O's Top 20 Books to Read This Summer
The must-reads that'll take you straight through to Labor Day.
By Natalie Beach, Hamilton Cain, Leigh Haber, Taylor Lannamann, Claire Luchette, Liesl Schillinger
17 of 20
Chemistry
By Weike Wang
224 pages;
Knopf
Wang's wry, astute first novel charts the meltdown of a Chinese grad student adrift in the doldrums of her own research and unable to say "I do" to the man she clearly adores. On a comic and often precarious journey to a smidge of enlightenment, our unnamed protagonist evokes the bell-jar milieu of science, the condescending alphaness of her mostly male colleagues, and the soul-killing repetitiveness of life in the lab. Told in a hilarious deadpan that recalls Gish Jen and Nora Ephron, the novel fluctuates between humor and heartrending sincerity, as the narrator tortures herself with circuitous and mostly pointless internal arguments: "Popcorn, no popcorn, popcorn, no popcorn. Popcorn. I'm fine, you're sad, I'm fine...definitely not fine. I once thought I would have all the answers by now." While answers are elusive, it's fun watching her try to make sense of her life, "like a gas particle flying around in space."
Published 06/08/2017