship (love story??) between a woman made of clay and a jinn trapped in a human body by a cuff of iron expands to include new characters, new friends, and maybe a frenemy, while revisiting the locals in Little Syria and an heiress who hides across the sea.  I loved all the new characters and felt this follow up did great justice to our original story, which is not always the case in a sophomore effort.  There really was more to this story!!!  Honestly, I would totally pick up a third volume, and I read these two back to back with no issues or overload at all. Wecker shows her knowledge of and love for New York, introduces us to what life in the Middle East would have been like for a Western woman, mentions war and ships that sink and other historical events that are happening during these times, and once again has smoothly woven all of this into a novel like no other.

There is more Jewish heritage referenced here, and the struggle to keep one's traditions (and NAME) going in the face of ridicule and ignorance.  There is the pull of the familiar and the necessity for change, hard as that change might be.  But mostly in this story is the need for truth.  The final truth at the end left my eyes a little damp, but I loved it all.  Chava, Ahmad, Maryam, Sayeed, Sophia, Anna, Toby, Kreindel, Dima and Yoselle are characters, along with the city of New York in 1915 which was a character of its own, that I will not soon forget.