This Goddess book club novel we read last month was conceived and penned by Bonnie Garmus who was inspired by her mom, a nurse who became a housewife in the 1960’s. Elizabeth Zott is a chemist when women scientists were unheard of and marrying and settling down with kids was still as always during patriarchal societies, the mistaken yet eventual goal of every female.

There were so many themes in this one book; autism, the metaphor of rowing as a team, misogyny, the ability for a woman to define her own future, sexual assault and its traumatic consequences, discrimination, the arrival of daytime television, death and honesty to name a few.

It was a fast paced read because of its superb sarcastic and humorous writing and its original and imaginative use of point of views even from a dog who won my heart. I had never read anything so powerful yet wholesome and nurturing.

If you haven’t read it yet, no worries, it continues to hold its place on the NYTimes bestseller list and is now adapted into a series on Apple Plus TV.