I wasn't sure I was going to like one too much, but I had kept hearing about it. I'm glad I read it! Although it was little scattered, I enjoyed the soul searching story. I gave it 3 stars because it did take me longer than usual to get through, however I would recommend this to a friend.

I found this book to be very multilayered and insightful. It explored growing up Chinese American, as an only child, language barriers, parental affection and what it means for different cultures, romantic love and what that means from one person to another, the idea of self pressure to succeed and what it means when we fail our own and our families expectations, mental health and self assessment, and what it means to look inward. The somewhat stilted, abruptness of the narrative text really complemented the main character's inner thought process and ways of looking at her life. I felt that once I got used to that rhythm and lack of chapter breaks, I almost felt truly inside her mind as she observed the world around her and tried to figure out what she wanted vs expectations. The ultimate kind of "love" story was also really different because it was about what a person really needs vs what she should settle for because it looks good from the outside. Sometimes we need to examine ourselves before we can commit to another person, as nonsensical as it may appear on the outside.

I very much liked this little book. The main character is a woman in graduate school, in a good relationship, until she's not either of those things. Themes of friendship, parenting, belonging, and what it's like to be the child of immigrants all blend together in a really beautiful way. I found much of it very funny, although it certainly isn't a comedy. It's uncommon to see a serious, thoughtful, funny, dark, messed up female character in contemporary literature who doesn't morph into something like the "normal" girl. And it was refreshing to see that "normal" wasn't the goal.

Chemistry is hilariously funny. If you find unresolved childhood issues, heartbreak and the collapse of one's life plan funny. The Asian-American narrator of Chemistry is a failed PhD student ergo a failed Asian daughter. Though she is well aware that she is a failure, she had previously thought she was only a failed girlfriend unable to respond to her live-in boyfriend's marriage proposal. At his urging, she delves into her fear of intimacy which does not prevent him from moving on at which point she needs to reconsider her life unmoored by everything that had held it in place until then. Chemistry. Her boyfriend. Her parents. Her inability to connect with people around her is comic as is her journey towards connection. Chemistry is a reminder to anyone who survived their 20s of the growing pains and a signal to anyone still in their 20s that they too will get through it albeit for a few hiccups along the way.

In this debut novel, an unnamed young female scientist questions her career path, her relationship and the role of her parents in her life. The short and quippy prose vary between stream of consciousness thinking, rhetorical questions and memories from the narrator’s past. The struggling, yet insightful, tone paves the journey of a woman who must figure out how to find fulfillment through her confused beliefs. This unique story and voice is bound to please coming of age fans.

A short novel that explores the pain of discovering that you lack both the talent and the passion to realize your lifelong goal. When the narrator quits her PhD program, she’s forced to grapple with the complicated relationship she has with her parents, her inability to commit to her devoted boyfriend, and most of all who she is now that she has lost her professional calling. With the help of a therapist and the therapy of helping others as a tutor, she slowly reveals a life that’s been lived through a prism of chemistry. While it might seem narrowly defined and unusually detached, it’s also beautifully observed. Life is kept at a careful distance, no one except Eric has a name, not even her best friend, until slowly she starts to open up, offering the possibility of finding feeling, and herself again.

Meh; solid 3 stars. 

Another author trying to branch out stylistically by using the present tense, but not really focusing on plot or character. The narrator of the book is so affectless, it's hard to care for her or her bizarre life choices. The only parts that had heart and felt "real" dealt with her parents -- even that flirted with cliche.

'Chemistry' is a subtle and engaging novel that left me anticipating whatever Weike Wang writes next. First, it's very funny. Let me rephrase that: it contains some very funny writing. One reason the novel works is the contrast between a fundamentally dark story of a young woman navigating an emotional breakdown and her humorous insights into incidents and people in her life. These include Chinese immigrant parents with exacting expectations of their only child, a best friend whose live unravels after she has a baby, and a meltdown in pursuit of her Ph.D. in chemistry at a prestigious school.

Naturally, chemistry threads its way through the novel: as the burden of achievement that the protagonist accepts from her parents; in her inability--using an alternate definition of the word--to trust her future with her kind boyfriend; and in the tension between fact and feeling and between knowledge and uncertainty. The writing belies this tension even as it reveals the difficulty the character has in confronting her feelings and acting on them. Her growing awareness and transition over time are consistently believable and entirely compelling.

Where I expected a light contemporary with a romantic twist, I instead got a rather quirky, different read. At the same time I found it unexpectedly profound and relatable. On one hand it's a tiny (barely 200 pages) slice-of-life novel, it deals with some issues that I think are quite familiar to many people, but on the other hand it's subtly emotional and even heartbreaking at some points.

This is a very scattered and somewhat unstructured book, but in this case that's a good thing. We're given direct insight into the protagonist's mind, which is scattered and unstructured in itself, something that perfectly reflects how adrift she feels. This, in turn, naturally affects the narrative. The story, which is very loosely plot-driven but mostly centered around the protagonist, tends to jump around a lot. Sometimes there are big leaps between past and present and the paragraphs are many and short, but it is surprisingly easy to follow. Many of the minor characters also remain nameless and are simply referred to for example as "the best friend", but I didn't find this confusing at all.

My favorite thing about this novel is in fact the narrative, I very much enjoyed and appreciated it. It is dry, sharp, and hilarious, but it doesn't take anything away from the fact that the protagonist is on the biggest personal and soul-searching journey of her life so far. It's serious, intelligent, and profound in a way that doesn't come off as too deep or obnoxious. There are basically no vague, dreamy, and overly philosophical trails of thought to be found here. It's all very much real and tangible and it fits the protagonist's scientific and pragmatic standpoint. At the same time, the dread, the uncertainty, and the anxiety, all the things you cannot solve with a formula, also come across very clearly.

Many different contrasts are also presented and discussed in the novel and they each contribute to character growth. There are contrasts between the protagonist's PhD studies and her new "lesser" job as a tutor, between her academic journey and her boyfriend's career, between her and the best friend's life situation, and not to mention her background and her life as a Chinese-American. Her parents expect only excellence from their daughter and any kind of acknowledgement for her achievements has proven difficult to earn. The way these cultural differences are described present a bit of a cautionary tale for high achievers and those who pressure and demand things of them, but they are also handled in a sensitive, relatable way. Instead of her parents purely taking on an antagonistic role, part of the challenge for the protagonist lies in regaining control and in balancing her parents' influence in her life. The contrasts between the protagonist's academic career and that of her boyfriend is also a very significant one, and this becomes clearer and clearer throughout the novel. Her boyfriend is devoted but he is also one /those/ people. Things seem to come to him with ease, he sails through towards success without any obstacles, and his upbringing has been the direct opposite of hers. Eventually it becomes hard for her to imagine a life with someone who never struggled in the way she has and who doesn't seem to be capable of fully understanding where she's coming from. Her inability to make up her mind might come off as unreasonable and stubborn in the beginning, but we slowly find more and more understanding and sympathy for this.

This book isn't for everyone - it is very different in its structure and writing style, the pacing is somewhat erratic and largely character-focused, the protagonist tends to agonize over the same things over and over, and if you happen to find it hard to relate to then there are limits to how interesting this read is. Overall though, I really enjoyed this little novel. These big, almost existential, life anxieties are handled in a funny, deadpan, but also insightful way by a character who turns out to be more complex and relatable than what she may seem initially. This is a solid debut and definitely a book to consider.

A stream of consciousness book that occasionally pulled me in, but it just couldn't keep me there. Ultimately, I found it more boring than engaging. So, overall disappointing.

<blockquote>
So why did I leave science again? ... Was it because I didn't like it or I wasn't good enough to do it?

<br>

Does it matter?
</blockquote>

<p>Maybe this book won't resonate with people who aren't like me and the narrator: people who've left science.  Or maybe it will.  Everyone has left something behind.  Maybe that feeling of loss is universal?  If not, maybe I'm not the one to review this book because it read like the internal monologue that goes on in my head when I can't sleep, or when I'm walking to the mailbox, or when I'm driving to the library, or whenever there isn't anything to distract me from my own thoughts.  Our narrator leaves science (chemistry) and then has to decide whether to follow her boyfriend, who is still nuzzled into science's temperamental embrace, to a small town where he has gotten a job.  I left science (math) and then had to decide whether to follow my husband, who is still nuzzled into science's (math) temperamental embrace, to a small town where he has gotten a job.</p>

<blockquote>
I am the girl who followed you and I know what happens to those girls.  They are never happy and then they carry that unhappiness everywhere.
</blockquote>

<p>I detached myself from reading this, otherwise I would have gone mad.  I didn't have any beakers to destroy, like the narrator, but I would have if I had some.  This book gave me the plunging feeling in ribs of having made the wrong decision all over again.  I know every feeling, the narrator's every feeling.  Detach all I want, doesn't work when I've been emptied out like this.</p>

<p>Maybe go find an English major.  Maybe their review will give a dispassionate appraisal.  Reading my own truth and mine doesn't.</p>

<p><A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/18770083/book/141833391">Chemistry</a> by Weike Wang went on sale May 23, 2017.</p>

<p><small>I received a copy free from <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/">Netgalley</a> in exchange for an honest review.</small></p>

As a chemistry student, this book really spoke to me!

Book review
Title: Chemistry
Author: Weike Wang
Genre: YA/Science
Rating: ****
Review: The opening to Chemistry was good, it is told in a third person perspective which isn't my favourite to read but I was intrigued by the scientific aspects of this novel. The protagonist is worrying about her life especially her relationship with Eric as he keeps asking her about marriage and children but these things don't fit into her analytical life. She also finds her passion for chemistry waking as times goes on and she reanalyse her life and where she wants to go in the future.
As we approach the 1/4 mark in the novel we see the protagonist have a slight mental breakdown as she knows her relationship, her love of chemistry and her academic life are all going downhill. The protagonist reminisces about her turbulent and difficult children as her family immigrated from China, the breakdown of her parents relationship and how she and Eric have almost nothing in common. When Eric suggests she seeks psychiatric help she immediately dismisses the idea. Although after some thought and encouragement she does being to visit a therapist where she is told she has some anger issues which come out in semi violent bursts like the beaker incident. 
As we cross the 1/4 mark in the novel we see the protagonist`s life speak further and further out of control. She thinks of her relationship with and the relationship with her parents and what they give her. She also thinks of her Chinese heritage and how her mother resents her for becoming American and how her mother resents her father for moving them away from China. She also knows that if Eric has to move for work that she won't follow him but she also won't make him stay because of this their relationship has stagnated and he is trying to help her understand but she doesn't really want to. She also wants to quit her PhD and do something else but she doesn't know what. Because of her lack of focus she also loses her tutoring rule and does nothing except the domestic tasks like walking the dog, thinking always thinking but never acting.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel we see the protagonist going nowhere she refuses to accept she has problems even when she is kicked out of university and has to find another or when Eric leaves her because he wants to make something of himself while she is content to do nothing. As we cross into the second part of the novel she tries to analyse the lives of the people around her like her parents, Eric and her best friend and why they make the decisions they have but no matter how hard she tries she just can't understand them. I did like how many different diverse aspects were added like national identify, social class and gender to name are few. The protagonist tries to understand why other people think there is something wrong with her life when she herself can't see the issues but she also learning to be happy within her own skin rather than try and please everyone. The final pages of this novel were great, the protagonist is progressing and finding herself and is beginning to realise what she wants from life rather than what she has been programmed to want.

Overall, Chemistry was good, I really liked the scientific elements of this book and is often used to mirror the character's personalities. This book is a single person's journey of self-discovery and outside that not a lot happens but I did really enjoy the light and contemporary feel of the novel.

CHEMISTRY is a wonderful debut novel by Weike Wang.  The cover itself conveys the subtlety and simplicity of this author's writing – yes, the story has to do with chemistry, although not just the science itself, but also the chemistry between people and within a person. 

The unnamed narrator is a 20 something woman, the only child of parents who emigrated from China to the United States.  She and her live-in boyfriend, Eric, are pursuing PhD's in Boston.  He is having success with his experiments; she, not so much. He wants to get married; she's not so sure. He had a happy childhood and supportive parents; she is still struggling with expectations. The novel is written in a unique manner – almost a stream of consciousness from the narrator about relationships and conversations with Eric, her family and others (including an unnamed best friend, a therapist, and her thesis adviser). Her sense of identity and self-worth are definitely at risk as she becomes disillusioned with her work, remarking, "The optimist sees the glass half full.  The pessimist sees the glass half empty.  The chemist sees the glass completely full, half in liquid state and half in gaseous, both of which are probably poisonous."

Read CHEMISTRY to get inside the head of a young person trying to deal with questions of what she should do with her life amidst the pressures from others. It is an honest, sometimes funny and often surprising introspection from an obviously troubled, but appealing, soul.

Chemistry was unexpected, powerful and unique. I genuinely hope for a sequel.

Yes, this is another novel about an unmoored millenial but Wang's writing and her protagonist really make it stand out from the pack.  This is a concise well told tale of a young Chinese American scientist who is questioning all she knows.  Haven't we all done that at one time or another?  There's no whining here.  Wang skillfully blends her theme of chemistry as another character.  The "backstory" is spooled out as meticulously as a chemistry experiment; the book is all the better for it.  Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.  I'm looking forward to more from Wang.

An interesting little read. It reminded me a bit of "Lab Girl" by Hope Jahren but funnier. You can read it pretty quickly too. It's probably even more interesting to academic folks but can be enjoyed by anyone.

Approaching both the condition of women scientists and the pressure towards success in immigrant - Asian - families, the book fails, in my opinion, to deliver something new or at least a well told story.