BOTM Monday: Lessons in Chemistry

Author: Bonnie Garmus Title: Lessons in Chemistry Publisher: Doubleday Date Published: 03/31/2022

Read Dates: 08/19/2025- 08/20/2025
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I skipped BOTM in August. This was a Book of the Month club add-on for December. 

Lessons in Chemistry is a multi POV historical fiction. It’s the story of Elizabeth Zott, a brilliant chemist struggling against societal expectations in the 1950s and 1960s. Her career in chemistry is derailed when she is fired for being a single mother, and she finds herself the unexpected host of a daytime cooking show, where she helps housewives plan their evening meals while encouraging them to challenge the status quo.

I had heard good things about this one, but I’ll admit I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Historical fiction isn’t my go-to, but I found the story riveting and loved the varying perspectives (including the dogs POV) offered.

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.