Chemistry - Weike Wang

Oh, books that you just keep around and never read, despite having been interested when you bought them.  This particular one lived under my bed for almost a year, where I would glimpse it every time I went looking for misplaced bottles of lotion, nail files, hair brushes, etc.  I finally pulled it out, really for lack of anything better to read--I've been reading, but I feel like I'm in a slump--and went to it, which was easy, because it was short.

This is one of those books that wants to be artsy, because it doesn't have a named narrator or any dialogue punctuation, so it all kind of just blends together and it's sometimes hard to tell when someone is talking or just thinking.  Oi.  The story itself is a very simple one: the unnamed narrator is a young woman in chemistry PhD program in Boston, until she has a breakdown after not making any progress on her thesis, is put on a medical leave, and finds herself in tough straights with her fellow chemistry PhD student boyfriend, who wants to marry her but whom she's not sure she wants to marry.  It's a tale of self-discovery in the wake of all of this, and of coming to terms not only with her parents' expectations of her but what she really wants for herself.

There is some lovely prose in here, descriptions of Boston and of chemistry.  There's some good introspection, into aspects of this narrator's life; for example, how she's expected to go into science because of her parents and has always been the "smart Asian kid' but doesn't really want to be, and is actually more interested in teaching, or how she struggles with being a woman in science while her boyfriend sails through with no obstacles, or how she wants a relationship but she doesn't want to entirely lose herself to it, or be expected to give up a professional life to be someone's wife.  These are all important aspects of the narrator's (I hesitate to call her a heroine, it's not really that type of book, nor would I call a man in this role a hero) life and struggles, both internal and external...however, none of them are particularly interesting.  One thing I did find interesting was the role that language played in the narrator's life, as it draws so many connections and divisions between cultures very clearly and helps to illuminate the struggles of the narrator and those around her in a way that I don't think most books hit upon--or even can hit upon, because they're not from this same perspective.

This is one of those books that just drifts from place to place, from thought to thought.  It's not stream of conscience, thankfully--a style I can't stand--but there is not a lot of structure.  The narrator is just drifting through life, and the book of course reflects that.  There is not really a plot, there is not really a pace.  It just kind of is.  While the premise is strong, I felt like it just wasn't really a great read.  This book had a lot of buzz when it came out, but it just didn't capture me as much as I had hoped.  A book can have a lot of wonderful, important things in it--but still not be a good book for everyone, and I think that's the category this hit upon for me.

2 stars out of 5.