Chemistry A Novel [Paperback]

Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award 

AWashington PostNotable Book

One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR,Entertainment Weekly,Ann Patchett on PBS NewsHour, Minnesota Public Radio, PopSugar, Maris Kreizman,The Morning News

Winner ofPloughshares’John C. Zacharis Award

Winner of a Whiting Award

A Belletrist Amuse Book

At first glance, the quirky, overworked narrator of Weike Wang’s debut novel seems to be on the cusp of a perfect life: she is studying for a prestigious PhD in chemistry that will make her Chinese parents proud (or at least satisfied), and her successful, supportive boyfriend has just proposed to her. But instead of feeling hopeful, she is wracked with ambivalence: the long, demanding hours at the lab have created an exquisite pressure cooker, and she doesn’t know how to answer the marriage question. When it all becomes too much and her life plan veers off course, she finds herself on a new path of discoveries about everything she thought she knew. Smart, moving, and always funny, this unique coming-of-age story is certain to evoke a winning reaction.“A comic and often precarious journey. . . . Told in a hilarious deadpan that recalls Gish Jen and Nora Ephron.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

“Winningly original. . . . Pithy, casually brilliant. . . . So fresh and intimate and mordantly funny that she feels less like fiction than a friend you’ve known forever.” —Entertainment Weekly 

“The most assured novel about indecisiveness you’ll ever read. . . . An emotionally devastating novel about being young today.”—The Washington Post 
 
“Endearing. . . . [Has] generous measures of humor and emotion.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Starts as a charming conflÃ9