Elizabeth Zott is a chemist. She was pursuing her degree and working towards a doctorate when she is booted for rebuffing her professor’s unwanted advances. She takes a lowly job in a laboratory, and falls in love with the lab’s top research scientist, Calvin Evans. She steadfastly refuses to marry him, as she has no intention of changing her maiden name. He dies in an accident, and she is booted from the laboratory. With a baby on the way, she makes ends meet by doing research for her former colleagues at the lab. An altercation with another kindergarten parent leads her to a role as a host of a television cooking show.
There are so many problems with this book that I am not sure where to begin bashing it. The story, premise and characters are so ludicrous, I am at a loss to explain the vast number of five star reviews it has got and the volume of book club lists it features on.
- Elizabeth is a scientist in the 50’s and 60’s, but her most pressing problems are all feminist issues from 2020’s. America had a slew of problems then, civil rights, red scare, space race, Cuban missile crisis… but feminism is front bench.
- From all descriptions of Elizabeth, she is a slight, diminutive woman, with no specific background in sustained physical activity. But she picks up rowing, a sport requiring intense cardio training, and is a elite rower right away because… feminism?
- Elizabeth does not know that she is good looking, nor does she put in any effort to grooming or maintaining herself. But the world thinks that she is the most beautiful woman ever. That is not how anything works.
- This is the most frustrating part. Elizabeth is the perfect scientist and logician. No self-doubt, no conflicting ideas, in fact, no thoughts whatsoever other than Chemistry and logic. She operates like an automaton.
- All men in the 50’s and 60’s were sexual predators and wife-beaters and had no respect for women. There are exactly two exceptions.
There are several reviews of the book which talk about it being funny. I am not sure which part of the book was meant to be funny and tickled the bone of those reviewers. This book is neither funny, nor informative, and definitely provides no lessons in chemistry, or indeed, have anything at all to do with chemistry. Avoid like the plague.