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Why Lessons in Chemistry Is the Biggest Debut Novel of the Past Year

The same ingredient that makes some readers recoil from this bestseller is also what makes it so delicious..

Bonnie Garmus’ debut novel, Lessons in Chemistry , has become one of those books you see everywhere: in the hands of subway passengers and waiting room idlers, on the nightstands of book group members, all over the realm of TikTok known as #BookTok, as Barnes & Noble’s Book of the Year for 2022, and, last but not least, on the New York Times bestseller list for 58 weeks and counting. Last November, the Times noted that it was “on track to be the best-selling debut novel of 2022,” and it seems to have only sold better since. There’s also good reason to believe that it’s only going to get bigger: In October, Apple TV+ will premiere a TV series based on the novel, starring Brie Larson. Garmus, who is 66 and wrote Lessons in Chemistry after a long career as a copywriter, is living every first-time novelist’s dream.

What’s the fuss about? Chances are: not what you think. As the Times article observed, the novel’s American cover is misleading, a cartoon image of a woman side-eyeing coquettishly over a pair of cat-eye glasses against a pink background. Paired with the title, this image shouts “ STEMinist romance novel ,” a currently booming genre. But Lessons is only incidentally about romantic love. Instead, it’s the story of Elizabeth Zott, a woman chemist and single mother confronting sexism and other tribulations as she tries to pursue her vocation in the early 1960s. She stumbles into a gig hosting a chemistry-centric cooking show on daytime TV and becomes a celebrity in syndication.

Lessons in Chemistry belongs to a genre of literary fiction that could be called the quirky tragicomedy. The novel it’s most often likened to is 2012’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette , by Maria Semple, about a daughter trying to understand her mother’s abandonment. In these books, the main character has amusingly eccentric traits or interests and suffers undeniably serious losses, but the overall tone remains light, with a touch of rueful melancholy and a whole lot of brave soldiering on. After a boom in the 2000s, this style of fiction seems to be increasingly uncommon, which explains why some of today’s readers, raised on plots that milk trauma for all it’s worth, find the novel’s tone confusing.

Elizabeth, who appears to be neurodivergent in some way, gets peeved when a male colleague suggests that she learn to “outsmart” the system, because she can’t see why systems can’t just be “smart in the first place.” She knows that she lives in “a patriarchal society founded on the idea that women were less,” but she indignantly refuses to acknowledge the dictates of that society. After Elizabeth becomes pregnant out of wedlock by one of the few decent men in the novel, and the head of her lab tries to fire her on moral grounds, she seems genuinely astonished, as if she is only just now finding out about the sexual double standard.

Much of the humor in Lessons in Chemistry comes from the collision of Elizabeth’s stubborn scientific rationalism with the unthinkingly conventional attitudes of everyone else. Elizabeth herself has no sense of humor. Her daughter, Madeline, is a similarly brainy prodigy who reads Norman Mailer in kindergarten, shocking her sourpuss teacher, and can’t understand why she gets in trouble for insisting that human beings are animals.

Garmus has an impressive ability to maintain a Campari-like balance of the bitter and the sugary. Elizabeth endures harrowing setbacks, not just a wall of sexism in her career but also a sexual assault and the deaths of loved ones. Trauma abounds in the sympathetic characters’ backstories. Elizabeth’s father, a charismatic religious charlatan, is in prison, and her gold-digger mother is out of the picture, run off to Latin America with her latest rich husband. Madeline’s father, an orphan, grew up in a grim Catholic boys’ school. Elizabeth’s helpful neighbor Harriet has a vile, abusive husband who expects her to tidy up his dirty magazine collection. All of Elizabeth’s bosses (with the exception of the meek producer who makes her a TV star) are insulting, domineering lechers. A more vulnerable woman would be utterly downtrodden by all this, but Elizabeth’s determined single-mindedness and indifference to what other people think of her—the same qualities that tend to alienate her colleagues—provide a kind of shield.

In counterbalance, there are Elizabeth’s improbably studious multitudes of fans, housewives who watch her show, Supper at Six , with notebooks in hand, jotting down her explanation of the hydrogen bond’s role in the cooking process. Elizabeth delivers on-screen pep talks about subsidized child care and encourages one live audience member to follow her dream and apply to medical school, to the cheers of the crowd. There is an absurdly anthropomorphized dog named Six-Thirty (for the time when Elizabeth found him on the street), a noble creature who understands hundreds of words and assists Elizabeth in her home lab. Even readers who don’t care for the rest of the novel—every very popular book inevitably reaps some detractors—adore Six-Thirty.

Call me a cat person, but Six-Thirty seems a calculated bid for reader sympathy designed to shore up the novel’s sentimental side against the harshness of Elizabeth’s life. There are sensitive readers who feel so overwhelmed by the cruelty of Elizabeth’s persecutors—complaints about the lack of trigger warnings are common—that they profess bafflement that anyone could call Lessons in Chemistry a comic novel.

But I’d argue that the novel’s bad guys are the real secrets to its success. Were all men in authority in the early ’60s so comprehensively horrid, a rogues’ gallery of bigots, rapists, plagiarists, and gaslighters? No, but a popular fairy tale—which Lessons in Chemistry most certainly is—needs a thoroughly hateable villain, and this book has several corkers. The dastardly, smug baddies of Garmus’ novel are the engines that drive her plot like a locomotive. You keep reading as much to see them defeated as to see Elizabeth win. To make that happen, Garmus resorts to a final reveal that is pure Dickens—the furthest thing from the collective action that actually made scientific careers possible for women like Elizabeth. Then again, as every Lessons in Chemistry critic ought to bear in mind, too much reality does not a bestseller make.

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‘Lessons in Chemistry’ and TV History

Brie Larson plays the fictional host of a 1950s cooking show in this period drama. But the story is inspired by the real TV homemakers who flourished back then.

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By Annie Berke

In a scene in the Apple TV+ period drama “Lessons in Chemistry,” Elizabeth Zott (Brie Larson) prepares for her new job as host of a local cooking show with scientific rigor. Poised with pad in hand, Elizabeth, a chemist, concentrates keenly on her home television set, as if she were observing a chemical reaction.

“How does one study TV?” her neighbor asks playfully.

“Turn on Channel 4,” Elizabeth retorts.

Based on Bonnie Garmus’s 2022 novel, “Lessons in Chemistry” follows the brilliant but frequently undervalued Elizabeth as she jumps from one chauvinistic 1950s milieu — an elite research institute — to another: local television.

While the character, her show (“Supper at Six”) and the Los Angeles TV station that carries it are all fictional, they are inspired by the robust culture of local broadcasting, rooted in radio, that flourished in the 1950s and early ’60s in cities across the nation. These early days before television went Hollywood, when local stations produced much of their own original programming, allowed for plenty of experimentation and gave women ample opportunity to work both behind and in front of the camera.

In its depiction of a fictional cooking show, “Lessons in Chemistry” is a kind of companion piece to the series “Julia,” which tracks Julia Child’s rise to fame and returns next month for its second season on Max. Both follow protagonists who reinvent local television in their own iconoclastic images — Child, played by Sarah Lancashire, as a down-to-earth contrast to a pompous WGBH host (Jefferson Mays), and Elizabeth as a foil to an elderly predecessor who likes to drone on about stockings.

One of the writers on “Lessons,” Elissa Karasik, used television chefs like Child, Alma Kitchell and Dione Lucas (who toured Australia), as models for how an “independent thinker” like Elizabeth might use the format of the cooking show to subvert gender expectations. While men like the BBC’s Philip Harben, generally considered to be the first TV celebrity chef, were staged in restaurant-quality kitchens and touted as professionals, female chefs were often filmed on sets meant to recall home kitchens and shoehorned into nurturing, domestic personas.

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Book Review

Lessons in chemistry.

• Bonnie Garmus
• Comedy , Drama

Readability Age Range

• 15 years old and up
• Doubleday Books
• Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Oprah Daily, Entertainment Weekly, Newsweek; #1 New York Times Bestseller; GMA Book Club Pick

Year Published

When Elizabeth Zott becomes the host for an afternoon cooking show, the men want her to do things their way. But as a good chemist, she’s much more interested in changing up the formula. There are, after all, lessons that need to be learned.

Plot Summary

In 1962, a woman’s life is far from easy.

I mean, some would say that if a “gal” just stayed in her lane, got married, raised a family and minded her Ps and Qs, then things were manageable. But Elizabeth Zott has never been that kind of woman.

I mean what do Ps and Qs have to do with anything ?!

In her heart of hearts, Elizabeth is simply and purely a scientist—a chemist, to be specific. And that’s what makes sense to her. Formulas. Experiments. Chemical bonds. Those are all things that fit well in her brain. In truth, not only do they fit, but they help make sense of life itself.

That’s why Elizabeth Zott is not only a great scientist but also a pretty great cook. It’s all a matter of chemical combinations, precise formulas and experimentation.

But … more about that cooking side of things in a moment.

You see, for all of her hard work and careful focus, everything has always seemed to go wrong for the very talented Zott. And a lot of it has been driven by the hardheaded, domineering and lust-driven men of science in 1962. (No, I take that back. It’s the men in every walk of life in 1962 that are the problem.)

For nearly all men of the day, a pretty woman—and Elizabeth Zott is surely one of those—is supposed to stick to the secretarial pool. Or the bedroom. Well, they’d find the kitchen to be acceptable, too, I suppose. But for a woman to be the smartest person in the room? The one who formulates groundbreaking theories and wins science grants? Oh no, that can never be a woman’s role.

In fact, if a woman does come up with something of great interest, her male superior is likely to steal it and publish it as his own.

Naturally, by age 28, Elizabeth Zott has already had a difficult go of things. She was almost raped as a college student. She was kicked out of her doctoral program after the above result. She met and lost the most loving and brilliant man she had ever met. And now, here she sits. She’s jobless and with a young child out of wedlock.

But that’s when something good happens. (It didn’t feel good at the moment, but it was.) Through a confluence of disparate circumstances involving Zott’s handmade school lunch; a particularly irksome teacher; and a divorced father/producer at the end of his rope; Elizabeth Zott receives a job offer.

If she can display just a bit of her attractiveness and a dash of her cooking skill in an afternoon TV slot—one that was recently vacated by a clown show—she can earn a little money to support herself and her daughter.

Her first reaction is a definite no . But then something dawns on her. She might not draw a huge audience, but a cooking show is, in essence, a lesson about chemistry and chemical reactions. And she could teach it.

She wouldn’t wear the required tight TV costume or smirk foolishly for the camera, of course. But she could talk to women. She could teach them, challenge them, experiment along with them. And who knows, she might just change up the formula of their lives a little.

Experimental formulas have always been her forte, after all.

Christian Beliefs

Elizabeth looks askance at anything to do with religion or faith. Not only does she repeatedly declare that faith is foolish and baseless (as do others), but she also isn’t even geared to tolerate it. We learn that Elizabeth’s father was something of a con-artist evangelist who was eventually jailed for nearly killing people with his grandstanding and explosive displays “of faith.” Her mother ran off to another country to escape paying taxes on their ill-gotten wealth.

Elizabeth’s father also drove her older brother to suicide with repeated declarations of God’s hatred for the young man’s sin.

Elizabeth admits to a woman in her show’s audience that she doesn’t believe in God when the woman asks about saying grace before a meal. Elizabeth’s admission causes some to picket outside the show and say nasty things about her lost soul.

Elizabeth’s soulmate, brilliant scientist Calvin Evan’s, was raised in a Catholic orphanage after his adoptive parents were killed in an accident. It is strongly implied that he had to fight off sexually abusive priests as a boy, and the priests also lie and cheat to get donations. The school’s teachers rip sections out of science texts that don’t match up with their theology.

Calvin also has a series of correspondences with a Presbyterian minister. They share thoughts of science and faith. But while Calvin never wavers from his declaration that faith has no bearing on life, the minister eventually steps back from faith in God. In fact, when we meet the man later, he’s still in the ministering profession (and a nice man), but someone without any spiritual conviction.

The only positive thing said about godliness is when Elizabeth states that she starts thinking of her neighbor, a helpful woman named Harriet, as “something holy.” She sees Harriet as a “practical priest,” someone she can confess things to—”fears, hopes, mistakes.”

Other Belief Systems

Calvin and Elizabeth both declare that only science can be empirically proven to be factual. And so that’s where their faith and beliefs lie.

You could say, however, that Elizabeth’s 4-year-old daughter, Madeline, has a special spiritual sensitivity about her. She’s very bright and perceptive, and she senses other people’s unspoken thoughts such as Elizabeth’s hidden sadness, their dog’s feelings of guilt and Harriet’s fear that she has never been in love.

Authority Roles

Most of the people who have authority over Elizabeth are men. And men, in general, aren’t very laudable in Lessons in Chemistry . Most are, at the very least, emotionally abusive to nearly every woman they meet. They demean them, ignore them and, in a number of cases, abuse them verbally, emotionally and physically. And it’s expected that women in 1962 should take what they’re given and stay quiet about it.

For instance, when a college professor attempts to rape Elizabeth, the cop writing up the crime asks a bleeding Elizabeth if she wants to make an apology statement, suggesting that doing so will make things easier for her in the long run . She refuses and loses her position in a doctoral program. In fact, of all the men we meet in this story, only a few are portrayed as trustworthy and upright.

Both Elizabeth and Calvin have no connection with their parents. And they have very few people they can look to for positive guidance.

On the other hand, Elizabeth is an odd combination of brilliance and beauty mixed with something close to savant levels of emotional detachment. She smiles on, perhaps, three occasions in the story. However, she is a gifted teacher and loving mother. She teaches daughter Madeline to read at a very young age while helping her understand the complexities of her young life. She even takes on the job of teaching their adopted dog to understand human words, growing his lexicon of understood phrases into the hundreds.

Harriet and her husband divorce. She finds a caring companion in Mr. Pine. People in authority openly lie to gain prestige, recognition and money.

Profanity & Violence

The book doesn’t feel densely profane, but there are repeated uses of f- and s-words, exclamations of “h—,” “d–n” and “b–tch” and misuses of Jesus’ name.

We hear of some people drinking. Harriet is hit with a bottle thrown by her drunken husband. She makes it plain that he gets drunk often.

Elizabeth notes that her relationships with men (other than Calvin Evans) tended to be destructive and negative. “She only ever seemed to bring out the worst in men. They either wanted to control her, touch her, dominate her, silence her, correct her or tell her what to do,” she thinks.

We see several situations that are quite demonstrative of that thought. She is sexually attacked by a college professor, bloodied and slapped senseless, and the rape is only stopped because she jams a sharpened pencil into the man’s side. Another woman says a similar thing happened to her. And another man angrily approaches Elizabeth and pushes his exposed genitals in her face before being stopped by the sharp end of a large knife.

A man is killed in an unfortunate accident when he falls and is run over by a car. Another man has a massive heart attack. Someone is said to have committed suicide by hanging.

Sexual Content

Elizabeth reports that her beloved older brother was gay. Elizabeth’s producer friend, Mr. Pine, finds out that his young daughter was actually the product of an affair his wife had with another man. But he declares that regardless of the genetics, she is still his daughter. “He loved her with all his heart,” the book tells us.

Some men and women make rude suggestions and untrue statements about Elizabeth and her sexual life, suggesting that she’s promiscuous. The accusations are largely baseless, but the unmarried Elizabeth does have a sexual relationship with Calvin. (The story describes some of their caressing conversations while lying together after sex.) Calvin asks Elizabeth to marry him, but she refuses.

Discussion Topics

Get free discussion question for books at focusonthefamily.com/magazine/thriving-family-book-discussion-questions .

Additional Comments

Lessons in Chemistry is a New York Times bestselling book that was adapted and recently released as a stylish AppleTV+ series starring Brie Larson .

The book has a “young adult” energy about it. And first-time author Bonnie Garmus uses a compelling female protagonist and an early 1960s setting to create a memorable feminist fantasy.

This tale presents a sometimes amusing and insightful perspective on life and learning. But potential readers should also note that the story frowns at what it considers the “failings” of traditional marriage, and (with a few exceptions) turns the men from the 1960s into buffoonish and villainous stereotypes. In addition, Lessons in Chemistry delivers repeated negative comments about faith and those who have faith in God as part of their lives.

Interestingly though, the book as a whole is rather narrowly focused on its own sermonizing. And those full-throated lessons will offer contemplative fuel, or at least combustive chemistry, to readers of a certain stripe.

You can request a review of a title you can’t find at [email protected] .

Book reviews cover the content, themes and worldviews of fiction books, not necessarily their literary merit, and equip parents to decide whether a book is appropriate for their children. The inclusion of a book’s review does not constitute an endorsement by Focus on the Family.

Review by Bob Hoose

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Lessons in Chemistry By Bonnie Garmus–ATLP Book Review

• Debut Novel
• Released April 2022
• Rated 4.43 stars on Goodreads
• Contemporary Fiction
• Historical Fiction
• Scientist Protagonist
• Elements of Feminism

“Her grudges were mainly reserved for a patriarchal society founded on the idea that women were less. Less capable. Less inventive.” Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry (14)

Reviewed by The Guardian , The New York Times , and The Washington Post , Lessons in Chemistry is certainly a book that has gained speed quickly.

Set in California in the 1960s, Lessons in Chemistry is the story of Elizabeth Zott. Zott is a female scientist on an all-male research team in a time where women were more often housewives than chemists. Zott is working on an important project when she meets Calvin Evans, an infamous scientist also working for the same research company. While the two seem like an unlikely pair, their time together is much more than romantic chemistry—that is, until Evans suffers from a tragic accident.

Left alone with a dog and an unborn child, Elizabeth has to learn to handle motherhood as an unwed mother. Struggling with inequality, the difficulties of her field, and her role to her child, Zott finds herself reluctantly leaving the research facility and starting a cooking show with a fellow parent. Her unusual approach to cooking proves revolutionary and gains her a large following. Yet, as her following grows, so does the implication that women don’t just belong in the kitchen.

Compared to Where’d You Go, Bernadette and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel , Lessons in Chemistry is described as witty, laugh-out-loud funny, and must-read debut.

TW: This review talks of sexual abuse

Let me start off my saying how widely well-received Lessons in Chemistry is. I picked through quite a lot of reviews after finishing this novel, and it consistently rates high among readers. On Goodreads, it’s rated steadily at 4.5 stars. Amazon reviews are similar with less than 7% of 9,000 reviewers rating it 1-3 stars. Well—I suppose I’ll be in the 7 th percent.

I picked up this book because I’ve been attempting to read more debut novels this year. While scientific protagonists aren’t my usual go-to, I love a good romance and I thoroughly enjoyed The Love Hypothesis, The Soulmate Equation, and The Kiss Quotient.  All three of these novels are light, easy romances that contain female protagonists in the STEM fields. Going into this novel, I expected to find the same type of story. Though Lessons in Chemistry was far from what I was expecting.

I would agree that the tone and writing style of Bonnie Garmus is very similar to that of Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette, but the similarities end there (for me, at least). While described as witty and laugh-out-loud funny, I didn’t find Lessons in Chemistry to be either. In fact, it was quite tragic what the protagonist went through.

Very early on in the story, readers are introduced to Zott’s unfortunate introduction into the scientific community. She is raped by a superior and because of this, is forced into relinquishing her hopes of a PhD and leaving her school’s program. When she is hired by Hastings Research Institute, the research company, she again is tested with highly inappropriate levels of gender inequality.

While I’m not saying that gender inequality wasn’t prevalent in the late 1950s/early 1960s (because it was), my research indicates that gender roles had already begun to change in the late 1940s when women began to complete men’s jobs during WWII. Second Wave Feminism seems to have started sometime in the 1960s, which is likely the timeline that Garmus is trying to target. While I wasn’t able to find much about female scientists, in particular, in the 1950s/’60s, I did find t his interesting article from Smithsonian Magazine about Margaret Rossiter , a woman that worked in STEM during that time and related her experiences. She has since devoted her life to the women that have been written out of scientific history.

While part of Zott’s story follows Rossiter’s findings, much of it remains unspoken for. Upon reading comments on other reviews, I discovered that many female scientists from the time didn’t feel they were treated similarly to Zott, like this one from Elyse Walters .

“In my own life in ‘California’ -during the 50’s, 60’s… I was a Kinesiology major at UC Berkeley. I never felt like I was in a man’s world. My organic chemistry classes were grueling-but that wasn’t because I was a woman. In my experience–I never had a problem. I wasn’t sexually harassed.” Elyse Walters, Goodreads Review, April 6, 2022

Something I found very frustrating about this novel, in general, was the stereotyping. Everyone around Elizabeth is stereotyped in some way or another, and she is, as well. Calvin Evans, the man who is devoted to his work, is extremely left-brained, and thinks of everything as logically as possible. He’s a rower and an Ivy-League graduate, with a perfect record. Then we have Harriet, the woman next door who is in an unhappy marriage where her husband abuses her. She has several kids of her own and fits the housewife perspective that Zott wants to hard to break. And, of course, we can’t forget about Walter Pine, the TV show producer that wants Elizabeth glammed up and in dresses to satiate his boss, but also has dealt with her “masculinity” first-hand.

Each character has a role to play, but yet none of them really DO anything, which I find very frustrating. Harriet continually puts up with her husband’s abuse, Calvin leaves the house to Elizabeth after his accident (and has all intentions of convincing her to marry him), and even Walter is reluctant to stand up to his boss. These ends are all conveniently tied in a nice little bow at the end of this book, thanks to Elizabeth, of course. And, don’t even get me start on Elizabeth’s daughter, who somehow miraculously can walk herself to the library, research, and associate with strangers at 5 years old? Tell me how that’s realistic.

Yet, these character analyses beg the question—why is Elizabeth the way she is? Is it because of the rape? The injustice? The gender inequalities? If women supposedly went through this all the time during the ‘50s and ‘60s, then why aren’t all women stepping out to break boundaries? Elizabeth is a character from 2022 trying to implement social causes that haven’t happened yet. To me, it comes across as if someone from 2022 created her character, rather than Elizabeth truly belonging in her timeline. The problem with this? She’s unrealistically out of place and this throws the plotline off. During this time, women would have been making more practiced, thought-out moves to change society. Instead, Elizabeth just goes off the rails by calling out her superiors, quitting her job (when she re-hired), and other actions, that ultimately make life even more difficult for her than if she had been smart about her decisions in the first place. As a woman, this infuriates me.

In fact, I found Miss Frask’s character to be much more realistic of a 1950s female character breaking boundaries than Elizabeth’s character. While Miss Frask starts off the story as an antagonist, we quickly learn how she became this way, especially as she makes further advances to help Elizabeth later on in the story. While I won’t put any spoilers in here about what she does, I think her character depth is much more significant, in some ways, than Elizabeth’s.

As far as calling this book funny, there were a few moments during the cooking show portion of the book that were unique, but I certainly didn’t think of this book as a comedy. The advertising for Lessons in Chemistry reads as a rom-com and the tone of the book just doesn’t fit this description. The book does have important themes that highlight social issues of the time, but it’s terribly sad—it might be one of the saddest books I’ve read this year, if ever. I’m not sure why Garmus’ PR team marketed this the way they did as it’s certainly misleading. That being said, had this book been depicted as a historical fiction re-telling of social causes in STEM, I would have perhaps looked at it differently going into it. Yet, the bright cover and the cute, animated Elizabeth on the front would have readers thinking in a different direction.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

I didn’t love Lessons in Chemistry. I thought Elizabeth was an unreliable protagonist and she makes rash decisions that affect her own well-being throughout the timeline. In addition to this, there is SO much male-bashing and religion-bashing in this book, that I found myself frustrated with Elizabeth’s constant negative perspective, especially for someone who insisted that she had so many far-reaching goals.

The one aspect I absolutely loved about this book was the dog, Six-Thirty. While his name is absolutely atrocious, my understanding is that the author’s own personal dog is named 99, so perhaps it was her way of weaving her own life into Elizabeth’s. Either way, Six-thirty is the intelligent LOGICAL character this book needed. He is selfless and loving in all the best ways and he’s truly what keeps Elizabeth and her daughter on track. I absolutely loved Six-Thirty and I think his perspective is the voice that many readers give their own dogs. Truly, I would have enjoyed the book entirely written from his perspective as I looked forward to the passages that he narrated.

Overall, I don’t think that Bonnie Garmus’ book was for me. Lessons in Chemistry highlights some important social inequalities during the 1950s and 1960s, but there are a lot of inaccuracies reflected through the characters in this book, which makes me wonder how many of the events were realistic, as well.

If you are familiar with the timeline of this novel or have studied women in STEM, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the stories Elizabeth tells and the things that she goes through. Do you feel her character was realistic? Leave a comment below and let me know!

If you’re interested in purchasing this book for yourself, you can check it out on Amazon by clicking here.

Not sure what to read next? Check out my last review on Agatha of Little Neon by clicking here!

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Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

Kirkus Reviews' Best Books Of 2022

New York Times Bestseller

IndieBound Bestseller

LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY

by Bonnie Garmus ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 2022

A more adorable plea for rationalism and gender equality would be hard to find.

Two chemists with major chemistry, a dog with a big vocabulary, and a popular cooking show are among the elements of this unusual compound.

At the dawn of the 1960s, Elizabeth Zott finds herself in an unexpected position. She's the star of a television program called Supper at Six that has taken American housewives by storm, but it's certainly not what the crass station head envisions: “ 'Meaningful?' Phil snapped. 'What are you? Amish? As for nutritious: no. You’re killing the show before it even gets started. Look, Walter, it’s easy. Tight dresses, suggestive movements...then there’s the cocktail she mixes at the end of every show.' ” Elizabeth is a chemist, recently forced to leave the lab where she was doing important research due to an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Now she's reduced to explaining things like when to put the steak in the pan. "Be sure and wait until the butter foams. Foam indicates that the butter’s water content has boiled away. This is critical. Because now the steak can cook in lipids rather than absorb H2O.” If ever a woman was capable of running her own life, it's Elizabeth. But because it's the 1950s, then the '60s, men have their sweaty paws all over both her successes and failures. On the plus side, there's Calvin Evans, world-famous chemist, love of her life, and father of her child; also Walter Pine, her friend who works in television; and a journalist who at least tries to do the right thing. At the other pole is a writhing pile of sexists, liars, rapists, dopes, and arrogant assholes. This is the kind of book that has a long-buried secret at a corrupt orphanage with a mysterious benefactor as well as an extremely intelligent dog named Six-Thirty, recently retired from the military. ("Not only could he never seem to sniff out the bomb in time, but he also had to endure the praise heaped upon the smug German shepherds who always did.") Garmus' energetic debut also features an invigorating subplot about rowing.

Pub Date: April 5, 2022

ISBN: 978-0-385-54734-5

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022

LITERARY FICTION | GENERAL FICTION

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SEEN & HEARD

PERSPECTIVES

by Catherine Newman ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 18, 2024

A moving, hilarious reminder that parenthood, just like life, means constant change.

During an annual beach vacation, a mother confronts her past and learns to move forward.

Her family’s annual trip to Cape Cod is always the highlight of Rocky’s year—even more so now that her children are grown and she cherishes what little time she gets with them. Rocky is deep in the throes of menopause, picking fights with her loving husband and occasionally throwing off her clothes during a hot flash, much to the chagrin of her family. She’s also dealing with her parents, who are crammed into the same small summer house (with one toilet that only occasionally spews sewage everywhere) and who are aging at an alarmingly rapid rate. Rocky’s life is full of change, from her body to her identity—she frequently flashes back to the vacations of years past, when her children were tiny. Although she’s grateful for the family she has, she mourns what she’s lost. Newman (author of the equally wonderful We All Want Impossible Things , 2022) imbues Rocky’s internal struggles with importance and gravity, all while showcasing her very funny observations about life and parenting. She examines motherhood with a raw honesty that few others manage—she remembers the hard parts, the depths of despair, panic, and anxiety that can happen with young children, and she also recounts the joy in a way that never feels saccharine. She has a gift for exploring the real, messy contradictions in human emotions. As Rocky puts it, “This may be the only reason we were put on this earth. To say to each other, I know how you feel .”

Pub Date: June 18, 2024

ISBN: 9780063345164

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024

LITERARY FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION

More by Catherine Newman

BOOK REVIEW

by Catherine Newman

THE MAN WHO LIVED UNDERGROUND

by Richard Wright ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 20, 2021

A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.

A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.

Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son  and Black Boy , this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.

Pub Date: April 20, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8

Publisher: Library of America

Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021

More by Richard Wright

by Richard Wright

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Reviews of Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio

Lessons in Chemistry

by Bonnie Garmus

Critics' Opinion:

Readers' Opinion:

• Literary Fiction
• 1940s & '50s
• 1960s & '70s
• Parenting & Families
• Dealing with Loss
• Strong Women
• Top 20 Best Books of 2022

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About this Book

• Reading Guide

Book Summary

A must-read debut! Meet Elizabeth Zott: a "formidable, unapologetic and inspiring" (Parade) scientist in 1960s California whose career takes a detour when she becomes the unlikely star of a beloved TV cooking show in this novel that is "irresistible, satisfying and full of fuel. It reminds you that change takes time and always requires heat" (The New York Times Book Review).

New York Times Bestseller • Good Morning America Book Club • One of NPR's Best Books of 2022 • One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Year—New York Times, Bustle, Real Simple, Parade, CNN, Today, E! News, Library Journal Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results. But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America's most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth's unusual approach to cooking ("combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride") proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn't just teaching women to cook. She's daring them to change the status quo. Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.

Chapter 1 November 1961

Back in 1961, when women wore shirtwaist dresses and joined garden clubs and drove legions of children around in seatbeltless cars without giving it a second thought; back before anyone knew there'd even be a sixties movement, much less one that its participants would spend the next sixty years chronicling; back when the big wars were over and the secret wars had just begun and people were starting to think fresh and believe everything was possible, the thirty-year-old mother of Madeline Zott rose before dawn every morning and felt certain of just one thing: her life was over. Despite that certainty, she made her way to the lab to pack her daughter's lunch. Fuel for learning, Elizabeth Zott wrote on a small slip of paper before tucking it into her daughter's lunch box. Then she paused, her pencil in midair, as if reconsidering. Play sports at recess but do not automatically let the boys win, she wrote on another slip. Then she paused again, tapping her pencil ...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

• The late 1950s into the early 1960s was supposedly a halcyon time in American history. But was it? The war was over and men returned home to take back the jobs women had done in their absence. As a result, women were pushed into more subservient roles. What influences played a part in encouraging women to accept their place as only in the home? And why, in today's world, when women are in the workforce in record numbers, are they still doing most of the housework and child-raising?
• Elizabeth Zott had no formal education, and yet she was able to self-educate, thanks to her library card. With the advent of technology, the library almost seems outdated, though many would argue that the library is more important than ever. Do you think ...
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Media Reviews

Reader reviews, bookbrowse review.

Bonnie Garmus's debut, Lessons in Chemistry, introduces readers to an exceptional woman struggling to succeed in a male-dominated field. Garmus sets her novel in the days before the Equal Rights Amendment and the #MeToo movement, when most men — and many women as well — believed that any woman who dared to enter a traditional men's profession was either "a lightweight or a gold digger," in the author's words. One might assume the novel is a dark, weighty exploration of the sexual discrimination rampant during the 1950s and early 1960s. Amazingly, it's really not; although the book's substance depends largely on this theme, its overall tone is positive and affirming... continued

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(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs ).

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Beyond the Book

A short history of the cooking show.

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Review: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus is a dazzling story about one woman’s fight against misogyny.

I try to read many of the celebrity book club picks and after finishing True Biz by Sara Novic (Reese’s April Book Club Pick), I decided to try Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (GMA April Book Club Pick). I’ve seen so many glowing reviews for the novel and my expectations were sky high. And it delivered. I quite enjoyed it and I thought the ending is extremely satisfying.

But I will say it did take me a bit to get into the story. Longer than I expected. I actually felt the story really took off when the TV cooking show part began.

What’s the Story About

Lessons in Chemistry follows Elizabeth Zott: a one-of-a-kind scientist in 1960s California whose career takes a detour when she becomes the unlikely star of a beloved TV cooking show.

Elizabeth has dealt with it all. Plenty of misogyny and people doubting her skills. All she wants to do is work on her scientific research but the patriarchy keeps standing in her way. Everything changes for Elizabeth when the most unlikely event happens—she falls in love with a fellow scientist, Calvin. 

But as life is unpredictable, Elizabeth eventually finds herself as a single mother and without a job. Through an extraordinary set of events, she ends up becoming the host of a TV cooking show. And while she takes cooking very seriously, she also embarks plenty of lessons to her mostly female audience.

Elizabeth’s Story

Elizabeth is such an engaging protagonist. I don’t think I’ve ever read one quite like her before. She’s extremely serious and to the point. She’s very intelligent and tired of dealing with other people’s bad behavior. Elizabeth shows her vulnerable side only on rare occasions.

While the story is quirky and the writing is clever and humorous at parts, there are some serious topics addressed. Including a couple scenes that deserve a trigger warning, which I did not anticipate. I do think the cover, while cute, is a bit misleading in some ways.

I liked reading about Elizabeth’s journey and what she is able to overcome is inspiring. However, I would have liked to have seen more scenes with her daughter. And I do think it took too long to arrive at the TV show component.

I will say, the supporting cast is outstanding—probably one of the best I’ve read in a long time.

Supper at Six

You’ll be entertained by how Elizabeth got herself a cooking show! And she does not want to follow any direction from her producer, Walter. She takes matters in her own hands and combines her love and knowledge of chemistry to teach her audience how to cook and much more. Each episode serves as a life lesson of some sorts.

I felt this part was so vivid that it almost felt like it was a real show! I can’t only imagine the impact if a show like this had existed in the ’60s.

All in all, I really liked the novel. Not a perfect execution but I do think it’s a unique and very entertaining story.

For book clubs, check out my discussion questions here .

You May Also Like

Thursday 13th of July 2023

There should be a way to raise $ for girls in America,so they can read, go to school,college,and travel making a good life for themselves and their children,if they choose. Idiots are making $ on crap,and don't give a damn about these kids in mediocre to awful situations. A collection plate for any kid that wants a better education and life in America, esp in these impoverished poor school systems. Earned scholarships for girls,all they have to do is want it. (Their fairy godmothers will pay for 75-90%.).July2023.not 1923.

Paula Moroz

Friday 4th of November 2022

The show became so real I almost began to search the TV schedule for the time! I liked the "Children set the table" sign off.

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This was published 1 year ago

How workplace misogyny prompted Bonnie Garmus to write her bestseller

By jason steger, save articles for later.

Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.

I put a proposition to Bonnie Garmus. She was telling me how she had racked up 98 rejections for her first, unpublished novel and only the final one hinted that anyone had actually looked at the manuscript. “You can’t write a 700-page novel as a debut author,” was the message.

So I suggested I would wrangle all my savings and publish the book myself. “I can’t promise you a huge advance,” I warned.

Bonnie Garmus began writing Lessons in Chemistry when she was feeling particularly grumpy, Credit: Moya Nolan

After all, who wouldn’t be interested in an unseen novel from the author of Lessons in Chemistry , which since publication early last year has sold more than 2.5 million copies in the US, over 1.25 million in Britain and pushing 190,000 in Australia. The book is funny, smart and hugely enjoyable. What’s more, it has a wonderful dog romping through it who has a remarkable grasp of the English language. More about 6.30 – really, that’s his name – later.

Garmus probably thought I was mad. But she says no one has ever wanted to read that whopping first book – “not my agents, not my editors. I actually think it’s pretty well written.” But she dashes my vision of a lucrative coup by saying she’s borrowing a few things from that book for a new novel, “so it’s not a complete waste”.

Lessons in Chemistry is about Elizabeth Zott negotiating life as a single mother in America in the early 1960s. She is a scientist with an ever-present pencil tucked in her hair bun, but her gender does her no favours in those days when the patriarchy’s grip was firmer. The only helping hand comes from Calvin Evans, the golden boy of the chemistry world who introduces her to rowing (one of Garmus’ passions).

When laboratory life proves torturous Elizabeth somehow stumbles into a gig as the presenter-with-a-difference of an afternoon cooking show, Supper at Six , which proves stunningly popular with her female audience. As she tells them: “Cooking is chemistry ... And chemistry is life. Your ability to change everything – including yourself – starts here.”

The book, which was published when Garmus was 64, has certainly changed her life and that of some readers. The copywriter-turned-bestseller who grew up in Riverside, the southern California city Newsweek once called “the armpit of the nation”, hears from besotted readers an astonishing 200-300 times a day. “It’s been an onslaught,” she says. “Some people have made dramatic changes in their lives based on the book, something I never anticipated.”

She began it in a particularly grumpy mood. She was living in the San Francisco Bay Area and at the advertising agency where she worked was the only woman in a pitch meeting for a major technology campaign.

“After I presented, no one said anything, which was fairly unusual. A few minutes later, a vice-president in the room said you know what I think we should do, and then he basically regurgitated everything I had said, even though there was a PowerPoint slide right behind me and he’s looking at it and claimed all the ideas as his. He got full credit for that campaign. No one said anything. No one defended me. No one did anything.”

Brie Larson stars as Elizabeth Zott in Apple TV’s forthcoming adaptation of Bonnie Garmus’ book. Credit:

Speaking over Zoom from London, where she, her husband and 99, her greyhound, now live, she says she stomped back to her desk thinking “how many times has this happened to women in the world today, or this week, or this year? And I decided it was probably in the billions.”

So cross was she that, ignoring a copywriting deadline, she bashed out the first chapter and final three sentences of Lessons in Chemistry . That was in 2013.

She set the book in the late ’50s and early ’60s because “I needed reassurance that we had moved forward as women in the world and that day I wasn’t completely sure”. She also realised that she was writing about a woman of her mother’s generation.

Bonnie Garmus says her character Elizabeth Zott is her role model. Credit: Linda Hildrum

″”I had a chance to look back and think about everything those women in my neighbourhood had given up or had been forced to give up to be stay-at-home mums, which was really their only choice. And for me growing up, all those women were always called average housewives – it was very dismissive.”

But Elizabeth is not an iteration of her mother; rather, she is Garmus’ role model. “That day I felt like I needed a role model and that’s why I started to write.”

There is one character in the book, however, who does have a solid basis in reality, the “tall, gray, thin” dog called 6.30 (you’ll have to read the book to learn the reason for the name) with an impressive comprehension of English. His real-life equivalent was Garmus’ dog, Friday, a rescue hound who had been so abused her previous owner was jailed.

“She turned out to be the Einstein of dogs. In the book, Elizabeth is teaching her dog words but in real life Friday just learned words by listening.”

She followed conversations, keeping her eye on each speaker. And when Garmus would read her work out loud, “she would stare at me the entire time. Unfortunately, she died before the book ended, but the good thing is that she had already heard the last three sentences.”

Lewis Pullman as Calvin Evans and Brie Larson with 6.30, the dog. Credit:

And Friday, it seems, was bilingual. When the family moved to Switzerland, she had to pass a tricky Swiss obedience test – in German – to be legally registered. She was with the dog handler for an hour and when they came back he told Garmus Friday was not an American dog, but Swiss.

“He said this dog passed our test. She’s the only one who got 100 per cent in two years. That included all the Swiss dogs. So, she was really unusual.”

In the forthcoming Apple TV adaptation, Brie Larson plays Elizabeth and Lewis Pullman is Calvin. Garmus says the structure has changed because “no one writes a novel in exact 15-minute segments”. The series is still being edited, so she hasn’t seen it all, but says the experience hasn’t been horrible. “I got some good advice early on, which is you release your novel to them and then you back away ... You just kind of give up your trust.”

Garmus has always been concerned about privacy issues in the US, but says with social media it has become a real issue. Now with her new-found fame she is more guarded than previously. She is still amazed at the number of people who want a selfie when she does an event. “It’s just the strangest thing.”

She may be living in London, but home remains the US, and she expects to return to Seattle eventually. She was there at Christmas, but says she barely recognises the US now. With the strong shift to the right, she reckons the idea of democracy and civil discourse have been polluted. “Money seems to be the ruling decree there now. And there’s so much misinformation, and people are bombarded by it. They don’t know what to believe. So they believe what they see and you really can’t do that anymore.”

Garmus says that copywriting taught her not to bore people, and to be tough about sentence structure, length and communication.

“When I’m writing I always think of the same person, somebody who’s coming home from work on the Tube. They’re tired and they don’t want to read something that just goes on and on,” she said. “It’s a lot to ask somebody to sit down with your novel for eight or 10 hours. It’s a privilege for me to have someone read my book and I just don’t want to waste their time.”

No question of that with Lessons in Chemistry .

TAKE 7: THE ANSWERS ACCORDING TO BONNIE GARMUS

• Worst habit? Chocolate chip cookies.
• Greatest fear? That the bakery down the street will run out.
• The line that stayed with you? The opening line to Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier: “This is the saddest story I have ever heard.”
• Biggest regret? That I didn’t take more photos of my friends in our teens and twenties. It never occurred to any of us.
• Favourite room? The room with the tall windows where I sit and write during the day. It’s the dining room, but also the reception room, kitchen, laundry, office, and library.
• The artwork/song you wish was yours?   The theme to Mission Impossible .
• If you could solve one thing... Climate change.

The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from books editor Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday .

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Review: Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Written by contributor Katherine Dent

Elizabeth Zott is a great and promising chemist, but the world of men and their egos aren’t ready for her yet. Does that stop her? They wish.

Lessons in Chemistry is a story following our feminist heroine through her days at Hastings Research Institute in the 50s, to being an American day-time TV cooking celebrity in the early 60s. Elizabeth is a force to be reckoned with—an attribute that lands her in hot water and the enemy of her colleagues more than a few times.

Bonnie Garmus creates a ferocious and resilient character in Elizabeth. When she is fired from her chemist job for being pregnant, she builds herself a lab in her kitchen. When the job to be a TV cooking host comes up, she incorporates chemistry into her teaching. What was once vinegar and salt is now acetic acid and sodium chloride. Does it make for a peculiar shopping list? Yes, but that’s the point.

I found the book unputdownable, and not because it was a thrilling page-turner, but because I was enjoying myself so much. The novel deals with sensitive topics and the sexism Elizabeth battles never really lets up. And yet, there is humour, there is hope, and overall it is an enrapturing book to consume within a day.

Garmus crafts Elizabeth’s response to soft sexism expertly. She captures the essence of sexist comments that aren’t said with malicious intent, but a product of the patriarchal construction of society and all of it’s supposed ‘rights and wrongs’ of behaviour based on your sex. Elizabeth takes that on by practising pure equality. It’s bold for me to be wearing trousers? Then that must mean its bold for you too. Congratulations.

Whilst this book is undeniably feminist and empowering, it’s perhaps most championing feature is it’s realism. Not all men are misogynist tykes, and not all women help to empower other women. The book does an amazing job of showcasing an array of different people, their positions in society, their privileges and prejudices, but also their fight and desires. And it does so, all whilst maintaining a small-cast feel to the novel with inclusion of large ramifications – which in total results in a good structured story.

Dr. Mason is a refreshing character in his views, although, I don’t think I’m the first or the last to be wary of him and hold a little suspicion against his name throughout the entire book, on the account of the previous men featured and the thought of “he’s just too good to be true” at this point. Apologies, Dr. Mason, my bad.

Whilst historical in its setting, many of the themes that Garmus explores are still prevalent in today’s society. Sexism in the work place, sexism behind film productions, and the mass opportunities missed due to institutionalised societal beliefs that a woman’s place is in the home. On her show Elizabeth is teaching women to cook, yes, but she is also daring them to strive for their dreams, to go and achieve what society has made them believe is impossible for a mere housewife to do.

A dying practice in novel writing and publishing has been the existence of chapter titles. Garmus not only provides such, but uses them as a tool for her story. Often harking to a joke that we’ll get once we read the chapter, or acting as the chapter’s punchline. Not all have to serve such a purpose, but it is a nice art to see return and can be used to great comedic or impactful effect.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the dive into this mid-century tale of an uncompromising—yet quite ordinary in the greater scheme of things—woman following her passion. Through a roller-coaster of success we follow along Elizabeth’s journey through the heartache, frustration, and heroic moments to strive to achieve what she wants most. Elizabeth Zott battles stereotypes, male chauvinism, and the hand that life dealt her to not only empower herself but to empower a league of women tuning in to her show which was so much more than cooking.

Lessons in Chemistry is a master-class of a well put together novel. It is entertaining, enlightening and you’ll be completely charmed by it.

Lessons in Chemistry is available from Amazon , Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.

Will you be picking up Lessons in Chemistry ? Tell us in the comments below!

*Please check content warnings for this book before reading if you are likely to be triggered by sensitive and emotional themes.*

Synopsis | Goodreads

Review: How To Find Love In A Bookshop by Veronica Henry

A delight for readers of Where’d You Go, Bernadette  and  The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel , this blockbuster debut set in 1960s California features the singular voice of Elizabeth Zott, a scientist whose career takes a detour when she becomes the star of a beloved TV cooking show.

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an  average  woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel-prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with–of all things–her mind. True chemistry results.

But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show  Supper at Six . Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.

Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters,  Lessons in Chemistry  is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.

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Lessons in Chemistry Is Maddeningly Inert

In Lessons in Chemistry , Bonnie Garmus’s wildly popular, 1960s-set debut novel, Harriet is the nosy neighbor of cohabitating chemists Calvin Evans and Elizabeth Zott. Blunt-spoken and unhappily married to a caricature of a bad husband — Garmus describes him as “dull” and “stupid” with “a thicket of body hair” — Harriet becomes both the regular babysitter for Mad, Elizabeth and Calvin’s daughter, and a representative of every unfulfilled white woman who discovers new possibilities past what is supposed to be her prime.

In Lessons in Chemistry , the Apple TV+ series based on Garmus’s book, Harriet is scarcely any of those things. She’s still a neighbor of the two scientifically gifted protagonists. But she’s also a Black woman living in a Black neighborhood (minus Calvin and Elizabeth, the only white people residing closeby); an intelligent, aspiring lawyer who’s happily married to a military doctor; and a mother of four young children trying to pursue her own very active dreams. This reimagination of Harriet, the most significant departure from the original text in this handsome if unchallenging adaptation, forces the Apple TV+ Lessons to tackle something the book does not: the civil-rights movement that brought racial tensions to an unignorable boil during the era in which this story takes place.

This switch-up is emblematic of the good intentions showrunner Lee Eisenberg (writer for The Office and co-creator of Jury Duty ) and his writers bring to this material, as well as Lessons in Chemistry ’s chief shortcoming: an inability to adapt its source material in startling or illuminating ways. One can understand the impulse to take a white-feminist story and try to make it more intersectional, especially given what was going on in the country at the time. But grafting the experiences of Harriet onto a series otherwise committed to reflecting the structures and themes of the novel doesn’t serve her well. Elizabeth Zott, the practical, highly serious chemist who eventually applies her molecular knowledge to a gig as host of a popular cooking show, is still unequivocally the main character, which inevitably relegates Harriet’s journey to secondary status. Lessons in Chemistry introduces a marginalized character, then marginalizes her story.

From the very beginning, with an opening sequence that tracks Elizabeth (Brie Larson) as she winds her way toward the perky pink kitchen set of her show, Supper at Six , Lessons in Chemistry establishes the culinary chemist as the indisputable nucleus of this TV atom. Her professional and personal history function as the series’ driving force, especially in the initial episodes, which follow her pre-show life as a lab assistant qualified to be a scientist but denied that status because she’s a woman. She finds an unexpected romantic and professional soulmate in Calvin (Lewis Pullman), the most lauded mind at the Hastings Institute where both are employed; soon they begin doing potentially groundbreaking work in the field of abiogenesis while also falling deeply in love. They lead a mostly fulfilling existence at first, despite all the office gossip generated by their pairing, until tragedy strikes and Elizabeth must unexpectedly forge a new path forward.

Like practically every drama on Apple TV+ , Lessons in Chemistry looks beautiful and establishes its prestige-y bona fides with every technical choice. The production and costume designs, with their mod furniture and figure-hugging feminine fits, are smartly and subtly evocative of the period. (Larson has yet to meet a pair of pencil-straight capri pants she cannot rock.) There’s a similarly pristine, fresh-pressed quality to the cinematography, which is as smooth and vivid as the vast lake where Elizabeth and Calvin practice rowing, not a ripple out of place.

The performances are just as carefully considered. Larson plays Elizabeth with a firm jaw, a stern demeanor, and an inability to suffer fools that animates every clipped sentence and brisk exit from a frustrating conversation. When she begins to fall for Calvin, instead of softening all her edges, Larson becomes wide-eyed with wonder, a posture Pullman matches. They gaze at each other with affection, but also grateful shock, as if they can’t believe they’ll each get to study such fascinating specimens — each other — for the rest of their lives. Young Alice Halsey also deserves credit for portraying their elementary-school-age daughter, Mad, with so much sincerity that her intelligence and advanced vocabulary come across as the natural product of her genetic make-up rather than mere precociousness.

And then there’s Aja Naomi King, who gives Harriet such quiet power and warmth of spirit that you want to know more about her than the series is willing to tell. There’s a moment in episode six, when the supposedly progressive Elizabeth says she can’t join Harriet at a sit-in to protest a highway targeted for their neighborhood, when Harriet finally explodes. “You always talk about the things keeping women down, but have you looked at your audience lately?” she shouts at Elizabeth, referring to the white ladies who populate the Supper at Six studio audience. Would a Black woman in the early ’60s have felt empowered to say this to a white person, even if she’s a friend? That’s debatable, but King makes you believe that Harriet would, and that maybe Lessons in Chemistry will contend with Elizabeth’s white privilege in a surprising way. But almost as soon as the issue is raised, Lessons in Chemistr y races to redeem its heroine, lest its viewers have to sit in discomfort for too long.

As a fresh exploration of female empowerment, Lessons in Chemistry falls short, in part because its story seems pretty familiar. Other series set in bygone decades have depicted similar scenarios and themes — men who scoff at and sabotage women’s ambitions, the overwhelming grind of new motherhood, puritanical attitudes about marriage and female sexuality — with a stronger sense of focus. ( Good Girls Revolt , Mrs. America , Mad Men , and GLOW all come to mind). While entertaining and well-made, this series doesn’t offer any new insights into the gender dynamics that stifled so many women in the pre- Ms. magazine era, other than illustrating how meaningful it is when women pigeonholed as moms or wives are treated like the intellectually rigorous human beings they are. That’s not nothing. But it’s not enough to make Lessons in Chemistry as vital as it seems to think it is.

There is also a reluctance to streamline Garmus’s novel and jettison some of its overly cute diversions. That includes a chapter that is told entirely from the point of view of Six-Thirty, the beloved dog that belongs to Calvin and Elizabeth, and is re-created in episode three with B.J. Novak giving voice to the shaggy pet’s thoughts. It’s a tonal shift the series doesn’t need, especially when Lessons in Chemistry goes to such lengths to build new characters worth caring about. As pleasing as it is to watch, you can’t help but question the judgment of a show that could have given more screen time to King’s Harriet but instead cedes it to a dog with the voice of Ryan from The Office .

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Book Review: ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ by Bonnie Garmus

This was one of my most anticipated reads of 2022 so I was delighted to be granted a review copy – thanks to NetGalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

The story is about a highly gifted Chemist, Elizabeth Zott, who is carrying out important research at the Hastings Research Institute – even though her efforts are often belittled and her work stolen by the men around her. After all, it’s the early 1960s and women can’t expect sexual equality – except Elizabeth Zott absolutely does. Her uncompromising stance gets her into trouble but also attracts the attention of older, Nobel-prize-nominated Calvin Evans. An unconventional relationship ensues – one that leaves Elizabeth with a dog, a daughter, and a hit TV cooking show. Things don’t work out as planned at all, but Elizabeth has the strength to work with whatever is thrown at her.

This book has received a lot of hype for its humour, feminist messages and strong female lead – and I can absolutely see that the plaudits are well deserved.

Elizabeth Zott is a fabulously strong and resilient central figure. She cannot understand why women are treated as second class citizens in 1960s America and seeks to correct the balance. She isn’t preaching feminism – she is living it. With each setback thrown at her, she picks herself up and finds a way to thrive – for example, building her own chemistry lab when she is at home with the baby. Even when horrendous things happen to her – and she isn’t immune from sexual predators, loss and prejudice – she faces it with fortitude and resilience. This makes her a formidable opponent for anyone trying to place limitations on her – and I loved the various ways that she dealt with them!

Although the book does have some tragic elements and is genuinely shocking in terms of the sexual politics, it is also packed with humour. Elizabeth Zott is, on the one hand, hugely intelligent and astute, but the humour lies in her contrastingly slightly naive and uncompromising views – she cannot understand why she has to conform to societal expectations and often leaves those who try to stop her floundering in her wake. There’s also delightful humour in the shape of Six-Thirty, the dog, and Mad, Zott’s equally clear-sighted daughter.

I personally loved the fact that Elizabeth is absolutely herself, whatever the situation. If this means presenting a cookery show in chemical terms (something the audience love as it means they aren’t being patronised) then so be it! Similarly, she is happy to row on a men’s team, make coffee in scientific equipment and teach Six-Thirty an extensive vocabulary. All absolutely normal to her – so why compromise?

As mentioned, Elizabeth’s life isn’t easy and the real warmth in this book comes from the characters who become her support network. There is a fabulous neighbour, Harriet, and poor long-suffering Walter, the producer on the cookery show who has to deal with some of Elizabeth’s more controversial moments on TV. In the face of Zott’s sometimes superhuman resolve, it’s lovely to see some more human and flawed characters.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who likes inspirational stories about women who defy the odds to achieve something amazing. The 1960s gender politics is shocking for a modern reader – in some ways showing how far we’ve come, although always with an undercurrent of ‘some things (sadly) don’t change’. I believe too that this is shortly to become a TV series, so now is definitely the time to read this book ahead of seeing it on screen.

If you’d like a copy of this fabulous book, please use my affiliate link below. Thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases.

Header photo by Alex Kondratiev on Unsplash

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Bookworm, Mum and English teacher. Resident of Cheshire in the rainy north of England but an Essex girl at heart and by birth. View all posts by TheQuickandtheRead

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In 'Lessons in Chemistry,' a chemist is the star of ... a cooking show?

Bonnie Garmus' new novel Lessons In Chemistry has been getting a lot of buzz. Elizabeth Zott is a talented chemist but because it's the 1960s she faces sexism in her quest to work as a scientist. So instead she has a cooking show that is wildly popular. Garmus told NPR's Scott Simon that the character of Elizabeth lived in her head for many years before she started writing this novel.

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In new novel, elizabeth zott is a chemist with a cooking show, thanks to gender roles.

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Review: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

• Title: Lessons in Chemistry
• Author: Bonnie Garmus
• Genre: historical fiction
• Intended audience: adult
• Format read: ebook
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Pub date: April 5, 2022
• Content warnings: sexual assault, sexual harassment, death, grief, death of a loved one, car crash, suicide, mentions of homophobia, references to child sexual abuse, bombs
• Rating: 4/5 stars

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel-prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with–of all things–her mind. True chemistry results.

But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show  Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.

Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.

One of my friends recently recommended Lessons in Chemistry to me, and I am so glad they did. I hadn’t heard anything about it, but a quick look at the summary immediately told me it was something I was interested in. I am always looking for more books about women in science (preferably in math, but that’s a bit niche so I’ll take what I can get), and I loved the concept of a cooking show infused with chemistry lessons. I devoured it in a mere two days, I simply didn’t want to put it down. But while I thoroughly enjoyed Lessons in Chemistry , I also have a lot of Thoughts ™ about it.

Let’s start with the good. Lessons in Chemistry truly had a great story. Garmus manages to successfully weave a story over nearly a decade that remains coherent, which is not an easy thing to do. There are appropriate twists and turns, some of which actually made me gasp. There was also a charming cast of side characters; including Mad, Elizabeth’s daughter, Harriet, their neighbor, and Wakely, a reverend who Mad meets at the library. And who could forget Six-thirty, their trusty dog who occasionally assists in the narration. I usually have difficulty with animals being involved in narration, but the book was just quirky enough and Six-thirty was intelligent enough that it made sense. And maybe I am starved for it, but it really is nice to read a book with a woman in STEM.

Despite a relatively solid plot and cast of characters, what really elevated the book was Garmus’s deft prose. Alternating between witty and gut-wrenching, the prose is a sharp as one of Elizabeth’s knives. I frequently found myself laughing aloud at the wry humor imbued in the pages, as well as deeply feeling Elizabeth’s pain along with her.

It’s a lot easier to have faith in something you can’t see, can’t touch, can’t explain, and can’t change, rather than to have faith in something you actually can…one’s self, I mean.

While Lessons in Chemistry is definitely a great story, you can also tell it was trying to be more than that. It was very much attempting to be social commentary on women’s experiences and a piece with literary merit. Which is fine in and of itself, but I felt Garmus failed to successfully execute this, often undercutting her own messages.

I find the fact that Elizabeth is so clearly, utterly exceptional makes the story less compelling than if she had been a smart woman, but not necessarily a genius. Although Elizabeth is by no means the only woman in this story with ambition, she is the only one exceptional enough to pursue her ambition without any assistance. Other side characters in the story will eventually learn to fight for what they want, but usually only after being inspired by Elizabeth. Despite the fact that a large part of the book was the idea that your average woman deserves to be taken seriously, Lessons in Chemistry venerates the exceptional, not the average, woman.

Moreover, too frequently women’s interactions traced back to men. They were either bonding over their shared grief for the loss of a man or the misogyny they had faced. I think the book gave Calvin too much time in general, but specifically because it gave him more credit than he deserved. He certainly respects Elizabeth’s ability to do chemistry, but frequently fails to respect her wishes in other ways. Calvin is also portrayed as this incredibly exceptional man in terms of his genius and his respect for women. The way he is praised by both Elizabeth and the novel conveys that only truly exceptional men have the capacity to respect women, while also telling us we need to praise men for doing the bare minimum.

Finally, with both Elizabeth and Calvin, Garmus plays too heavily into the “geniuses don’t understand how to properly interact with normal people” trope. I think Elizabeth’s refusal to play to the system is incredibly admirable and the clashes which occur as a result are an important part of the novel. However, most of the time she wasn’t making the choice to deviate from social norms, she literally did not grasp that society was attempting to make a sexist demand of her. She is too logical to grasp why society is so misogynistic, and in turn it means that she isn’t really resisting society’s expectations, because she isn’t making any cognizant choice. Maybe this seems like a silly detail, but the fact that Elizabeth wasn’t actively choosing to resist social norms detracts from the power of the action.

Whenever you start doubting yourself…whenever you feel afraid, just remember. Courage is the root of change—and change is what we’re chemically designed to do.

Given the intense criticism, I really do hope this review doesn’t scare anyone away. I genuinely enjoyed Lessons in Chemistry . I gave it four stars! I think it is worth the read if it is something you are interested in. But I also think these are all valid critiques, and changes could have made the novel better. More importantly, I desperately needed to talk about all my complicated feelings about this book.

Before I go, I do want to emphasize that sexual assault is quite an important trigger warning for this book, so please take care while reading.

Thank you so much for reading! Have you read a book that didn’t fit your expectations? What’s a book you had complicated feelings about? Let me know in the comments below!

If you enjoyed this post, you may also like: Review: Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid Review: The Rose Code by Kate Quinn Five Memoirs for Women’s History Month

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The ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ book ending, explained

Spoiler Warning: Th is article contains spoilers for the novel version of Lessons in Chemistry and possibly spoilers for Apple TV Plus’ limited series. 

If you’ve been on BookTok (a TikTok sub-community dedicated to book lovers) at all between 2022 and 2023, then you’ve heard about Lessons in Chemistry . 

The debut novel written by Bonnie Garmus became an overnight sensation and an instant New York Times Bestselling upon publication in April 2022. It spent 56 weeks on the NYT Bestselling list, was named one of NYT’s notable books of the year, and was chosen as Good Morning America’s book club pick.

It was also read and enjoyed by over three-quarters of a million readers on Goodreads, was named the platform’s Best Debut Novel of 2022, and was adapted into a limited series on Apple TV Plus . 

What you need to know going in

Trading her Marvel superhero costume for a lab coat, Brie Larson stars as Elizabeth Zott, a brilliant and unrelenting chemist at Hastings Research Institute navigating the 1950s patriarchy. Although her contributions to abiogenesis (the theory that life rose from non-life forms billions of years ago) blow that of her male counterparts out of the water, Elizabeth’s credibility is questioned at every corner. 

Along the way, Elizabeth meets and falls in love with Calvin Evans ( played by Lewis Pullman in the limited series ), a famous and renowned scientist with whom she works at Hastings. Because of her male-dominated field, Elizabeth dodges accusations that she’s “sleeping her way to the top.”

In reality, Calvin sees Elizabeth for the intelligent, funny, and opinionated chemist she is, and eventually, they have a daughter together, Madeleine Zott, or Mad Zott for short. 

Unfortunately, Elizabeth and Calvin never marry, so Mad being born out of wedlock becomes the crux upon which Hastings Research Institute hinders their decision to fire Elizabeth. Eventually, she is approached by Walter Pine, a television producer at KCTV who offers her a job as host of a daytime cooking show called Supper at Six .

Elizabeth accepts because she needs the income to support her family. She loves to cook, after all, and she’s great at it. She proceeds headfirst into the venture, but her adamant demand that she be able to incorporate chemistry into the gig goes overlooked by Walter until the cameras start rolling and it’s too late to stop her.  

Before long, Supper at Six becomes a national sensation, and Elizabeth is its unsuspecting star. All the while, Elizabeth works overtime to continue her chemistry career, even remodeling her home kitchen into a science lab. Supper at Six is fine and dandy, but chemistry is her passion.

She belongs in the lab, not the kitchen, and she will do anything in her power to get back to Hastings Research Institute, or any science lab for that matter. 

Still, there’s no denying Elizabeth’s magnetism. Women all around the world tune into Supper at Six religiously, keen to absorb any bits of advice Elizabeth imparts, which nine times out of ten contain a chemistry flair. Meanwhile, KCTV’s executive producer Phil Lebensmal loathes everything about Elizabeth’s unruly nature.

All he wants her to do is stick to the teleprompters, promote their sponsors, and smile. But Elizabeth marches to the beat of her own drum.

How does Lessons in Chemistry end?

By the time we near the third act of Lessons in Chemistry , an entire subplot has been co-existing alongside the nationwide uproar about Elizabeth’s tenure on Supper at Six . Mad, Elizabeth’s genius daughter, is on the hunt to learn more about her father, Calvin Evans. 

Now, one thing we didn’t state earlier that must be said now is that Calvin is accidentally killed early on in the book. We’re burying this detail in case the average reader wishes to experience that bombshell on their own. Nevertheless, his death creates ripples throughout both Elizabeth’s and Mad’s life. 

Determined to learn about her father, Mad buries herself in research at the library where she eventually crosses paths with Reverend Wakey, who, it just so happens, was once pen pals with her father. Mad is drip-fed various facts about Calvin from Wakey, her neighbor-slash-family-friend Harriet, and research of her own finding.

Over time, she learns that Calvin was an orphan at All Saints Home for Boys in Sioux City. His love for science took root after a mysterious man associated with a foundation began donating science books to the orphanage. 

Meanwhile, Supper at Six experiences a massive surge in ratings after Walter Pine takes over for Lebensmal as executive producer of KCTV. This came after Lebensmal’s attempt to physically and sexually assault Elizabeth for disobeying orders (an occurrence Elizabeth is unfortunately all too familiar with). As a result of Supper at Six ’s uptick in popularity, Elizabeth is approached by Franklin Roth, an award-winning journalist, looking to conduct an exclusive interview for Life Magazine.

Elizabeth is accustomed to turning down these kinds of interviews because usually, all they want is an inside scoop into her relationship with Calvin Evans. This time, however, she’s reassured that the article will focus solely on her professional career. 

It does. The article is immaculate and peels back the curtain into Elizabeth’s career triumphs and tribulations. Unfortunately, that’s not the article Roth’s editor at Life wants to publish, so what goes out into the world is a superficial cover that glosses over any and all of Elizabeth’s accomplishments. Just like that, she is tossed back into the box society demands she live inside and her chemistry career is ruined. 

Elizabeth plunges into a deep depression that spans several months. Then, out of the blue, her former colleague at Hastings, Miss. Frask — who once co-conspired to get her fired —  reveals that she was so incensed by Life’s article that she wrote to complain.

As it turns out, the Parker Foundation — the foundation that funds research at Hastings — got hold of this letter and conducted an investigation into the unethical behavior at Hastings and its head honcho, Dr. Donatti. Frask now works as head of personnel and she wants Elizbeth to join her as head of chemistry. 

It’s all too good to be true, though. Elizabeth soon discovers that Avery Parker, the woman behind the Parker Foundation is actually Calvin’s biological mother. Knowing the turmoil Calvin endured at All Saints orphanage, Elizabeth is reluctant to pay Avery any mind, let alone accept the job as head chemist. However, Avery quickly explains the whole story.

It turns out that, like Elizabeth, Avery got pregnant and gave birth to Calvin before she was married. Worse, she was a teenager, and because of that, she was forced to give Calvin up for adoption. When she was old enough to seek Calvin out, she sent her lawyer Mr. Wilson to inquire after Calvin at All Saints. In the hope of squeezing some pity money from Mr. Wilson, the bishop at All Saints lied and said Calvin had died.

The bishop’s plan backfired, however, because the Parker Foundation traded money in favor of science book donations in Calvin’s honor. 

When Calvin eventually became famous for his contributions to science, Avery tried tirelessly to contact him. Under the assumption that she was a random lady seeking his money, though, Calvin ignored her. By the time she tried to seek him out in person, it was too late. 

Now, Avery is hoping to become a part of Elizabeth and Mad’s life, both professionally as the private funder of research at Hastings and personally as Mad’s grandmother.

No longer constrained by the obligations of the cooking show or prejudice in the workplace, Elizabeth resumes her abiogenesis research at Hastings, and the novel ends with her inviting Avery into her home for — you guessed it — supper. 

Review of Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Lessons in Chemistry

by Bonnie Garmus

My bestie Rebecca lent this to me, and I am glad she did—I don’t think I would have picked it up otherwise, and that would have been my loss. Lessons in Chemistry stands out. It is quite a literary novel, full of narrative tricks and idiosyncrasies and enough contrived character circumstances to make John Irving or Heather O’Neill jealous. But Bonnie Garmus is on a mission in this book. She’s laser-focused on the unfairness of life—not just in terms of institutional sexism but also the way in which life robs us of the ones we love the most. This is a sad yet hopeful story that made me laugh and cry, and sometimes those are the best.

Elizabeth Zott is a chemist. She would be a PhD., except for—well, you know, she’s a woman in science in the 1960s. So she ends up as a researcher at a small institute in California, where she unexpectedly falls in love with Calvin Evans, the institute’s brightest and most eccentric researcher. But when Calvin dies, Elizabeth is left as a single (unwed!) mom, and sexism continue to impede her ability to earn money or move forward in the world. Opportunity arrives in the form of an afternoon cooking show—for Elizabeth to host—but neither the television producer who discovers her nor Elizabeth herself know what to make of the success of Supper at Six . Meanwhile, Elizabeth tries to raise her precocious daughter, Mad, the only way she knows how: scientifically.

There’s probably many ways for this book to lose the reader. Garmus’s narration is, by and large, flat albeit extensive in description, prone to tangents and meandering towards its point. The dialogue sputters onto the page in fits and spurts before drying up again. Each chapter flits between times and memories, occasionally with an attention span so frenetic it’s hard to read. The characters are caricatures—some of them so sexist and boorish it borders on the incredible, others so buffoonish or farcical as to nearly undermine the seriousness of the story. But I think that’s rather the point, and that’s kind of what Garmus is getting at here—sexism is silly .

This is a story about a woman who refuses to settle. Throughout Lessons in Chemistry , so many people—including other women—tell Elizabeth that she just has to accept the way the world is. Maybe you can make a little headway, but eventually you have to give in and play by the patriarchy’s rules. You have to be a Miss Frask instead of an Elizabeth Zott.

Garmus perfectly portrays so many of the tropes I see in social justice spaces—women weighed down by so much internalized misogyny it’s painful to see; men who profess to be allies but only if it means you’ll sit down now, please, you’re being disruptive; people of all genders who stand with you and mean well but really don’t understand just how far the fight for liberation must go. From Frask to Walter to Harriet, the characters jump off the page because they are caricatures.

Indeed, Lessons in Chemistry rather feels like Garmus is screaming into the void. Because the world has not changed much since the 1960s.

Last year I watched Picture a Scientist , a Netflix documentary about historical and present-day sexual harassment in science. While the language we use and some laws have changed, what Elizabeth experiences here remains very much part of women and non-binary people’s experiences in science. Moreover, if there is a flaw in this book, it is the whiteness of it—racialized women continue to face even more hurdles than women like me and Elizabeth.

So Garmus wrote a book to scream, and scream, and scream, at the unjustness of it all.

There is a love story here too. It’s couched in the language of beakers and rowing and leash laws, but it’s here, on paper, a slow-burn romance that ends too soon and turns into a meditation on grief. Elizabeth and Calvin never had a chance. Calvin and his mother never had a chance. Calvin and Mad never had a chance.

Sometimes life just happens, and you never get a chance.

I loved all of Elizabeth’s relationships in the book. She’s so careful with her daughter yet so oblivious. Mad is a delightful child, slightly creepy but never in an overwhelming way—I don’t think I would have liked to see her try to carry the whole book, but as a protagonist who joins us midway through, she is great. Harriet too—her development from housewife with little ambition to Elizabeth’s close friend … it’s just so neat, and in the hands of another writer perhaps could have been trite, but Garmus somehow pulls it off.

That’s what this is: a magic trick. This book is so raw yet so carefully and precisely crafted, a chemical—nay, alchemical—chain reaction of storytelling culminating in a coda that left me crying. When Elizabeth signs off, when she finally reads the cue cards … well, not to spoil it, but there were tears in my eyes—though so much of the finale is predictable, it is predictable in such a way that Garmus has earned it through foreshadowing. The payoff is so well executed, so satisfying, that I just feel like I’ve come full circle.

I want this to be a movie.

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Brie Larson Tries Her Best to Recreate the Magic of ‘Lessons in Chemistry’

NEEDS MORE SEASONING

The Brie Larson-led Apple TV+ series falls short of recreating the magic of Bonnie Garmus’ NYT best-selling novel.

Fletcher Peters

Entertainment Reporter

In Lessons in Chemistry , a small pan of lasagna sparks a revolution. Baked with love and an astute detail to the tiny chemical explosions that melt the cheese, soften the long noodles, and combine the ingredients, that lasagna gives Elizabeth Zott ( Brie Larson ) a full-time gig at her local news network as their resident Ina Garten .

Or rather, their Julia Child —because we’re in the 1960s, when a woman’s job is to raise her children, clean the house, and stay stationed in the kitchen while her husband is away. Lessons in Chemistry , a new Apple TV+ series based on Bonnie Garmus’ NYT bestseller of the same name follows a fierce woman chemist who dares to challenge those norms while also, oddly enough, embracing them. Elizabeth Zott’s place is in the kitchen—not because she’s a woman but, rather, because she simply loves to cook.

As soon as we meet Elizabeth, who has become host of fictional ’60s cooking show Supper at Six , we’re transported back in time to the 1950s. Lessons in Chemistry will get back to Elizabeth’s days as a TV host, but for the first four episodes, the series focuses on her career as an assistant chemist at the Hastings laboratory in Los Angeles. Elizabeth is one of the best chemists in the lab—not the best chemist; that title belongs to the closed-off Calvin Evans ( Lewis Pullman )—but no one trusts any woman enough to give her the opportunities she deserves. Women are secretaries, not scientists.

Elizabeth does what she can to succeed at Hastings, despite the roadblocks. She makes some progress on her own research after hours. No one cares enough about her to actually pay attention to her, but because no one is giving her the time of day, they don’t stop her, either. That is, until she steals a few beakers from golden boy Calvin’s lab, resulting in tensions between the two. He accidentally calls her a secretary—she’s a woman, after all—and Elizabeth assumes Calvin is another misogynistic creep to avoid around the office. But then, something strange happens: Calvin finds out Elizabeth is a lab assistant, and he actually apologizes .

Soon enough, their feud becomes an enemies-to-lovers storyline. Calvin and Elizabeth’s romance is quick, charming, and entrancing. Lessons in Chemistry TV show recreates the book’s captivating love story with a bit more sparkle, thanks to Larson and Pullman’s connection. But the romance is over almost as quickly as it began—no spoilers as to why—leaving Elizabeth an uphill battle to continue her research and sort out her personal life. While the romance is the most exciting part of the story, Lessons in Chemistry doesn’t slump when Calvin is out of the picture.

Eventually, Elizabeth is fired from Hastings and given the opportunity of a lifetime when offered a job at Supper at Six , where she’s asked to host a cooking show for mothers around the nation. This part of the story, where we watch Elizabeth empower 1960s housewives into getting degrees and following their dreams while still having nightly dinner ready for the family, is the powerhouse of Lessons in Chemistry .

The marvelous show-within-a-show allows Elizabeth to express her feminist beliefs—that women should have their own lives, and although Elizabeth loves to prepare dinner, that doesn’t make it every woman’s dream—while also being a gorgeous ’60s spectacle. Elizabeth sports a lab coat with a collar embroidered in glimmering green sequins; she designs a special kitchen for herself; and although we don’t get to see too much of the food, hearing her talk about bubbling chicken pot pies is satisfying enough. It’s like watching Julia Child’s show, while also seeing another, more dramatic story play out in the background.

While the love story and the cooking scenes are delightful to watch (because who doesn’t adore a good romance and some delectable dishes), the rest of Lessons in Chemistry droops. Garmus wrote her novel so cinematically that, when actually adapted, there’s no room for creative liberty. Elizabeth’s neighbor Harriet (Aja Naomi King) gets a new storyline, and a handful of chapters are cut from the overall plot, but if you’ve already read the book, you know everything to expect from Lessons in Chemistry . It’s almost as if the show is too afraid to deviate from the beloved source material, at the expense of expanding on these brilliant characters.

Because of that, Lessons in Chemistry may be a show that’s better fit for people who haven’t read the book, rather than avid fans who have been waiting to watch an adaptation. Larson tries to find new ways to invigorate the source material, and she perfectly embodies Elizabeth. But with nothing new to learn or love about Elizabeth, the series falls short of the book’s greatness and originality.

That said, folks who didn’t pick up the zeitgeisty novel can now take in the story in a new, quicker format. Lessons in Chemistry is such a thrilling tale that, even though it doesn’t triumph over the book—and adaptations rarely do—there’s still an endearing mix of mystery, romance, comedy, and drama worth watching. Lessons in Chemistry is no lesson in adaptation, but that doesn’t stop the series from being a mildly good time.

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