Writing style
Conversational · Direct · Witty
Apple BooksLessons in Chemistry
Historical fiction · Comedy
- First published
- 2022
- Print length
- 400 pagesKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2022
Description
In 1960s Southern California, Elizabeth Zott is a gifted chemist working against institutions determined to treat scientific authority as male. Expelled from a doctoral program, she becomes a laboratory technician at Hastings Research Institute, where she meets researcher Calvin Evans but resists marriage and the possibility that her work will be credited to him. Pregnancy and job loss force her to turn her kitchen into a laboratory and support herself through consulting, while financial pressure later returns her to menial work and plagiarism at Hastings. An unexpected encounter involving her daughter’s school lunch leads to a television cooking show. Elizabeth approaches the new role as another form of science, challenging the expectations imposed on women at work and at home.
Reading profile
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Pace
Brisk
Tone
Earnest · Hopeful · Humorous · Warm
Structure
Linear
Focus
Character · Ideas · Relationships
Emotional intensity
4 / 5
Reading complexity
1–5 · higher means more demanding- Writing
- 2 / 5
- Ideas
- 3 / 5
- Structure
- 2 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 1 / 5
Themes
Book details
For the print edition listed above.
- Publisher
- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Language
- English
- ISBN
- 9780385547345
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