Lab Girl is the memoir of a quirky female
scientist and her love of plants. Hope Jahren lays it all out there: her
unorthodox lifestyle as a female scientist, dealing with mental illness, an
intense and unusual friendship with a colleague, the politics of funding
research, and her obsessive interest with the plant world in its every
incarnation.
Half of the fourteen chapters tell the
stories of plants—their form, function, how they grow and survive adversity,
and their special features. These chapters are full of fascinating facts, and I
felt like I was being let in on the secrets of nature through the eyes of an
expert. Jahren’s writing style is easy, entertaining, and surprisingly
informative as she explains the intricacies of plants and science in straightforward
terms. These chapters also cleverly serve as springboards into the seven
alternating chapters of her life and work. Jahren makes exquisite connections
between the arcs of plants and people as if they were one genus.
Readers will love this book if they are interested
in themes of female leaders in traditionally male occupations, plant science
(or science in general), or finding a place to feel you belong. It made me ask
many questions: Why did I turn away from the sciences early in life (even
though I’m fascinated by nature)? Why are scientists (or anyone else) pressured
to look or act a certain way to be accepted in their field? What revolutionary
scientific findings and/or advances could be discovered if the ways we fund
research were different? How would people’s views on the environment change if
they knew how plants interacted with their environment and humans?
Lab Girl is a wonderfully interesting
slice of life story that made me immediately want to learn more about this fascinating
author, her life and work, and plant science.
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