The Chemist

I love Stephenie Meyer's storytelling skill. Her characters and story always grab my attention and pull me into the story. I loved The Host, and was hoping I wouldn't be disappointed in this new book, but I wasn't. The storyline was compelling, the characters had me rooting for them, and it was an enjoyable read.

Having never ready any of the vampire/werewolf books I was very uncertain what to make of this which was gifted to me from a friend. However, it had me hooked after a couple of pages and despite its great length I finished it over a weekend (well, with lockdown level 4 there wasn't much else to do!)

This book is just so much fun! I laughed a lot at the interactions between Alex and Kevin, the science and action scenes were brilliantly written and as a thriller it was incredibly taut and clever. Plus, a female hero who can totally kick ass.

I don't think it needed to be 500 pages and there were a couple of times when things slowed down perhaps a little too much (mainly for Alex to moon over Danny) but I can't really drop any stars for a tome that flew by with me having a ridiculous smile on my face for the whole time.

Would be keen to read any more adult fiction by Meyer after this!

I'm one of those obsessive readers/fans who is always checking Stephenie Meyer's website for new information on her next book, and it was really sad when I started to believe she may never write again. Once I heard about The Chemist, I could no longer be tamed. I could not wait for a new book from her, but the funniest thing about people saying “we can't wait” is that we really have no choice, other than to wait. And we will.

If I didn't have to work, sleep, bathe, or anything else, I would have read the book straight through, because I could hardly put it down. I even purchased the audio version for when I was driving. It's such an exciting story!

I didn't understand some of the technical “chemist” or “spy” things, at first, and I had to look some things up (like why stock up on peaches), but that actually became fun. I hope Homeland security doesn't assume anything from my suspicious search history. :)

Honestly, this story was a nice departure from my usual read and I learned some new things - that's always a plus! If it had any other author's name on it, just by the title alone, I probably would not have been interested in reading it.

While not the worst book I've read, it certainly wasn't the best. The characters and plot are likable enough but this book fails where Stephenie Meyer usually fails: the insane amounts of fluff she uses between bits of action. Sometimes I lost the point of the chapter because she's busy describing every aspect of a gun the character is holding. The narration for the book was well done though, and at times made up for a lot of the pitfalls that faced this book.

This book was pretty fun. The action was fast-paced, and it was super escapist. Totally unrealistic. Kind of cheesy romance. But fun! I'll probably have forgotten about it by next week.

We'll just ignore the basic fact that torture has been proven to be useless as an interrogation method, of course. The story would have ended before it began if that had ever been mentioned. Girlfriend would have been out of a job.

The narrator was pretty awesome.

(Stephenie Meyer, I'm sorry for judging you super hard even though I'd never read any of your books before. I hate-watched all the Twilight movies instead of reading the source material. The movies were pretty bad, but I'm sure you got a cut of my ticket purchase, so you're probably not mad.)