Chemistry

Weike Wang's first novel, Chemistry is a fabulous book.  It is a tale of a struggling scientist and the failures of her professional and romantic lives.  Her short yet bitter-sweet introduction carries a significant emotional impact throughout the book.  
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Chemistry took me on an unusual yet incredible trip into the dark and genuinely rough waters of a woman's skeptical mind as it struggles with her heart.   

The nameless storyteller of Chemistry is some years into her doctoral studies in chemistry only to discover her passion for the subject languishing as her experiments failing to produce publishable Ph.D. level work, much to the shock for her advisor and the irritation of her unrelenting Chinese parents.  As for her private life, it was not enough a source of relief, as she and her boyfriend have entered an awkward deadlock due to her hesitation to accept his repeated marriage proposals.

The story takes a turn for the worse when a breakdown at the lab leads to an indefinite leave of absence from school and her boyfriend accepting a faculty job in another state; it appears the narrator has finally hit the low point. But she soon realizes, that her descending spiral is only starting and that the second law of thermodynamics - that systems tend toward chaos applies not just in the lab but similarly to life.  

I think Chemistry is an intimate and insightful novel that reads more like a memoir than it does the fiction.  It is remarkably honest in the portrayal of its main character's intense internal life.  

I highly recommend reading Chemistry.  It was one of the bravest novels about indecisiveness I have ever read.   

Let me leave you with few passages in the book that I really enjoyed.
“An equation.

happiness = reality - expectations
If reality > expectations, then you are happy.
If reality < expectations, then you are not.” 

“The only difference between a poison and a cure is dosage. Drink too much water and you will die. Inhale water and you will die as well. ···” 

“In spoken Chinese, everything is gender neutral. There is no she or he. The more I think about this now, the more I like this about the language. Man or woman? Does it matter? A person.”

I hope you enjoy reading it.