Don’t let that gorgeous hair and sassy look fool you, Elizabeth Zott takes chemistry and cooking seriously. In fact, she takes everything seriously. She rarely smiles, and she has good reason to. Being a female scientist in the early 60s is just hell. No respect, constant comments from men and women, no one likes her because she won’t shut up and be pretty, and is smarter than them and that eats them up with jealousy, and has her work stolen and undermined all the time because even though she leads all the science teams, no one would actually believe she is that competent.

So after a series of events leads her to getting fired from her job, single mom Elizabeth decides to take a tv show offer. But her show isn’t like a 50s Martha Stewart. No, she brings all the big chemistry words to her show and thus make women feel competent (and offer a recipe to poison their husbands and low-paying bosses).

Yeah, she gets a hit list for that but she is also such a hit for the same reasons.

Still, this isn’t a girl-empowerment book. Okay, it is but it’s not a typical one. Garmus has Elizabeth’s moments of happiness dampened by personal tragedies. Yet Elizabeth continues to abide by her personal code and her distinct voice because she has her own capabilities and intelligence to fall back on.

Garmus’ book is wonderful in how it has a dry sort of humor intermingled with commentary about misogyny from men (which are the most obvious and aggressive) and women like Miss Frask who is jealous of Elizabeth for achieving her dreams, and has all the men drooling after her, acting like “she is above everyone else.”

It also has great moments about family, love, and finding your people to create the most unlikely support system of blended family and friendships. Plus it has a unique style in its third-person narration by delving into the minds of Elizabeth’s daughter, her dog, Six Thirty and other people in their lives, switching from past to present so readers get a full picture of what makes these characters tick.

My friend read this book before but she was happy to say the book is still enjoyable upon re-read. She also had a great insight to why Elizabeth wears a pencil. Yes, it’s for erasing mistakes as failure is inevitable in science but because it’s for protection like when she used it to stab her mentor for raping her (this is not a spoiler. This is the second page of book).

We both enjoyed the part where the tv station, CEO, Peter What-his-name kneels over from a heart attack when Elizabeth brings out her 14 inch kitchen knife to his dick. Which is his own fault for dropping his pants to also try to rape her. Every chef carries their knives, one should know this.

I found Walter, the show director who hires Elizabeth, to be quiet enjoyable too. He reminds me of a human version of Piglet from Winnie the Pooh. Constantly anxious and insecure. Not that Elizabeth makes it easy for him, mind you.

While I thought Elizabeth and Miss Frask suddenly becoming friends (well not friends but respecting each other) came on too suddenly, my friend thought it was well-paced.

Six Thirty the dog is absolutely adorable.

Just a very fast-paced and enjoyable book. I’m eager to see how the show compares.

Up next-1st to Die.