So it turns out that, unsurprisingly, that Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus really is as good as everyone says it is and there’s a reason that it’s a global bestseller. I have been meaning to read it for a while and put it aside as a treat for my holiday to Fuerteventura at the end of the summer. It was well worth the wait. I opened what has to be the most pleasing book cover ever and enjoyed it right from page one.

The protagonist is Elizabeth Zott, a no-nonsense chemist who says it like it is and is unwilling to accept the status quo of being a women in the 1950s and the sexual violence, not being taken seriously, industrial espionage and career limitations that comes with it.

She meets and falls in love with Calvin Evans after what she herself describes as a chemical reaction when he bumps into her and is sick all over her in the foyer of a theatre. Not the most auspicious start, which itself comes after an argument about chemical beakers, but it leads to true love and happiness. Elizabeth refuses to marry him, wanting to forge her own way in the field of chemistry, but when tragedy strikes her life takes a very different turn.

Queue her faithful companion, her dog six-thirty, who is determined to look after her at all costs. As any dog owner knows, dogs are highly intelligent and have extensive vocabularies and as Elizabeth broadens six-thirty’s, we get to know what he is thinking at all times, in the best rule-breaking of having an animal narrative voice that I have ever come across. As Elizabeth’s chosen family build around her she is ready to take on changing the world and helping a generation of woman gain a new confidence in themselves and their abilities.

This book was an absolute joy to read and was over all too quickly. I am very much hoping that Garmus follows up this astonishingly good debut.