Chemistry
A novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD WINNER • WHITING AWARD WINNER • Smart, moving, and funny, a unique coming-of-age story about a quirky, overworked narrator who seems to be on the cusp of a perfect life but finds herself on a new path of discoveries about everything she thought she knew.
"Told in a hilarious deadpan that recalls Gish Jen and Nora Ephron." —O, The Oprah Magazine
At first glance, the life of the narrator of Weike Wang’s debut novel seems ideal: she is studying for a prestigious PhD in chemistry that will make her Chinese parents proud (or at least satisfied), and her successful, supportive boyfriend has just proposed to her. But instead of feeling hopeful, she is wracked with ambivalence: the long, demanding hours at the lab have created an exquisite pressure cooker, and she doesn’t know how to answer the marriage question. Soon it all becomes too much and her life plan veers off course....
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Weiki Wang doesn’t name the protagonist in her debut novel for a reason: she's every individual on the verge of adulthood who’s experienced indecisiveness and a loss of faith. She’s also, in many ways, Wang herself; both women have Chinese-immigrant parents and Harvard Ph.D’s, which explains why the writing—suffused with sharp humor and scientific facts—is so fantastically authentic. The story starts with an awkward marriage proposal and dominos into a series of crises. Wang's deadpan tone adds levity. But like the best stand-up, Chemistry is shaded with darkness and loaded with truth.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A clipped, funny, painfully honest narrative voice lights up Wang's debut novel about a Chinese-American graduate student who finds the scientific method inadequate for understanding her parents, her boyfriend, or herself. The optimist sees the glass as half-full, the pessimist half-empty, explains the narrator, while a chemist sees it as half-liquid, half-gaseous, probably poisonous. At 27, this aspiring chemist has reached a point in her research at which, seeing no progress, her thesis advisor suggests changing topics. Instead, she has a breakdown in the lab, smashing beakers and shouting until security guards are called. Her romantic relationship also reaches a turning point when her boyfriend takes a job out of state. The thought of relocation elicits the narrator's unhappy memories of her family's emigration from Shanghai to Detroit when she was five: her father learned English, worked hard, became an engineer, but her mother, a pharmacist in China, never quite adapted. Caught between parents, languages, and cultures, the narrator devotes herself to academic study. Only after her best friend has a baby does she begin to comprehend love, the one power source, according to Einstein, man has never mastered. Wang offers a unique blend of scientific observations, Chinese proverbs, and American movie references. In spare prose, characters remain unnamed, except for boyfriend Eric and the baby, nicknamed "Destroyer." Descriptions of the baby's effect on adults and adults' effect on a dog demonstrate Wang's gift for perspective the dog's, the chemist's, the immigrant parents, and, most intimately, their bright, quirky, conflicted daughter.
Customer Reviews
So good
I loved the voice in this book, and truly enjoyed reading it.