(4.5 / 5)
If you’re looking for a non-fiction or memoir that’s engaging, informative and witty, you’ll find it in Lab Girl. Hope Jahren, a botanist and multiple scientific award winner, chronicles her career and life in this memoir/non-fiction hybrid. The chapters alternate between engaging information about plant life (and the similarities to human life) and Jahren’s personal struggle with paranoia, her stoic upbringing, and most importantly-being a woman scientist. I loved (and appreciated) how accessible the subject matter was, Jahren writes in a such a way that science gives way to poetry and occasionally humor. I laughed out loud many times while reading this book, which truly takes a cleaver writer to do these days. This book also has more heart than any I’ve read in a long time.
I found myself learning a great deal about botany and was surprised to find I actually really enjoyed it. Hope Jahren makes me wish I’d tried a little harder in my science classes in school. I wonder if in the hands of a caring and passionate teacher I could have pursued science further. I can honestly say no book has made me feel that way before. Lab Girl will delight and move you. It is a smart and surprising treasure sure to be remembered for a long time.
Violence: Low Language: Medium Adult Content: Low