Fabulous Fiction Firsts #641

Tue, 06/13/2017 - 8:55am by muffy

Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly called Chemistry * - "that thing that is so precise in science and so mysterious and mutable in love - becomes the rich slippery subject of one of the year's most winningly original debuts." (Just named EW Ten Best Books of the Year So Far).

First-time novelist Weike Wang's (Harvard, BS Chemistry; PhD Public Health) unnamed narrator, a third-year doctorate student in Chemistry at a prestigious Boston university is tormented by her failed research while watching her peers (and her kind and generous boyfriend Eric) move on to real jobs. The only child of extremely demanding Chinese immigrant parents, who expect nothing short of excellence from her throughout her life, she had always depended on the quiet, focused and precise nature of science, shutting out emotions. After a dramatic meltdown at the lab, she was asked to take a sabbatical. Over the next two years, she, living alone and supporting herself through tutoring, begins to learns the formulas and equations for a different kind of chemistry—one in which the reactions can’t be quantified, measured, and analyzed; one that can be studied only in the mysterious language of the heart.

"Though essentially unhinged, the narrator is thoughtful and funny, her scramble understandable. It is her voice—distinctive and appealing—that makes this novel at once moving and amusing, never predictable." (Kirkus Reviews) “A novel about an intelligent woman trying to find her place in the world...The moody but endearing narrative voice is reminiscent of Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation and Catherine Lacey’s Nobody is Ever Missing." (Read the complete The New York Times Book Review)

* = Starred review