“Don’t worry, you don’t really need to care about ugly and/or fat people while you’re reading this book.”

I hate "Lessons in Chemistry."

Hey mama! Hey gurl! 

Maybe you don’t read much. One book a year is really a lot! Especially when you’re mommy-blogging and cleaning up after your little guys and going to “book” “club” with your best girlfriends and favorite $14 bottle of chardonnay. But hey, let me tell you about a book that’s perfect for you!

You’ve probably seen it on shelves at the only bookstore that you’re aware exists (Barnes & Noble) (but the best part is the cafe, amiright #starbuckssuperfans?). Or maybe the airport bookstore on your last vacay. This coral-orange cover is everywhere, so it’s gotta be great! And there’s a cool, smart-looking babe on the cover, and of course she’s blonde, because ew, who wants to read about anyone who isn’t blonde? (Obviously it’s the white kind of blonde. Don’t worry!)

This book is called Lessons in Chemistry, but don’t freak out! You do not need to have like, any STEM skills (gross) to luv this book! You just have to root for one woman in STEM before it was like, even called STEM, and it’s really easy to root for her cuz she’s like, gorgeous and not like all the regular (ugly) girls!

The shero of this story is Elizabeth Zott, and when we meet her, she’s a chemistry grad student working in a lab (boring). But she gets out of there pretty dang quick, because (spoiler alert!) shero gets raped within the first 30-some pages! But that’s not a very important part. This isn’t one of those books where people want to talk about rape. I mean, what can we as an audience  do with that? Not much! 

One of the things you should know about this book is that it’s got Mad Men vibes, by which I mean it was set a longish time ago! I like to picture Elizabeth Zott as a long-haired Betty Draper – you have to imagine her with long hair, because this book talks a lot about Elizabeth’s cascading waves that she neatly and perfectly twists up with a pencil! That’s how you know she’s a bookish babe!

And don’t worry, you don’t really need to care about ugly and/or fat people while you’re reading this book. Those people are Elizabeth’s enemies and/or the butt of this book’s jokes, especially fatties like her rapist! Cuz all fat ugmos are also bad. Some of the ugly people in this book are women who work with Elizabeth, and they hate on her cuz she’s so beautiful. Unfair, right? What was it Joan Didion said? “Don’t hate me cuz I’m beautiful”? It’s so funny when the author, Bonnie Garmus, writes about how all the ugly women’s boyfriends just crush on Elizabeth while they are so mean to their girlfriends! That’s how you know Elizabeth is living out her Main Character best life.

There is one ugly person that you, the reader, are supposed to love in this book, though, and that’s how you know you’re a good person, because you can see beyond looks alone, just like Elizabeth. That ugmo is the love of her life, Calvin. He’s a brilliant scientist! And they have a total meet-cute when our girl Lizzie busts into his lab looking for equipment, cuz she’s a lower-level chemist. (Remember, girl quit her grad program cuz of that pesky rape, so she is super overqualified for her job. But no one takes her seriously!) But Calvin falls in love and takes her seriously, and that is great. But you don’t have to care about him for long because he dies pretty abruptly! No one else really talks about how much violence is in this book; it’s kind of weird if you think about it too hard! So just don’t! :)

But I haven’t even gotten to the best part. So remember how I said you don’t really have to care about STEM to enjoy the chemistry in this book? Well, it’s not just the chemistry between Elizabeth and Calvin that our girl Bonnie’s writing about! There’s is science: the chemistry in……. cooking! 

Let’s be real: STEM is such a snooze. Lizzie Z. is one in a million for actually caring about chemistry. But good thing she’s so beautiful! Because her hotness, combined with her genius application of chemistry knowledge to her cooking, leads to her getting her own cooking show on TV! After that rape and death nonsense, she leaves the lab where she works and ends up being like Julia Child, but only if Julia Child were blonde, skinny and hot!

This is a fun, frothy read about how hot white blonde babes always win! If you’re a feminist, you automatically have to love this book because it’s about #femaleempowerment! And if you don’t love it, you’re a woman who doesn’t support other women, and as our lord and savior TSwift says, there’s a special place in hell for you!!!! Caramelize that, bitch!!! —Connie Barmouse