The Chemist by Stephenie Meyer

Having worked for a secret government department, the protagonist of The Chemist lives on the run, hiding from her previous employers who want to kill her for what she learned through her work. The stakes of survival get raised higher than ever when her former handler contacts her with one last assignment, offering her a way to clear the target off her back. And thus, the chemist starts to unravel a knot of secrets, launching into a thrilling and utterly compelling story.

Unsurprisingly, The Chemist gripped my interest from the start and held it to the very end, and I lost hours and hours of sleep to it because I couldn’t put it down – I just had to know what happened next!

Now, I would love to rave about this book, but I think a major part of enjoying it goes to being unspoiled about it, so I am in a dilemma what to say about it.

I have to say I loved the main three characters. No, they aren’t perfect: they are certainly flawed each in their own way, but that’s what makes them feel real, and Meyer excels at bringing them to life and making us root for them (or, in case of the bad guys, root for their demise.) That extends further than humans: I am not much of a dog person, but with the way Meyer wrote the dogs, they grew on me so much!

Of course, I loved the dynamics between the characters, especially between the main trio (No love triangle! That’s definitely an upside of The Chemist), whom I liked very much as intriguing individuals, as well.

On first impression, I was slightly underwhelmed by the ending, maybe because it wasn’t as intense as the rest of the book or because it was what I expected it to be. But it was a good ending, very much in Stephenie’s style, and I liked it.

All in all, The Chemist (a stand-alone, which is another upside to it) is a highly suspenseful, gripping story, full of danger and intrigue, but also newly found love and friendship, and I got drawn right into it all while reading.

Therefore, the bottom line is that I loved The Chemist very much, but I am terrible at reviewing without spoilers and since I don’t want to lessen your enjoyment of the book with those, I can only poorly express my far-from-little appreciation of this book, with which Stephenie Meyer remains one of my favourite authors.