In Her Good Books
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus ft. Caroline!
As we huddle in our makeshift blanket fort, Caroline fills in for Shanna. It's been a long time since we've done a deep dive episode and we are glad that we chose Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus to bring them back with!
Find Caro on Instagram @booknerder.
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As we huddle in our makeshift blanket fort, Caroline fills in for Shanna. It's been a long time since we've done a deep dive episode and we are glad that we chose Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus to bring them back with!
Find Caro on Instagram @booknerder.
Libro.fm.
Use our code GOODBOOKS at checkout and get two books for the price of your first months membership!
Find us at:
www.goodbookspodcast.com
Facebook - In Her Good Books Podcast
Instagram - @inhergoodbookspodcast
TikTok - @inhergoodbookspodcast
We are affiliated with Libro.fm, but all reviews are our true and honest opinions!
Hello everyone and welcome to In Her Good Books. I'm Jen and I'm Carolyn. You're not Shanna, I'm not Shanna. Once again, we have Carolyn in the studio, which is actually a blanket fort, but blanket forts are the most fun. Yeah, it's very. Oh, I was going to let us a candle. No romance for us, no.
Speaker 2:Just blanket fort with no light.
Speaker 1:No, that's okay. Shanna was supposed to be here but she didn't read the book. Are you guys surprised? I read the book and I loved it. Yes, sorry, shanna, we love you. We love you, but but everyone knows you didn't read the book. Which book are we talking about? We haven't even told anybody Lessons in Chemistry. We have a book by Bonnie Garmas. We haven't done a full book episode in a long time.
Speaker 2:No, I think it's been a while and I've never participated in a full book episode.
Speaker 1:Yes this is your first time so. I'm going to have to remember so much of this book. Luckily I've written it all down.
Speaker 2:And all I have to do is read my own notes.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you're here for the jokes. You brought jokes right. So full of jokes, it's my specialty. So, yes, lessons in Chemistry. I really wanted to do this book because we read it for Book Club and it's huge.
Speaker 2:It's all over the place and it's worth the hype. In my opinion, it's fantastic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was really really good and yeah, I've seen it everywhere. It's been on my list for a long time to read, but I just kept not, and I don't really know why.
Speaker 2:It's just. Is it orange? Is it because the cover's orange?
Speaker 1:I think the cover is a little bit misleading. Yeah, the cover is very cutesy.
Speaker 2:And the book is not cutesy, in my mind anyways.
Speaker 1:No, I thought it was a romance. There's romance. There is romance, but I thought it was a romance genre.
Speaker 2:Oh, looking at the cover, I thought it was young adult fiction.
Speaker 1:No, thanks, right, exactly.
Speaker 2:But it's not young adult fiction. No, it is not. It is strong, independent woman. Tackles big topics, yep, but in a way that's hilarious with food.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and any time you're reading books about women, you're gonna encounter some problems. Yes, so this book was published in April 2022 and it became just a sensation immediately. In fact, it was actually one of those magic books that didn't just get published, it was auctioned. Then the TV rights were also auctioned and it was immediately made into a television series on Apple TV, starring Brie Larson, who I don't really know who that is.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure either. I do kind of want to get Apple TV now. I don't have it, but I do want to watch this series.
Speaker 1:I want to watch the show yeah.
Speaker 2:One of my friends has it and I was like I may just hang out in your basement one Saturday for hours. You can pretend I'm not there, but I will borrow your Apple TV.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, I do want to watch it too. When I looked up Brie Larson, it was a lot of like Marvel stuff, so I think Shanna probably knows who she is. Oh yeah, shanna would know for sure Like the.
Speaker 2:Avengers Hmm, which means I've probably seen her before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she definitely is familiar, but not an actress that I'm super familiar with. But the show came out in October 2023, so it was like a year and a half late, like they immediately started making that show.
Speaker 2:I bet you Brie Larson is super famous and we're gonna sound so sad, I know, so silly for not knowing who she is.
Speaker 1:I don't know anyone. I don't watch I only know John Cusack, Sandra Bullock.
Speaker 2:I know the Rock First name basis.
Speaker 1:Of course. So this was Bonnie Garmas' first published novel and at the end of the audiobook there was an interview with her and she talks about how she could not believe what was happening when her book was being auctioned. She kept waking up in the middle of the night and rushing to her computer to check to make sure that, like the emails were there and it was really happening, and her husband had to be like, go back to bed. Go to bed, this is real, and I'm trying to sleep too. Yes, and oh my gosh, could you imagine that?
Speaker 2:is the dream. It's the dream, it's my real dream. You know, I would abandon Strata. Yeah For being a published novelist. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And she is Now she is. That's her full-time job.
Speaker 2:Now is writing Me and Carolyn are both writers, so it's true, I do a lot of writing that doesn't go outside of writing club, but I did submit something to the CBC nonfiction prize. So $6,000 in writing. Residency I'm coming for you. Yeah, you're going to win. This is it. If I have long list, I would be the happiest person ever.
Speaker 1:Yes, but.
Speaker 2:Canada has way too many amazing writers.
Speaker 1:We really do, but you are also one of them. Oh, thank you. So are you, and you submitted, I did. So that's a big deal, just writing something that you feel good enough to submit to a contest.
Speaker 2:It is terrifying. Yes.
Speaker 1:I didn't submit anything because I can only write long books, not even long books. I can write regular length books, not short stories.
Speaker 2:Short stories are up, my alley Long books are not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're opposite.
Speaker 2:She did this before she turned 65?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's hope for us there is. Yeah, I was going to say this book was published just a few days before she turned 65. So we just keep doing what we love. We still have time.
Speaker 2:I have 25.5 months to get there. Yeah, years, years, damn, I'm almost turning 40. It's terrifying.
Speaker 1:Yes, I know a few years, but we have lost time to become successful authors.
Speaker 2:So much time to have our novels auctioned off? Yeah, better start writing now.
Speaker 1:Yes, which we do at Writing Group. Yeah, so just a little tiny bit of information about Bonnie Garmes. She was born on April 18, 1957 in California, but she's mostly from Seattle, washington, and she's also lived in Switzerland and Columbia, but now she lives in London with her family. I love Seattle, me too. I love Washington. I love the whole Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, me too. I've always wanted to go to Columbia. I have a friend who owns a hotel there. Nice, switzerland, I have been to, and London I have not, unless London Ontario counts, which really I don't know if that's the London she's talking about, I think, probably London, england is what I'm talking about London, full of castles and I love London.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you like to read the synopsis for this book, because we know how much you love reading the synopsis for books.
Speaker 2:Synopsis, my specialty, take it away, chemist. Elizabeth Sought is not your average woman. In fact, elizabeth Sought would be the first to point out that there's no such thing as an average woman. But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality, except for one, calvin Evans, the lonely, brilliant, noble, prize-nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with, of all things, her mind. True chemistry results. But like science, life is unpredictable, which is why, a few years later, elizabeth Sought finds herself not only a single mother but the reluctant star of America's most beloved cooking show, supper at Six. Elizabeth's unusual approach to cooking combined one tablespoon of acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy because, as it turns out, elizabeth Sought isn't just teaching women to cook, she's daring them to change the status quo.
Speaker 1:I wanted to point out that this book is pretty full of hard scenes. So big content warnings for sexual assault, suicide, sudden death and like a whole bunch of other stuff. But those were the big ones that stood out to me.
Speaker 2:There were some pretty shocking scenes in the book.
Speaker 1:Yes, especially if you're going in expecting a romance. Yes, young adult fiction romance. Yes, the first scene is basically a horrific rape. Yeah, that's pretty funny. So, yeah, watch out for that if those are things that you are sensitive to. So before we get into spoilers, what did you think of it, Carolyn?
Speaker 2:Well, I picked up this book because my favorite cousin recommended it to me as her favorite read of 2023. My cousin was a competitive rower when she was younger. She got a full ride scholarship to a college in the States for rowing and now she's a professor there. She also loves to bake and cook, so I went in with high hopes and Bonnie nailed it. It immediately became my favorite read so far of 2024, which I mean it's only February, but still Five stars for me. I tend to read more for character development and thought process, so I didn't notice the convenient plot holes that some pointed out until they got mentioned at Book Club, but I don't think anything will be able to ruin this book for me. I'm in love.
Speaker 1:Before we get into what I thought you want to tell the story about your five star review. No, no, I don't really want to tell the story. Yes, you have to Okay. It's the best story that's ever happened to me.
Speaker 2:It was a little bit embarrassing. I went on to Goodreads to review what I thought was lessons in chemistry and I must have been doing it late at night because I stayed up late to finish the book and I must have started typing lessons in and accidentally hit this really exciting looking book called Lessons in Sin, and I wish I would have written down what my review is. I will find it.
Speaker 1:Just you wait, Just wait and look in. I read a lot. It's going to be hard to find. Well, I took a screenshot. Oh, thanks, there, it is Okay. So this is what happened to me. I'm just sitting at home and I get an email that's like updates on Caro's reading, Goodreads, whatever, and usually I don't really like to look at my friends' stuff because we all talk about it at Book Club, but every once in a while I'm like sure. So I click on it and it says Caro rated Lessons in Sin five stars and this is the review. You know it's going to be a good year when my second read of the year is already five stars. My heart swelled and broke and ached and hoped inside. This is a work of art. Underneath that is a picture of a man, a shirtless man, hands held in prayer in front of a stained glass window. Lessons in Sin by Pam Godwin.
Speaker 2:It was so hard to undo that I read it, that I've rated it, that I wrote a haul review for the wrong book.
Speaker 1:Oh my God. I said it to her and said I know you've been reading some weird stuff this year, but I don't think this was on purpose.
Speaker 2:It has since been corrected and will go down as huh. That's a good mistake from me, since I typically don't make those kind of errors in my life.
Speaker 1:No, I was very surprised, but it was the most favorite thing that's happened to me so far this year. Five stars from me.
Speaker 2:Lessons in Sin. I might read it, by the way. If it's like $2.99 on Kindle. It might just be worth it, and maybe I'll love it too, maybe.
Speaker 1:Maybe this you can just copy and paste. Yeah, my heart swelled and soared. Work of art. Oh, it just makes me so happy to think that everybody that's on your friend's list on Goodreads got this evening. Thanks.
Speaker 2:Thanks for that Imagine you wouldn't have told me. It would have just been there for a month until Book Club. When I go through it to be like this is what I read. I would have been like I did not read that I wish.
Speaker 1:I haven't, I haven't, I haven't. So yeah, my plan is to post a picture of this review on our Instagram.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, because you screen-shotted it and I deleted it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But nothing's permanently deleted on the internet ever.
Speaker 1:No, especially when I screen-shot everything I see.
Speaker 2:Thanks for that, jen. What did you think of the real book that we read? Lessons in Chemistry.
Speaker 1:Okay, yes, this is about lessons in chemistry. I thought that this book was written for the screen. I like to describe books like this as cinematic, and I don't know if that is the proper term for what I'm describing, but I have not seen the TV show Me neither, but I could see it so clearly in my mind. Yeah, I can picture the kitchen set totally, I could see everything, and it's interesting because I recently realized that I can't visualize things.
Speaker 2:I thought I didn't when the question came up, but the more I try pay attention when I'm reading, I'm like, no, I pictured this book. I have ideas of how people looked, how 630 looked, how the kitchen set looked, and I'm glad I pictured things.
Speaker 1:Most of the time I just have a vague idea of what things are like. Or I can insert different actors or actresses in a role in a book. I can't make up a person. If they're describing something I can't, my mind doesn't fill in the blanks Like I don't see it. So I was really surprised, as I was reading this book, that I could see it all.
Speaker 2:That's just.
Speaker 1:Bonnie so good. Yeah, the way that she was describing everything, I could see it. I thought that was amazing and I really like that time period. I really liked the 50s and 60s, so I think, naturally, me being able to picture that made sense, made sense. Yeah, I thought that was really good and so I think the show would be amazing. But, yeah, the book was written very vividly and I think that that takes a lot of talent. I also thought that the story was really unique and so, unlike any book that I've ever read, yeah, I can't picture an other book that is like this one.
Speaker 2:No, I can't think of anything.
Speaker 1:I love strong female characters. I thought it was really funny. It was clever. Yeah, it was a bit dark, but I mean, I like dark.
Speaker 2:And the topics are not happy butterfly topics that she tackles. So it has to be dark.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, I thought it was great. I think I would give it 4.75 stars. What would push that 0.25 to 5? Just because I didn't love it? It's not on my list of now favorite books, but I think she did a really great job of writing it. I think it was such a well done book. It deserves a high rating. So if it was one of my favorite books, 5 stars. It's just not quite there. Fair, but so close Totally. If I was more generous If you were me, if I was you, definitely 5 stars. I think it deserves 5 stars, but I think, just based on my own experience with it, 4.75. And that's high for me, I think.
Speaker 2:That is high for you. I only give 5 stars to books I think about long after I finish reading them, and if they are books, I will reread. That's why it got 5 for me.
Speaker 1:And I don't think I would reread it, but I would recommend it to people for sure. And I did have like a few complaints. My main one was that a lot of the plot was a little bit too convenient for me and we'll get a little bit more into that when we get into spoiler territory. But let's just say that the pieces fell into place a little too neatly and evenly.
Speaker 2:I can say that's not wrong.
Speaker 1:That plot is never really what I focus on, yeah, which for me I'm more there for the plot. So, yeah, for me it was just like there was a few times where I was a little bit eye-rolly, but sometimes I love a good eye-roll. Yeah, I mean it didn't make me not like the book, no, it worked in the story and I mean sometimes life is like that.
Speaker 2:Sometimes things weirdly actually fall into place in a strange way.
Speaker 1:Sometimes Shanna pulls the death card every single time she does tarot.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, no matter what, seven of cups shows up, yep.
Speaker 1:Like it's just. Sometimes life is just like that, so I mean it's not totally unbelievable, but it was something that I noticed quite a few times in this book. Okay, we are gonna get into spoilers, so if you have not read this book, stop listening.
Speaker 2:Spoilers, spoilers don't bother you, keep listening.
Speaker 1:Then keep listening, but just so you know we will be getting into everything. Okay. So the book starts in November 1961. We have a scientist named Elisabeth Zott who notices that her daughter is losing weight and she finds out that it is because another girl at school has been eating her lunches. So Elisabeth storms into the television studio that this girl's father works at and demands that he do something about it. Instead, he offers her a lot of money to host a cooking show called Separate Six. I really loved how the book started. It kind of got me right away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, about 28 pages in. I had given it five stars already.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's right, which I thought was pretty impressive. So this guy, I think his name is Walter- We'll find out later. We'll find out later when I actually put his name into the document, because, if anybody remembers, I have a hard time remembering secondary characters when I first started a book. I think they're not going to matter, but this guy he was basically completely captivated and stunned by Elisabeth. The lunches that she made for her daughter were amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she can cook me dinner any night and I'll take her leftovers to work.
Speaker 1:Yes, they were homemade, nutritionally balanced, delicious. She used science to make sure that this kid was getting every nutrient that they needed and the appropriate amount that they needed for the amount of calories they needed in the day. I need Elisabeth in my life. Yes, yes, I do.
Speaker 2:We then skip back a decade, to January of 1952. Elisabeth is working as a chemist at a research institute. We learn that she had once been going for her doctorate, but her acceptance was rescinded after one member of the faculty sexually assaulted her and she refused to apologize for defending herself against him.
Speaker 1:This scene was actually quite upsetting and I was really happy when she stabbed him in the side with a pencil.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he deserved that and so much more.
Speaker 1:So much more, she stabbed him with a pencil so deep that it perforated his intestines. Good, good, oh my god. I was not expecting this. No, me neither At all. And then, of course, she lost her spot in the program, which was infuriating, and the police were like would you like to apologize for assaulting this man?
Speaker 2:Yeah, what were you wearing when you got raped is essentially still going on today.
Speaker 1:Yes, I was just. Oh my gosh, and she doesn't. She does not apologize, nope, and so she loses her spot. Oh my god, this whole book was just about women being subjected to inequality and sexual harassment in the workplace Again, not what I was expecting, but also so prevalent and still a problem. This was set in the 60s. Shouldn't things be starting to get better?
Speaker 2:You would hope so. Yeah, because I actually had to put the book down for a few minutes after that scene. It was vicious and aggressive and it made me so angry because it still happens today. Women still get raped and are still blamed for it. Some men still wield power and coercion in society and the workplace and they think they're entitled to just take whatever they want Not all men, obviously, and there are some pretty terrible women out there too, by the way but still the scene left me furious, Furious. I actually couldn't sleep that night because I just laid there thinking about all the times they stuff.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say this shit, but I don't know, I mean this garbage has happened to me in my life and is still happening all the time, everywhere.
Speaker 1:Yes, so at this research facility she meets a famous chemist named Calvin Evans when she crafts this whole scheme to steal his beakers. He's not too grabby about it, but she needed the beakers. No one would give her any, so she found a way to access the excess of beakers that Calvin had. As a result, she got taken off of her research project and put onto a lower level one. I mean, they thought it was pretty smart yeah.
Speaker 2:I thought it was excellent. I too would take something if someone else had way more than they needed, and I needed one or two for my important experiment. Yes, she's there to do research. She is actually employed there. It's not like she's sneaking in no.
Speaker 1:But of course she gets in trouble for it. And then the next time she meets Calvin, it's at a theater. Calvin's there on a date when he suddenly falls ill. He abandons his date who was a real bitch, by the way and runs to the bathroom to pee and puke. Instead he bumps into Elizabeth and pukes all over her. I laughed. I know he is mortified, but she takes it actually quite well.
Speaker 2:I would have puked too.
Speaker 1:If someone barfs on me, I'm gonna barf. Oh my gosh, it just reminds me of. Carolyn was at my house for a party and my youngest had a runny nose and I was looking around for a tissue for her and I couldn't find one. I was like, oh, that's so far away. I was like I'll just use this sock. I wiped Vada's nose with her. It's her own sock, it's not just my dirty sock, but I wipe her nose with the sock and then Vada's playing with it and then she throws it and we're like where's that sock? And someone's like it's on Carolyn's leg.
Speaker 2:And it was the worst part of that evening, the rest of the evening phenomenal Me sitting there with a snot sock against my leg. It was too much.
Speaker 1:Oh my god. I just look at Carolyn. She's frozen with fear. She's like get it off, get it off yeah.
Speaker 2:So bodily fluids that aren't mine don't belong on me.
Speaker 1:No, no, and that's fair.
Speaker 2:But she took it really well. Yeah, she did. She didn't even have kids back then, no she didn't.
Speaker 1:So she was just like it's fine, you're obviously ill, let me help you, and I'm just like man. You are amazing, did you?
Speaker 2:have a crush on him already? I don't think so. There was no tension the first time she met him, stealing his beakers.
Speaker 1:Actually, I think maybe there was a little bit of chemistry, because they had lots of it. Oh, they were the best, yes. So after he pukes on her, she takes care of him a little bit. They become friends and eventually she complies in him about her career and how she keeps getting pushed out of her research or her programs. No one's ever taking her seriously. But Calvin cannot possibly understand why this is happening to her and she tries to explain that it is sexism and he still does not get it. Because in his mind, they need all the scientists that they can get working on science. They need women. He doesn't understand cutting out half the population of scientists just because they're women.
Speaker 2:Exactly, but because he's a man, he does also not understand what sexism feels like yes, exactly so.
Speaker 1:He tries to get it, he does, but he doesn't he can't, he can't, it's impossible.
Speaker 2:No, until it happens to you, you don't really understand it. Which I mean good for him, that he doesn't have to experience it. Yes, that is preferable.
Speaker 1:He offers to help her get back on the project she was working on and she reluctantly agrees to let him, but makes it clear that she in no way wants any kind of relationship with him and he agrees.
Speaker 2:He also doesn't want a relationship with her? Absolutely not. Why would you want to be with the most perfect woman?
Speaker 1:ever. No, right. But I mean they end up spending all this time together and then falling for each other.
Speaker 2:And I was so happy, I know.
Speaker 1:And then they both think that they're flirting with each other, but they're doing such a terrible job and they think that both of them are rejecting each other.
Speaker 2:Because they're so bad at flirting.
Speaker 1:Because they're talking about really weird stuff Like science and vomit Exactly, and it's kind of funny and hilarious it was such a cute.
Speaker 2:I guess, if there's someone who wants to say this book is cutesy, this part of them falling in love is so well done. It was yeah.
Speaker 1:It's so good to be in both of their point of view. For Elizabeth is like I talked about this and I cannot believe that he didn't pick up on the fact that I was flirting with him. And then he's like I said this to her and she didn't, and I was just like you guys, just say the words.
Speaker 2:It is University Caroline, all over again.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, eventually they get it together and they end up having one of those relationships that just makes everyone around them sick, because they're so in love and they're so perfect.
Speaker 1:I was so happy. So, after they date for quite a while, they finally talk about their families. They really avoided this conversation for a long time, and I don't blame them no, because I would also leave it out until someone forced me to talk about it in therapy next week. So much therapy, it's fine, everything's fine. We find out that Elizabeth's father was an evangelist who conned people and is currently imprisoned because of it, because one of his cons ended up killing someone and her mother fled to Brazil to avoid being imprisoned herself. And Elizabeth also had a brother who committed suicide after their parents found out that he was gay and then they continuously told him how much God and everyone else hates him because he is an abomination.
Speaker 2:But really her parents aren't an abomination?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, they are, and she was really close with her brother.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really not how good Christian parents should love their children.
Speaker 1:And then Calvin's parents were killed in a train accident and then, when he went to live with his aunt, she also died in a car accident Not long after, like within a year or something. So then he was raised in a boys home where he was told that he was actually adopted by his parents and his birth father was alive still and rich, and that he just made donations to the boys home that he lived in now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't blame him that he doesn't tell Elizabeth this part, because he just pretends his family is dead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's just kind of like one of those things that he's carrying around with him the idea that his family did abandon him and doesn't want him Even as an adult.
Speaker 2:He's really quite angry about it, but fair enough yes, and I guess a bit ashamed, because that's why he's not really telling Elizabeth who he loves. Yeah, he just doesn't want to talk about it.
Speaker 1:Yep, and we find out later that this isn't really true. But we'll get into that when we get there. But when Calvin becomes famous for his work, he starts to get a lot of letters from people claiming to be long lost relatives who need money, which Calvin was famous, but he wasn't rich, yeah and I guess he would have more been famous in the science world. Yeah, he wasn't like a celebrity. He didn't get paid actor money.
Speaker 2:His book wasn't auctioned off.
Speaker 1:No, it wasn't. But there was one woman who kept writing to him claiming to be his mother and instead of asking for money, she actually offered money to help fund his research. So I mean, we'll find out more about that later, but in the meantime, calvin and Elizabeth move in together. She tells him that she does not want to get married. She does not want her work to be overshadowed by his. She doesn't want anyone to have any reason to believe that the work isn't hers, and she knows that if she marries him, even if she keeps her name, she'll become Mrs Calvin Evans and everything she does from that point forward will either belong to him or be because of him. She really stands up for this. She does not want to be married. He does not get it at all. No, because, again, he's a man. This is just how you do things and he's a wonderful man, he's great.
Speaker 1:He just doesn't get it no, because to him he wants a family yeah he wants to marry her.
Speaker 2:He loves her.
Speaker 1:He's never had a family of his own, not for it since he was a little kid. And he wants that. Eventually. He proposes to her anyways and she says no, yeah, in front of all the people at work. He does it. And she's like no, we've talked about this. And he's like what, what do you mean? And I'm trying to remember at Book Club, because this kind of came up with a question and I was like come on, and she said she didn't want to get married and you just do it anyways, like what the hell? And everyone else was like, oh well.
Speaker 2:I was like but yes, she doesn't want to get married and that's important to her, but he does want to get married and that's important to him. So at what point? Who's Trump's? Who's yes? So he shot his shot and she said no, and they don't break up over it. No, so he's respectful, but I'm pretty sure he's a little bit sad.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah and yeah. When you said that, I was like, okay, yes, he does deserve the right to try and to ask and to want that.
Speaker 2:And he didn't badger her and repropose 17 times after she said no.
Speaker 1:No, he just tried once, and really someone else pointed out that they could have gotten married and no one else had to have known about it.
Speaker 2:But then what's the point of getting married?
Speaker 1:But they could have gotten married. She could have kept her name, he never like he wasn't going to steal her thunder.
Speaker 2:He knew that she was really smart at what she did and he would have let her take all the glory. Yeah, but probably where they worked would have not promoted that. Yeah, their work is the worst.
Speaker 1:The worst. Um, he gets over the fact that she says no, though, and everyone at work, while it's happening, they're like, oh look, he's proposing and she said, no, they are done for. This is hilarious. And they're all like just ready for the gossip. And then they make up and are kissing and making out and they're like, oh yeah, I'm on. Like really, I was like, yay, I'm glad they survived that.
Speaker 1:Then he talks about wanting to have a family and she's like whoa, whoa, whoa, because she thinks he's bringing up having children, which he has also said no, but what he actually was suggesting was that they get a dog together.
Speaker 2:Yes, larry keeps wanting to get a dog Really, and I'm like no, we have two cats, they're perfect. They won't like a dog. I'm like, larry, you don't want to walk a dog 13 times a day. We can't go away for a three day weekend if we have a dog. Cats, cats are weird sounds.
Speaker 1:Yes, so we were talking about getting a cat, because Rachel from the Barely Bookish podcast if you guys remember me talking about this has a Sphinx and it's the best I love. Sphinx cats it's the cutest cat in the world and I was like, oh, I really want one. But Callie is super allergic to animals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you will not be getting cats, dogs, lizards fish.
Speaker 1:We cannot even go to someone's house that has even if they've just cleaned, they've just swept, they're in a different room without her having allergy medication. So we're like, maybe because this cat has no hair, we can get one. No, we look it up and it's like, actually without the hair they're even more allergenic because there's nothing to catch. Their skin flakes as they fall off. That sounds gross. I know I still want a Sphinx. I know we do, but anyways.
Speaker 1:But, they get a dog. They get a dog. A few weeks later, a homeless dog follows Elizabeth home and they name him 630 because that is the time that he joined their family. It was so cute, it was perfect. There's this one part where Elizabeth says to him because eventually, 630, he's super smart, knows all the stuff helping her in the lab and stuff and she says 630, let me help you with your goggles. And it just made me giggle. It made me so happy and I really pictured this dog as being like one of those dogs with like the wiry long hair that's just sticking out all over the place.
Speaker 2:An Einstein dog, yeah.
Speaker 1:But then everyone was like, oh, it's probably because we find out later that 630 used to be like a bomb sniffer dog with the police, so obviously it has to be some kind of like German shepherd yeah, like a police dog, not some like mangy wiry mud dog Pine's 57 dog. Yeah, but it's okay. I still picture this little wiry dog with the goggles on. I love it. And also a German shepherd with the goggles on is also pretty cool and I definitely pictured 630 as a golden lab.
Speaker 2:I think labs are police dogs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can see, for sure, shepherds are. Yeah, for sure. I wonder what 630 is in the show we're going to have to watch the show. Yeah, we're going to have to yeah, lizeth teaches 630 words. She believes that dogs should be able to learn all these words, or like be able to communicate more effectively, and I think the dog ends up learning like 900 words.
Speaker 2:So many words, so many words, but then the dog.
Speaker 1:You kind of get the 630's point of view as well. Thanks, usually I don't really like animal point of views, but I've liked it quite a few times in the last year, so If it's done right and this one is done right.
Speaker 2:It's just so interesting to see what the animal observes so differently from what an other human character would observe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I thought it was really well done. And Bonnie Garmus based the character of 630 on her old dog who was called Friday. Her current dog's name is 99.
Speaker 2:She's very good at dog names.
Speaker 1:Yes, like it's simple but so good.
Speaker 2:I think 630 is the most clever character in the book and he's probably my favorite.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really really liked it.
Speaker 2:At the research facility they work at. One of the bosses, donati, is a real jerk and he hates both Calvin and Elizabeth and is really threatened by them. He won't let Elizabeth work on her project until an important donor says that he wants to fund the project, which is called Biogenesis, by the way. But he will only fund it if the brilliant male scientist, mr Sot, is a part of the project. Donati does not correct him and tells Elizabeth that she is back on the project.
Speaker 1:Yeah, another one of the main themes in this book is conning people. It happens quite a lot. Yep, a lot of lying, so much lying. So Calvin is a famous chemist and also a renowned rower. He got a rowing scholarship too I think it was Cambridge, but maybe I'm making that up Like a big school. He is really popular in the rowing community and convinces Elizabeth to learn how to row, even though at that time it was very much not the norm for a woman to row.
Speaker 1:It was really the norm for women to do anything Be chemist, not be married, yeah, exactly. Yes, being a rower is terrible. It's really hard work. Everyone stares at her while she's doing it, because what is a woman doing here? Yeah, but of course she's good at it. She's good at it. She's good at everything, yep, and she loves it. And she does struggle at first, but she uses science to figure out how to be good at it and then people start to respect her for it, especially this one guy, dr Mason, who is the captain of the men's team.
Speaker 2:The men's team, the only team, yeah, the captain of the rowing team Of the team.
Speaker 1:And when Calvin asks him to let them both join, he agrees because he can see that she's good at it. There was quite a lot of rowing in this book, and it's because Bonnie Garmus is a rower, so that makes sense. At times I thought it was maybe a little bit too much as a non-rower, but I did learn quite a lot about it, yep.
Speaker 2:So rowing is a sport that requires far too much strength and energy for me. It's outside where it's cold and it's wet, and they start at like 5 am. No thanks, my cousin is a rock star for being such a competitive rower. I'm an inside cat.
Speaker 1:I like the idea of outside and I like outside once I get outside and I do like 5 am, but I would stay inside forever and ever, and ever.
Speaker 2:I would not row.
Speaker 1:No thanks, I also don't like being wet. I don't like water, so it was a lot of rowing.
Speaker 2:But for me it wasn't too much rowing. Could the book have done without any rowing?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So they could have cut the entire rowing out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it didn't have anything to do with the story.
Speaker 2:I think it was interesting to see her in another setting where she succeeded again, even though people didn't think she could because she was a woman.
Speaker 1:Yep, so I think I don't think it didn't have a place and it makes sense that she would want Like Bonnie Garmus would want to put something that she is passionate about in this book as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course, so it worked she made it work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that might be kind of just a little bit where my.25 star rating fell away.
Speaker 2:It rowed away down the river, exactly.
Speaker 1:So Elizabeth and Calvin have this really nice life together. They're so happy, they're happy.
Speaker 2:They're just this really good, happy, supportive, respectful in love couple.
Speaker 1:Later on in the book another character that we'll meet soon she describes their relationship as like supernatural, like she would see them through their window interacting with each other, and she just could not even believe that they were real. Yeah, and it was really nice to read, but then Bonnie Garmus decides to just rip it out from underneath us. Yep, so Biolog gets passed in their town, stating that all dogs need to be on a leash, which is totally a normal expectation that we have now.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Imagine if no dogs were on a leash. It'd be terrible. I wouldn't go outside, yeah.
Speaker 2:I never go outside.
Speaker 1:No, this is true. So Elizabeth wants to follow the rules. She wants 630 to be safe, but Calvin thinks it's ridiculous and the dog has never been on a leash before, so how can you expect him to just be on a leash now? In the end, elizabeth convinces him to use a leash while on a run with 630, which, by the way, even at this time, running wasn't a thing, it was like a new thing. They were like look at that weird guy running.
Speaker 2:I still do that when I see anybody. If I were to drive by you running, I'd be like huh why.
Speaker 1:That's so funny. Yes, Well, at this time he was the only one running in their town. There's nobody else doing it Now. There's plenty of people running, not just me.
Speaker 2:I only run if I'm running for the bus, and it's been a long time since I've needed to take the bus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so he takes 630 on a run with the leash, and then there's just this very unfortunate chain of events where the local police station has been suffering from budget cuts, so their cars aren't in very good shape. One of them backfires and 630 has a PTSD reaction because, like I said, he was a bomb sniffer dog. Yeah, he was so scared of the training that he flunked out. He flunked out and his trainer abandoned him.
Speaker 2:And that's why he followed Elizabeth home one day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this car backfires 630, freaks out, pulls on his leash and Calvin slips On some oil that's on the ground because of these cars. He slips, he falls, he cracks his head open, right before then getting run over by a police car.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this was another scene that made me have to put the book down for a bit. Yep, I did not see it coming at all, and so I was in shock and denial. They were such a perfect couple. And then this and poor 630.
Speaker 1:I know he felt so much guilt about what happened. It was really sad and this was also a bit much, just like the chain of events led up to his death. But also, like I said, life is kind of like this sometimes and like circumstances can line up and bad things happen and then we as humans we take those steps back and trace them to a point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Exactly and say if we had not done this one thing, 13 steps back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so anything can look kind of convenient or coincidental if we look at it hard enough, which is what kind of happens here, because Elizabeth traces the death of Calvin back to her. Yeah, calvin's dead, by the way, in case we forgot to say oh yeah, he cracked his head open and he's like literally dead immediately and I die a little inside too. Yeah, and so yeah, elizabeth traces the death of him back to the moment she forced him to lose the leash and 630, so much guilt. I felt so bad for that little doggy.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:I mean also for Elizabeth, because she's distraught. And then after the funeral, she goes into work to find Calvin's entire office packed up and gone. All of his work is gone, all of his belongings are gone. And this woman, ms Rask, who is a secretary in an HR or something it's another woman that works with them tells her that because she never married him, she isn't entitled to any of his stuff. So that really pissed me off, yeah, and then Rask also points out that Calvin left Elizabeth with a hurting gift.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah she's pregnant, but she never clues in that. I was even a possibility and it's Ms Rask who's like the reason you keep running off because you don't feel good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, like duh, you're pregnant and she's like what? Not only is now Calvin dead, but now she's pregnant, which she never wanted to be. But Rask is so jealous of Elizabeth, but also she was in the same boat as her, so we find out more about her story later. But she's also trying to move up in her career. You know she's in HR.
Speaker 2:She's in administrative positions and she wants to move up administratively.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, exactly, but she can't because she's only good to be a secretary.
Speaker 2:She's a woman.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So no matter how hard she tries to make these other men in the office happy, she does it the wrong way. Elizabeth, she's trying to move up in the world by doing good work. Rask is trying to move up in the world by making men happy and hoping that they recognize her for that. Yes, so she goes on dates with them. She looks nice, she gossips, she throws Elizabeth under the bus, whatever she can do. They tell her to lose weight. Yeah, at one point. Yeah, later on she gets fired because she gains weight. It's insanity. Yeah. But I think it definitely shows the fact that it wasn't just men who were rude to Elizabeth. Yeah, it wasn't just men who brought women down. Other women did it too. We did it to each other.
Speaker 2:Because it was a competition.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it had to be a competition because there was stuff to compete for. Yeah, there was very limited positions and if you weren't competitive you wouldn't get it.
Speaker 2:No, so we were a little bit, a little bit our own worst enemy, but only because we were made to be that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had no choice. So I thought that that was really well done and really well shown in the book.
Speaker 2:And we find out more about Frasquader. I mean, I am not a fan, but I dislike her a little less.
Speaker 1:Yes, eventually, you know, we learn a little bit more about her and her character is a bit more developed and it's like, okay, you can kind of understand where she's coming from. It's still not okay, it's still not okay. And Elizabeth didn't have to be like that, but she also had to work pretty hard. Yeah, it's all hard, it's all hard, it's all hard. So Elizabeth gets fired for being pregnant, which is and was illegal, but happens anyways. Donati, the terrible boss, doesn't want that very important investor to find out that Mr Zot is pregnant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that would catch him out in a lie?
Speaker 1:Sure would. Then, a few months later, elizabeth rips apart her kitchen and turns it into a lab, and her old colleagues start coming to her house for help on their projects, and she starts charging for it like consultant, I guess, but that is her only source of income.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and she would have had to renovate her house, which costs money. She did not have Calvin anymore to contribute to their household. She is pregnant and she has a dog too.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's a lot.
Speaker 2:It's a lot.
Speaker 1:I really like the idea of a lab for a kitchen, though I thought it was cool.
Speaker 2:I like my kitchen. Wait, it is yes, fair enough, but she's very creative and she's so smart. Her food probably tastes extra because, it's made in a lab.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. Elizabeth does not really want to admit or acknowledge that she is pregnant, but she starts to show and people start to talk to her about it and then finally I think around maybe 33 weeks long or something she goes to the doctor.
Speaker 2:That seems late.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the doctor is kind of like hey, this is late. She kind of admits that she hoped the pregnancy would just go away. She kept rowing and working really hard Not that you can't exercise when you're pregnant, but the doctor was like the exercises that you're doing are extreme. I mean, abortion was definitely not legal then.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think that even came up as an option because back then it wasn't an option.
Speaker 1:But she had hoped that by rowing and by working aggressively and she would it would take care of itself. Yes, exactly, and I mean it didn't. It just made her really nice and strong, yeah, and he's like, yeah, no, you should just have the baby and then, when you're done doing that, come and be a rower on the team.
Speaker 2:It's the doctor is the captain of yeah Men's team. The team.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And he says come back Five weeks later. She goes into labor. She doesn't believe it at first, but 630 knows what's happening. And then, not long later, a baby girl is born and Elizabeth names her Mad accidentally, because it turns out that when a nurse came in, Elizabeth thought that she was asking her how she felt. But she was actually asking her what the baby's name was. So Elizabeth said Mad. So Mad went on the birth certificate. So it's joke is that the baby is legally Mad. It's a good joke.
Speaker 1:It's a good joke, I like it. I love it. She wanted to change it and and she was gonna go with Madeline, but she would have had to produce marriage certificate and all kinds of paperwork that she didn't have. She didn't have because she was never married and she was like, no, it's too much work. So she just left it as Mad, and I love it, me too. But when they get home, elizabeth is completely overwhelmed with everything that comes along with caring for a newborn.
Speaker 2:We have Google.
Speaker 1:now A newborn, she never wanted, yeah, and that she did not do anything to prepare for it all 33 weeks before she went to see the doctor yeah, so I could not imagine trying to figure out how to care for a baby without anyone's help.
Speaker 2:No support, no family, no husband or partner. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:so one day I don't know however long later, long enough, she gets woken up in her house by her neighbor Harriet, who is like hey, I notice, you need help, let me help you.
Speaker 2:That's the neighbor who would see her through the window and think that they were what? Super natural, super natural, the supernatural couple.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this neighbor has been living across the street and kind of you know, just being a nosy neighbor spying for quite a long time and it's like, yeah, I think she kind of thinks that maybe Elizabeth is a bit of a sex worker, because she's like I've noticed that men have been coming over quite different hours, for you know All the scientists who need her help. Yeah, but she offers to help with the baby whenever she needs.
Speaker 2:Because Harriet is very unhappily married, she needs an excuse to get out of the house and make the world a better place.
Speaker 1:Yes, and she Elizabeth takes her up on it for sure. There's this part right now where Harriet's like I'll make you some coffee. And then she goes into the lab and is like where's the coffee maker? And then Elizabeth is like I'll do it. She gets up and she uses a super intense system, which is so fun. It's a vacuum pot. It takes quite a long time and quite a lot of effort to make coffee this way, but it's really good, makes a really nice, clean cup of coffee. And Harriet agrees. She's like this is amazing.
Speaker 1:So when Madeline turns four, elizabeth changes her birth certificate to say that she is five so she can enroll her in school. One because Madeline is extraordinarily smart. Look at her parents, of course she's smart, she's a genius for real. And then two because she needs to be around other children and Elizabeth wants her to fit in. And then three, because she has no money and absolutely needs to return to work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Madeline goes to school and Elizabeth goes back to her old research facility and Donati gives her a job. Mr Zod is back, yes, except for she thinks that it's her old job, but he actually makes her just a lab tech, which is so painful for her. Oh yeah. So she at the facility she runs into Frask, who is upset that some young guy got hired for the job that she was hoping to be promoted to. And we learned that Frask actually has a degree in psychology, and she also got kicked out of her program after being sexually assaulted. So her and Elizabeth have a lot more in common than they thought. And then, not long later, frask gets fired for gaining weight.
Speaker 2:I'd be so fired.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too. But before she leaves, she gives Elizabeth access to all of Calvin's work that had been boxed in the basement since his death, to make up for how she treated her.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and I don't think Elizabeth knew that his stuff still existed in storage.
Speaker 1:No, yeah. So she got it all back, which was really good, thankfully. But then Donati steals Elizabeth's research and publishes it as his own, which is the last straw for her. So she quits her job and leaves. And then this is kind of where the beginning of the book starts. She goes to the TV station to confront the dad of the child who is eating Madeleine's lunch. Walter Pine, you had it right.
Speaker 1:Walter yes, it was Walter. He's so besotted by her that he offers her the TV show and she's desperate for work, so she agrees to do it. Now. She thinks that she's going to be doing a serious television program where she, elizabeth Zott chemist, will be teaching women how to make serious food using science in her science lab.
Speaker 2:Yes, I would watch the hell out of that.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah for sure. But the show that Walter's boss wants to make is one where she is. Where she's in a quaint little home kitchen wearing tight clothes and oohing and eyeing and moaning over the food she is making for everyone. She is making for average housewives.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because she's actually banging hot, isn't she?
Speaker 1:Yeah, she is and they want to use that for sure. But I thought the back and forth here was so entertaining and also so infuriating and eventually, I think, maybe got a little tiresome, but I also loved it. I thought it was so funny.
Speaker 2:It was fantastic and I think I'm actually a little bit in love with Elizabeth. She's smart, she's clever, she knows how to take a stand for herself and hold out for what she wants, and she's apparently very hot and she can cook, so she's like perfect, pretty much yeah.
Speaker 1:And everybody loves the show. The show is. It's a sensation. It's a sensation, everybody loves it. But despite Walter trying to get her to do absolutely anything, that his terrible boss, whose name is Mr Leben Small, I wonder what Leben Small translates into it sounds like it's German.
Speaker 2:Leben is maybe Small sausage, little life. I think it may be closer.
Speaker 1:That probably sounds better. Yes, we encounter his sausage later. Oh yeah, oh gross, yeah, whatever. So, despite Walter trying to get her to do anything that Mr Leben Small wants, elizabeth just does her own thing. She doesn't read the cue cards, she gives away everything on the set to the studio audience so great she absolutely cannot understand what being live means. And Walter is just losing his mind. So she has a six month contract and everyone just assumes that after that six month is done she will also be done. So Walter learns that Elizabeth and Calvin were never married and now he's dead. He admits that his wife left them and Amanda the one cheater. She isn't his biological child and that doesn't matter to him. He loves her regardless, which I thought was really cute and sweet. But they're both single parents in the 1960s it's definitely not the norm and they get routinely called into the school to talk about their odd children and the unorthodox ways that they're being raised. Elizabeth and Walter bond over this and become friends, despite the hernia she gives Walter every single day on the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, their friendship was the one like was one of my favorite relationships in the book because it was kind of unlikely but they worked so well together as friends and I was relieved that Bonnie never tried to turn their friendship into a romance. I would have been. I want to say I would have been disappointed. I would have been disappointed. They made fantastic friends.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it would have been really easy to turn it into a romance, but like that would have been so predictable, this was better. This was better. I love a good male-female friendship in a book, yeah, and in real life, but it's easier in a book. Yeah, it's way easier in a book. So Madeline gets assigned to do a family tree and Harriet takes her to the library to do some research. Harriet had snooped through Calvin's papers. Remember I said she was a big snoopy snoop.
Speaker 2:She's the nosy neighbor.
Speaker 1:Yes, she, he left his door open, which like the door to his house open, which I say that's weird, but I have done that before. I'm terrible, but I had kids, so I have a reason. He was just him. He left his door open and she went into his house to like close the door for him. But then she's like, well, I'll just check that nothing else needs to be done in here. And it's like, oh, what if this piece of paper was accidentally put in the garbage? And he didn't mean for it to be in the garbage, so I better take it out and smooth it out and read it.
Speaker 1:She's great, oh my gosh. So she knows stuff that she shouldn't know. She learned about how there's this. You know this big donor who is donating money to the boys home, but they have no idea which boys home this is or any information about it. So they're going to try to find out some information for the tree. And the whole family tree thing was kind of annoying. To be honest. I kind of get why Harriet didn't want Madeline to tell Elizabeth about it, but I really would have been the easiest route to just get it done and move on.
Speaker 2:Although Elizabeth didn't, did she know that much.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:She didn't know that part about Calvin's life either.
Speaker 1:No, she didn't, so she wouldn't have been that much help, but she could have at least I would have just let Madeline stay home that day, yeah yeah, that's probably a better idea.
Speaker 1:But at the library Madeline meets a man named Reverend Wakeley. Completely coincidentally, it just so happens that he was her dad's pen pal back in the day and had even performed his funeral. What a coincidence. So weird. So he offers to help Madeline find out more information about her dad. He keeps trying to get in touch with the boys home, but they are avoiding his calls. And then he does eventually get through. They tell him that there had never been a boy named Calvin Evans there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I don't know. I think they could have cut this entire Wakeley storyline and the overall plot story would not have suffered for it. This is where most of the conveniences and plot holes fall, I think.
Speaker 1:Yes, for sure. I mean he was fine, but I just don't think that he really needed to be in the story at all. They could have cut him out completely and the story would have continued on. He was kind of just a way he was the person making the phone calls to the boys home, but I feel like even. Harriet could have figured that out and done it. Yeah, but I guess she's a woman, so maybe they wouldn't have paid as much attention to a woman calling.
Speaker 2:I don't know, Maybe it was in the book so that the part about Calvin's true parent would come out. But I mean, then it could have just been Harriet reading this on this convenient piece of paper, skipping the whole Wakeley line, and then being like oh, I know everything on your family tree.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, one of the letters that Calvin got was like hi, I'm your mom, here is my name and phone number. Like she could have found that piece of paper yeah, that would have been the best piece of paper to find, yeah, and then called her up, found all the information out, right, but it's okay. So Walter and Lebin Small are both saying that the show is doing terrible and Elizabeth needs to do the things, but the show is also getting more attention than any other show they do. The audience is full. They get tons of calls about it. Everyone watches it. People are waiting outside to get in. It's huge, but still they're telling her that the sponsors are pulling out. My favorite was when she was supposed to add a kind of soup to a recipe and instead went on air and called it poison, oh yeah. And then went on to talk about the various ways a woman can kill her husband with different mushrooms not found in a can.
Speaker 2:Ah, yes, the lethal aminita Falladis. Yeah, that's a word.
Speaker 1:I don't really know how to say, but deathcap mushrooms.
Speaker 2:Yes, Talk that one away in your back pocket ladies. Yes, I wonder where you buy those In the forest.
Speaker 1:Let's go find some.
Speaker 2:We love our husbands? We do. We don't really feel like husbands.
Speaker 1:We have great husbands, but we do know some other husbands that we would never feed death cover.
Speaker 2:I'm not getting involved in that.
Speaker 1:Okay, never mind Cut this. Yeah, she got in big trouble for the whole mushroom thing and Walter has always forbidden Elizabeth from talking to Levin Small on her own. But after the soup incident Walter just walks out of the studio, drives home.
Speaker 2:He's like I can't anymore. I'm probably fired for what Elizabeth is doing, so I may as well just go home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that was funny. But then Elizabeth went to talk to Levin Small who tells her what a flop her show is. It's a huge failure. And now he's going to show her where she belongs and he takes out his little sausage, puts it right in her face. Yeah, like ew.
Speaker 2:Disgusting.
Speaker 1:I hate it. I absolutely hate it. I could not imagine if this happened in real, actual life. Oh my God. Luckily she brings her own knives to the studio every day. So she just opens up her purse, pulls out a huge knife and Levin Small drops a heart attack.
Speaker 2:Which he deserves.
Speaker 1:Yes, he doesn't die though, so it's okay.
Speaker 2:Is it, though? It's not okay. I mean, she does the right thing.
Speaker 1:She calls an ambulance yeah. But while she's waiting for the ambulance to show up, she goes through his papers and finds proof that the show is a huge success and has been picked up by stations all over the country and there's a ton of companies wanting to sponsor the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I bet you he's hiding that so that he doesn't have to give her a raise for being so excellent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he just wants control. It's messed up Like he's getting money from this too. Yeah, he's making money. I want to watch separate six, me too. So while he's in the hospital, walter does his job and everything is going really well, until Elizabeth admits to not believing in God on the show.
Speaker 1:Back then people super pissed. Oh yeah, people are so mad and now sponsors really do start to pull out. She starts to receive death threats. Someone even brings a bomb into the audience, but 630, who is also now on the show, sniffs it out and finds it. Saves the day, yeah 630, my hero.
Speaker 1:So the media has been trying to get an interview with Elizabeth since the show aired, but she turns everyone down. She does not want to talk about her personal life and she doesn't want to detract from being a scientist. But then someone finally convinces her to do an interview with Life Magazine. The reporter is told to absolutely not bring up Calvin or the interview will be immediately over. But he decides to go for it anyways, and Elizabeth instead tells him all about Calvin.
Speaker 1:At first she's a little bit like how dare you? But then she spills everything, and the reporter is so touched by her story that he decides not to write any of it, and instead he submits a boring story about her old research. His boss, though, is like no, I need the dirt. So he takes a bunch of quotes from people who hate her and makes this terrible story about her, and she feels so deeply betrayed, and then she falls into a deep depression because of it. But the reporter was so the good reporter, the one we like yeah, he was really upset about it. So he quit his job at that magazine and he writes a new story that he titled why their Minds Matter the Bias of Science and what these Women Are Doing About it, and he's trying to get this story published in all these science magazines, but no one's picking it up. So he leaves a copy of the story at Elizabeth's house, and Madeline is the one to find it. She goes to take it to Wakeley and instead finds a woman named Miss Frask, who is his typist.
Speaker 2:Not convenient at all, because, first of all, Wakeley shouldn't exist.
Speaker 1:No, and then now also Miss Frask is his typist. So Frask immediately realizes who Madeline is and tells her that she'll get the envelope to Wakeley and tells her that her mom quit her job doing science so that she could have her. So now Madeline also gets to feel guilty about her existence. Good job, miss Frask.
Speaker 2:Thanks for that. Just continuously trying to knock Elizabeth down, even though they don't even work at the same place anymore.
Speaker 1:After Madeline leaves, frask reads the story in the envelope and then, because she's also nosy, I would read the story too. Yeah, I mean, also I'm kind of nosy Then writes a letter to Life Magazine about how everything that they wrote was a lie. And then women all over the country are writing to the magazine to support Elizabeth, but nothing helps. She's still depressed. She decides to leave the show and go back to being a scientist. Because this reporter submitted the story to a bunch of science magazines, they aren't going to run it. No.
Speaker 2:They don't care about a female scientist.
Speaker 1:No, it's the same kind of sexist a-holes that run the research facilities, so they're not running it. So Harriet takes the story and submits it to a magazine she feels like she feels would like to hear about women in science Vogue.
Speaker 2:Which is very vogue.
Speaker 1:Very vogue and they publish it. So that was cool. Elizabeth gets a call from Ms Frasks. Ms Frasks, secretary. Oh, frasks Gets a secretary. Yeah, because now she is the head of personnel back at the research facility. Oh, yes, in a clever twist, yes, elizabeth doesn't believe it, but goes down there to meet her. There has been someone trying to fund her research all this time, like we said, but Donati was taking the money for other projects. Turns out it's the same person who donated to the boys home that Calvin grew up in. The woman's name is Avery Parker and her lawyer I think it was his name is Wilson. He runs her foundation and they have conveniently purchased the company, the research, the research company, okay, and they're firing Donati the boss. Excellent, yep, they make Frasks the head of personnel.
Speaker 2:It's good for her.
Speaker 1:And they want Elizabeth to come back and continue her work on a biogenesis Please. At first Elizabeth refuses, but then Avery tells her her story because she was Calvin's birth mother. She had gotten pregnant at 17 and she was sent away to home for unwed mothers and when Calvin was born she was told that he was still born. So her story was super heartbreaking. She didn't want to give up her baby and they told her that if she didn't agree to sign her baby away that she would receive no help when her labor started. So she goes into labor.
Speaker 1:They put her alone in a room and lock the door and after hours and hours of her screaming, the doctor finally went in, knocked her out. When she came out of it, her baby was gone. That's horrific, so terrible. 10 years later a nurse from the home called to admit that her baby, calvin, was alive and had been adopted by a family who had tragically died in an accident and now he was living in a boy's home. So then she sends Wilson to the home to take Calvin out and bring him home to her. But when he got there, the bishop the guy that was running the home thought that he was going to be giving them money, but then instead he finds out that they're going to take Calvin.
Speaker 2:And then he probably won't be getting any more money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the bishop hated Calvin and told Wilson that Calvin had actually died recently, and then convinces him to donate money to the home in his honor instead.
Speaker 2:Ah, the good Christian bishop.
Speaker 1:It's just so terrible, it's the worst. So then the bishop tells Calvin that Wilson was his father and that he was happy and healthy and rich and just didn't want him. So Calvin spent his whole life believing this. It's so sad.
Speaker 2:Because really his mom wanted him so much, yeah. And then she thought again that he was dead.
Speaker 1:She thought that he had died twice, but then, in the future, she sees him on the cover of a science magazine and realizes that he's alive. Cuts off funding to the home, tries to get in contact with him, but he is like no, all these people are just trying to con me. And he never responded.
Speaker 2:Imagine Like she's an entire side story. That's completely heartbreaking, yeah.
Speaker 1:They could write a whole story about her. Yes, I found out recently that my mom went to a school for Unwoodmothers. Really, no, I was like what? And I mean, I knew that she had me when she was 17,. But she was like yeah, you weren't allowed to be pregnant at school. So there was a school in Vancouver that she went to. That was like a boarding school, but she lived in Vancouver so she got to go home every night but girls from all over the country would go there to have their babies. What was that? What year I had 1986.
Speaker 2:In 1986. Yeah, I was alive already. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's when I was born and that's where she learned how to crochet. My mom crocheted all the time and she's like some little old lady came to teach us all how to crochet baby clothes. That's cute actually, yeah, so she was there just learning how to be a mother.
Speaker 2:That's so strange to me that less than 40 years ago there were homes for Unwoodmothers.
Speaker 1:That sounds like she described it as a home for wayward girls. Oh, brother, I know I was like and she just told me this like two months ago, and I was like what? No idea.
Speaker 2:What's so strange is how recent some of this stuff is. I know Like it sounds like this would be from the 1800s, yes, but it's happening in the 1980s.
Speaker 1:Yeah, crazy. So I don't know when that school closed down, but has it closed down?
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:I assume, like people are allowed to be pregnant at school now, but I don't know, it's crazy, it's absolutely crazy, but yeah. So now the book ends with Elizabeth inviting Avery to dinner at the house with everyone Madeleine and Amanda and Harriet and Malter, the whole family and Elizabeth goes on with her research. This concludes your introduction to chemistry. Class dismissed, Class dismissed, which is how the book ends. Oh, it's such a great book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what are your overall thoughts Five stars. Even after we unveil a few of the convenient plot holes, still a fantastic read.
Speaker 1:She did a great job. I stick with my 4.75. Great book. Highly recommend. Super entertaining, very funny. Really excited to watch the show. Yeah, but yeah, I think that's all we have for you today. I think so too. So thanks for hanging out with us while we talked about lessons in chemistry. Thanks, carolyn, for coming on the show you are welcome.
Speaker 2:It's always a pleasure to be here. So much fun.
Speaker 1:Where can we find you online? You have a little book Instagram.
Speaker 2:I do. I can be found on Instagram at Book Nerder. That's it.
Speaker 1:I don't have TikTok.
Speaker 2:I'm too old for that. I barely know how to use Snapchat, but Instagram yeah, instagram's good.
Speaker 1:We'll link that in the show notes you can find us at In Her Good Books podcast on Instagram, facebook and TikTok. Otherwise, we're going to see you in two weeks.
Speaker 2:Two weeks, but it'll be Shanna, bye we did it we did it, we did it, hooray.
Speaker 1:That's for.
Speaker 2:Shanna Perfect.