GD Hayes

A really shallow book, perhaps attempting to be a serious sociological novel by touching on violence against women and abuse by men in the workplace? But none of this is effective if the characters aren’t believable. I do not know where the positive reviews come from. I’m not a chemist so wouldn’t know how accurate the chemistry research was for the book. I do know the author had little idea how Nobel Prizes are won. The lab colleagues sit around during lunch gossiping about Zott’s significant other being “nominated for a Nobel.” How would they know? The process isn’t open. Anyone can write a letter to Stockholm. That doesn’t guarantee a “nomination.” The narration is abhorrent, with the primary narrator clearly not having done their pronunciation homework. (Yes, it’s spelled like it should be pronounced La—lahhn, as in Kahn, but Jack himself introduced himself as La-lane, with a long a in the second syllable.) Finally, someone on GoodReads said the book was hilariously funny. Again, how is this even possible with the lack of character development, the skeleton story line and serious social issues. A good writer would be hard pressed to create much intelligent humor in this story alongside the rape and other abuse that pops up and then is tossed aside like, as one NY Times book reviewer casually wrote, the “frustrations” women endured in the 1960s. And might I say, continue to endure in 2023.