Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published May 2017
224 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
A luminous coming-of-age novel about a young female scientist who must recalibrate her life when her academic career goes off track; perfect for readers of Lab Girl and Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You.
Three years into her graduate studies at a demanding Boston university, the unnamed narrator of this nimbly wry, concise debut finds her one-time love for chemistry is more hypothesis than reality. She's tormented by her failed research - and reminded of her delays by her peers, her advisor, and most of all by her Chinese parents, who have always expected nothing short of excellence from her throughout her life. But there's another, nonscientific question looming: the marriage proposal from her devoted boyfriend, a fellow scientist, whose path through academia has been relatively free of obstacles, and with whom she can't make a life before finding success on her own.
Eventually, the pressure mounts so high that she must leave everything she thought she knew about her future, and herself, behind. And for the first time, she's confronted with a question she won't find the answer to in a textbook: What do I really want? Over the next two years, this winningly flawed, disarmingly insightful heroine learns the formulas and equations for a different kind of chemistry - one in which the reactions can't be quantified, measured, and analyzed; one that can be studied only in the mysterious language of the heart.
Taking us deep inside her scattered, searching mind, here is a brilliant new literary voice that astutely juxtaposes the elegance of science, the anxieties of finding a place in the world, and the sacrifices made for love and family.
"A clipped, funny, painfully honest narrative voice lights up Wang's debut about a Chinese-American graduate student who finds the scientific method inadequate for understanding her parents, her boyfriend, or herself ... Wang [has a] gift for perspective." - Publishers Weekly
"The narrator's voice - distinctive and appealing - makes this novel at once moving and amusing, never predictable. A wry, unique, touching tale of the limits of parental and partnership pressure." - Kirkus
"Despite a captivating opening and poignant ending, the muddled middle devolves into tedious clichés, from the near-perfect child fearful of disappointing her tiger parents to the culturally blinded, privileged white man to the over-achieving new mother with the philandering husband." - Library Journal
"A graduate student struggling with her research begins to question whether she really love science - or her boyfriend." - Entertainment Weekly, "New Year, New Voices"
"With her academic career unraveling and an unanswered proposal from her boyfriend looming, Wang's narrator - a young, female scientist - throws comfort and predictability to the wind, finally daring to ask herself what she really wants out of life." - Bustle "15 New Authors You're Going to Be Obsessed With This Year"
"A longstanding complaint I've had with so-called literary fiction is that it too rarely invents mathematicians, or scientists, perhaps because most writers know little about either field ... Chemistry looks like a worthy addition to the line-up." - Electric Lit "34 Books by Women of Color to Read This Year"
"In this debut novel, a graduate student in chemistry learns the meaning of explosive when the rigors of the hard sciences clash with the chronic instability of the heart. A traditional family, a can't-miss fiancé, and a research project in meltdown provide sufficient catalyst to launch the protagonist off in search of that which cannot be cooked up in the lab." - The Millions, "Most Anticipated of 2017"
"Chemistry starts as a charming confection and then proceeds to add on layers of emotional depth and complexity with every page. It is to Wang's great credit that she manages to infuse such seriousness with so much light. I loved this novel." - Ann Patchett
"A genuine piece of literature: wise, humorous, and moving." - Ha Jin
"With its limpid style, comic verve, and sensitive examination of love, need, and aspiration, this exquisitely soul-searching novel is sure to be one of the most outstanding debuts of the year." - Sigrid Nunez
"Weike Wang's voice is indelible - hypnotic, mesmerizing, and strange in the best possible way. In Chemistry she creates a fully realized portrait of a brilliant mind in crisis, illuminating a corner of the human experience that's woefully underexplored. By the last page I was devastated, transported, and craving more." - Emily Gould, author of Friendship
"The force of the novel is the narrator's perfectly-executed voice, unflinching and painfully self-aware as she deconstructs her life - disastrously, bravely - to see if there is anything at the bottom she can hold on to." - Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter
"Chemistry (appropriately enough) explodes the stereotype of the model minority. Wang's voice is a revelation - by turns deadpan and despairing, wry and wrenching, but always and precisely true." - Peter Ho Davies, author of The Welsh Girl and The Fortunes
This information about Chemistry was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Weike Wang is a graduate of Harvard University, where she earned her undergraduate degree in chemistry and her doctorate in public health. She received her MFA from Boston University. Her fiction has been published in or is forthcoming from Alaska Quarterly Review, Glimmer Train, The Journal, Ploughshares, Redivider, and SmokeLong Quarterly.
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