There's no denying that this is very hard to put down - it had that bingeable quality that a lot of BookTok books have in that I managed to finish this over the span of two days without even meaning to. All things I like! So why was the experience so weirdly hollow? That being said I also read a few interviews from Bonnie Garmus afterwards and her insights are actually very nice so that added half a star for me.
Whoever said this was a 'hilarious book' is an absolute boldfaced liar - what the heck. We have two attempted rapes, a main character getting ran over by a police car after being dragged underneath it, suicide and general misery for the majority of this book. It's BLEAK. We are not just in the 50s, we are in the TURBO 50s. Every man you meet (sans two?) is an absolute BASTARD - Even the OTHER WOMEN ARE BASTARDS. I think that's part of what bothered me in the baseline is just how awful all of the background characters are - it was almost like Elizabeth Zott was in a Dr Seuss tier world of bastard people. I'm no optimist but there is no way that 98% of the characters that have any actions or speech in this book is a nightmare person. It's to the point where all of the persecution is...cartoonish? Like even by 50s-60s standards, there's no way that people were this bad.
I have this weird feeling about Elizabeth where she's written almost like she's someone from the 21st century inexplicably thrown into this setting? It's a case where this main character is a little bit too...perfect. She's a self-taught, uber beautiful, reasonable, atheist chemist who preaches to anyone in earshot about her informed and logical mindset. I hate to say it but she borders on...cringe, a lot of the time? Speaking of which her daughter is goddamn ridiculous and I lost a lot of my immersion with anything involving her- which sucked because I really felt for her struggles of being left alone to raise her even if I didn't really care for Elizabeth.
There was this weirdly edgy anti-religion vibe to this book - I'm not religious but I found it a little bit distracting. Whether is was Elizabeth openly decrying religion or the priest actively going on about how disingenuous his position was. Or the religious orphanage that seemed fixated on money to the point of not letting someone be reunited with their birth family. It felt more than a little meanspirited considering that one of the main preaching points that she loves to focus on is that it's a free country. Side note: there is no way that she could discuss atheism, secularism and socialism on air. Amongst the various outlandish things that happen in this book, the fact that she got away with so much is really up there for me.
All in all this story is entertaining but so far-fetched. It's best enjoyed in a vaguely brain-numbing time sink kind of way. The scenes around the show were pretty fun, the romance too but probably my favourite thing in the entirety of the book was the dog. Six-Thirty best character. But to put it in context, this dog was also a lab assistant. This book is a trip. I'm mostly just sad because I wanted something very different from this but I got a convoluted, bizarre and preachy tale.
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