Stephanie Meyer writes long books. The Chemist is a nice cosy 530 pages long. Plenty of time to get attached to three main characters and a handful of supporting players.
We open up with our hero talking about how much she loves the Bourne novels…except they aren’t very realistic. And thus we enbark on a Jason Bourne novel starring a woman instead of a man.
I liked The Chemist except for one thing. Our hero tortures and occasionally murders people. Nothing wrong with that…she maintains she’s a good person and like Arnold in True Lies…she only tortured bad people.
It’s well known that torture, or enhanced interrogation, doesn’t work. But in the world of The Chemist, it does work. In fact, she was one step away from the perfect truth serum that would have made her high tech torture techniques unneeded.
The bulk of the very long story is getting to know people. Much like a Bourne book, our hero is hiding from The Government that wants to kill her. She is soon joined by a Bourne clone who is master of weapons and hand to hand combat. We also have a Watson who doesn’t know anything and has to be constantly told why our hero is doing this or that.
I enjoyed The Chemist. When the action finally rolls around, it’s good and exciting. I laughed and cried.
The ending was pretty good, but not exactly shocking. The little epilogue was fun.
The Chemist was a good read.
