Enjoyed every bit of this. I’m at that time of year when I’m SO many reviews behind, and I’m reading a lot of good books that I just don’t feel like articulating about (I’m about to Review Amnesty a crap ton of books), but this book was such a good read for me, I do want to say a little something about it. No idea what that something is about to be; stream of consciousness is always a surprising and fun way to write reviews.
The US cover to this book originally put me off and I didn’t want to read it. This was the wrong instinct! (I have since learned the author also doesn’t like the US cover because it doesn’t accurately portray the insides of the book.) So anyway I ordered the UK cover and it has a periodic table inside it on the cover! Also, this is a book about sexism and misogyny in the workplace, family, female friendships, chemistry, dogs, and rowing. Yes, rowing. It’s also a book about a woman chemist who somehow becomes a famous TV cook in the 1960s. I’m really not selling this.
The problem is that I can tell you WHAT this book is about all day, but it’s written in such a unique style, almost like a historical fairy-tale, that I can’t really explain to you what the experience of reading it is like. (Perhaps others can and have; I haven’t really read any other reviews of it yet.) Also I’m not trying very hard here, to be honest.
My point is, and what I came here to say, is that if you too were put off by the cover of the book and assumed it was a sort of vapid cutesy story of some sort, it’s really not. It has substance, and that substance is good and worth reading, and I think you should go do that.