"Lessons in Chemistry belongs to a genre of literary fiction that could be called the quirky tragicomedy. The novel it’s most often likened to is 2012’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette, by Maria Semple, about a daughter trying to understand her mother’s abandonment. In these books, the main character has amusingly eccentric traits or interests and suffers undeniably serious losses, but the overall tone remains light, with a touch of rueful melancholy and a whole lot of brave soldiering on. After a boom in the 2000s, this style of fiction seems to be increasingly uncommon, which explains why some of today’s readers, raised on plots that milk trauma for all it’s worth, find the novel’s tone confusing."
~ Laura Miller
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