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Love and Other Dangerous Chemicals
Dr Steven J. Fisher is a young and brilliant biochemist (special subject: the female orgasm). He's invented a Viagra-like pill for women - now he just needs his results to be perfect. Annie is an orgasmically-challenged arts student (special subject: Victorian semicolons). She's just volunteered to be one of Fisher's case studies - but for some reason his miracle treatment isn't working. As scientist and subject bond over romantic meals lit by the flickering glow of a Bunsen burner, Dr Fisher is surprised to find his feelings taking a most unscientifc turn...what if love is one thing science can't explain?
336 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2012
About the author
Anthony Capella
17 books210 followersAnthony Capella was born in Uganda, Africa in 1962. He was educated at St Peter’s College, Oxford, where he graduated with a First in English Literature. The Food of Love, his first novel, was a Richard and Judy Summer Read in the UK. It has been translated into nineteen languages and has been optioned for the screen by Warner. His second novel, The Wedding Officer, was an international bestseller and is being made into a film by New Line. His third novel The Various Flavours of Coffee will be released in the second half of 2008.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
July 28, 2024
Review from 2015
A- for narration / B for content .
As anyone who reads my book and audio reviews regularly will know, a foray into contemporary romances/chick-lit is a very rare event for me! But when I was scouring Audible for something new to listen to, I stumbled across Love and Other Dangerous Chemicals, which had attached to it the names of not just one but TWO of what I call my phone-book narrators (i.e., people I’d listen to if they were reading the telephone directory!), and I couldn’t resist it.
In his gently humorous author’s note at the beginning, author Anthony Capella tells the listener how he came up with the idea for this story, which centres around a brilliant young biochemist and his research into Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD).
Dr Steven Fisher and his research team at Oxford University are attempting to find a drug with which to treat FSD; basically something which will enable women who don’t achieve climax during sex to have orgasms.
He has developed something rather similar to Viagra for women (which the pharmaceutical company funding the work want to call “Desirée” until they realise that’s actually a type of potato), which has been very successful in tests. But the latest research subject, Annie Gluck (a post-graduate student doing her PhD in English Literature) – or Miss G., as Steven mostly refers to her – unintentionally throws a spanner in the works, because her test results are anomalous, and threaten the plausibility of the whole study. It’s not until we hear the first of Annie’s blog entries that the listener discovers the reasons for those anomalies.
The thing which immediately grabbed me about the book was the refreshing way in which it’s written – a mixture of research paper, complete with copious footnotes and graphs as written by Steven with regular interjections from the online blog written by Annie. It’s intelligent and wryly humorous and the author has obviously researched his subject and various asides very well.
The bulk of the story is told by Steven who, the listener gradually comes to realise, is an unreliable narrator because of the way he filters everything through the medium of science. Whether he’s talking about the physiology of the female orgasm, the biological reasons for kissing or planning a fake date in order to see if good, old-fashioned wooing enhances a woman’s sexual responses, he’s a likeable, sometimes sweet but completely oblivious geek who automatically finds scientific explanations for everything and fails to see what’s right in front of him until it’s too late.
It’s obvious to the listener that Steven and Annie are attracted to each other, although of course, Steven is far too engrossed in his experiments to realise either that or to pick up on the various undercurrents running between his staff. Steven and Annie’s story progresses much as one might expect, which isn’t a criticism, because it’s quirky and well written; although the pacing does slow somewhat around the middle of the story and I suspect that if I hadn’t been listening to Mr Vance’s dulcet tones, I may have been tempted to fast forward a bit. But it’s worth sticking with, as things ramp up in the last part of the story which gets a little darker and exposes industrial espionage and the less than pure motives of some of Steven’s team, leaving him looking professional – and personal – disaster in the face.
Ultimately, though, this is a light-hearted tale which makes the most of its unlikely premise and in which the author’s “mockumentary” style of writing and presentation works to very good effect. It’s funny and well observed, although I did find the part where Annie suddenly decides to swap disciplines to be rather implausible and felt the resolution was a little too last-minute; but I did enjoy it overall.
Because most of the book is presented as Steven’s research paper, the bulk of the narration falls to the ever excellent Simon Vance, whose crisp, no-nonsense, clearly enunciated delivery is perfect for the character of this workaholic, uptight perfectionist who has to cross every “T” and dot every “I” several times, each one in triplicate. Each of the secondary characters is clearly delineated through the use of a variety of accents and timbres, and the main female characters – Annie and Susan (the team’s resident sexologist) are given distinct voices which accurately reflect their personalities. I can’t write this up without mentioning the scene in which Steven likens the sex noises made by Susan during an experiment to the grunts and groans made by tennis players and shot-putters – and into which Mr Vance throws himself with gusto. That must have made for an amusing day at the office!
Kate Reading performs the sections of the story that are taken from Annie’s blog (and also a later section which takes the form of a diary entry written by another character). She brings Annie to life as a young woman without much self-confidence who gradually takes charge of her life and grabs the opportunity to do what she wants rather than what others have pushed her into. Even though she performs only around a quarter of the story, she shows the listener the real Annie, warm and funny, and slightly geeky (I loved her inner dialogue about Uhura and Leila!). The one fault I can find with her performance is in her portrayal of Heather, one of the research team, who we’re told is Welsh. Putting on a convincing Welsh accent is incredibly difficult (in my experience, at least) and I’m afraid Ms Reading, hugely talented though she is, doesn’t quite manage it – but that’s my only complaint.
I did have another issue with her sections of the story, but that’s down to the format of the book rather than the performance. Annie uses a blog signature – “When the only tool you have is a hammer, you treat every problem as if it’s a nail” – which appears at the end of every entry, so when several entries are read consecutively, the continual repetition of that signature gets a bit annoying.
Taken as a whole, Love and Other Dangerous Chemicals is a refreshingly funny story which, while flawed, is told in an engaging and quirky manner and is enhanced by the expert performances of two of the best audiobook narrators around.
A- for narration / B for content .
As anyone who reads my book and audio reviews regularly will know, a foray into contemporary romances/chick-lit is a very rare event for me! But when I was scouring Audible for something new to listen to, I stumbled across Love and Other Dangerous Chemicals, which had attached to it the names of not just one but TWO of what I call my phone-book narrators (i.e., people I’d listen to if they were reading the telephone directory!), and I couldn’t resist it.
In his gently humorous author’s note at the beginning, author Anthony Capella tells the listener how he came up with the idea for this story, which centres around a brilliant young biochemist and his research into Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD).
Dr Steven Fisher and his research team at Oxford University are attempting to find a drug with which to treat FSD; basically something which will enable women who don’t achieve climax during sex to have orgasms.
He has developed something rather similar to Viagra for women (which the pharmaceutical company funding the work want to call “Desirée” until they realise that’s actually a type of potato), which has been very successful in tests. But the latest research subject, Annie Gluck (a post-graduate student doing her PhD in English Literature) – or Miss G., as Steven mostly refers to her – unintentionally throws a spanner in the works, because her test results are anomalous, and threaten the plausibility of the whole study. It’s not until we hear the first of Annie’s blog entries that the listener discovers the reasons for those anomalies.
The thing which immediately grabbed me about the book was the refreshing way in which it’s written – a mixture of research paper, complete with copious footnotes and graphs as written by Steven with regular interjections from the online blog written by Annie. It’s intelligent and wryly humorous and the author has obviously researched his subject and various asides very well.
The bulk of the story is told by Steven who, the listener gradually comes to realise, is an unreliable narrator because of the way he filters everything through the medium of science. Whether he’s talking about the physiology of the female orgasm, the biological reasons for kissing or planning a fake date in order to see if good, old-fashioned wooing enhances a woman’s sexual responses, he’s a likeable, sometimes sweet but completely oblivious geek who automatically finds scientific explanations for everything and fails to see what’s right in front of him until it’s too late.
It’s obvious to the listener that Steven and Annie are attracted to each other, although of course, Steven is far too engrossed in his experiments to realise either that or to pick up on the various undercurrents running between his staff. Steven and Annie’s story progresses much as one might expect, which isn’t a criticism, because it’s quirky and well written; although the pacing does slow somewhat around the middle of the story and I suspect that if I hadn’t been listening to Mr Vance’s dulcet tones, I may have been tempted to fast forward a bit. But it’s worth sticking with, as things ramp up in the last part of the story which gets a little darker and exposes industrial espionage and the less than pure motives of some of Steven’s team, leaving him looking professional – and personal – disaster in the face.
Ultimately, though, this is a light-hearted tale which makes the most of its unlikely premise and in which the author’s “mockumentary” style of writing and presentation works to very good effect. It’s funny and well observed, although I did find the part where Annie suddenly decides to swap disciplines to be rather implausible and felt the resolution was a little too last-minute; but I did enjoy it overall.
Because most of the book is presented as Steven’s research paper, the bulk of the narration falls to the ever excellent Simon Vance, whose crisp, no-nonsense, clearly enunciated delivery is perfect for the character of this workaholic, uptight perfectionist who has to cross every “T” and dot every “I” several times, each one in triplicate. Each of the secondary characters is clearly delineated through the use of a variety of accents and timbres, and the main female characters – Annie and Susan (the team’s resident sexologist) are given distinct voices which accurately reflect their personalities. I can’t write this up without mentioning the scene in which Steven likens the sex noises made by Susan during an experiment to the grunts and groans made by tennis players and shot-putters – and into which Mr Vance throws himself with gusto. That must have made for an amusing day at the office!
Kate Reading performs the sections of the story that are taken from Annie’s blog (and also a later section which takes the form of a diary entry written by another character). She brings Annie to life as a young woman without much self-confidence who gradually takes charge of her life and grabs the opportunity to do what she wants rather than what others have pushed her into. Even though she performs only around a quarter of the story, she shows the listener the real Annie, warm and funny, and slightly geeky (I loved her inner dialogue about Uhura and Leila!). The one fault I can find with her performance is in her portrayal of Heather, one of the research team, who we’re told is Welsh. Putting on a convincing Welsh accent is incredibly difficult (in my experience, at least) and I’m afraid Ms Reading, hugely talented though she is, doesn’t quite manage it – but that’s my only complaint.
I did have another issue with her sections of the story, but that’s down to the format of the book rather than the performance. Annie uses a blog signature – “When the only tool you have is a hammer, you treat every problem as if it’s a nail” – which appears at the end of every entry, so when several entries are read consecutively, the continual repetition of that signature gets a bit annoying.
Taken as a whole, Love and Other Dangerous Chemicals is a refreshingly funny story which, while flawed, is told in an engaging and quirky manner and is enhanced by the expert performances of two of the best audiobook narrators around.
August 25, 2013
What an endearing, uplifting, cute, funny lttle book! At first I wasn't sure if I was reading an actual science paper or a novel, but soon became so enticed that I did't want to put it down. I can only liken it to reading The Big Bang Theory, with funny science references, actual diary entries and both point of views written so well that the story flows beautifully. I became an instant fan of Capella and will read more of his books. I can't recommend this enough! Enjoy!
July 20, 2014
I absolutely loved this book. It has restored my faith in the author after the hugely disappointing 'The Various Flavours of Coffee' and the slightly disappointing 'The Empress of Ice Cream'. Funny intelligent and endearing it's a novel that entertains and makes you think at the same time. It also has the wonderful happy ending I'd expect from the author of 'The Wedding Officer' and 'The Food of Love', two of my favourite books. I'd recommend this book to anyone. Thank you Anthony Capella for another fantastic story.
March 13, 2013
Wow! Mr Capella has a fan for life! I am envious of his way with words. He makes the journey through this book an exciting and words fail me, journey! Cannot wait to read all his other books!
I wish I could rate it with more stars than are available!!!!!
I wish I could rate it with more stars than are available!!!!!
September 26, 2017
This love story is a really witty book. It is well written and is a satire of both academia itself and its collusion with pharmaceutical companies. Highly readable and very enjoyable.
September 25, 2018
This book was an absolutely refreshing and uplifting experience. At first I did not find it funny at all then I just laughed and laughed and laughed.
January 19, 2015
OK, this is a very silly book. I’m giving it four stars rather than three because it’s well written, has some quite funny bits and is entertaining enough to the end. But a lot of the time my enjoyment was shot through with winces, and a pervading sense that the author was writing about stuff he really did not understand. If you’re going to give your story a real-world setting, in some subculture that exists and plenty of people have experienced, then you should really get it right.
Anthony Capella is a relatively rare phenomenon, a male author who writes romantic comedy. Quite honestly, if this book had been written by Antonia Capella it would have a completely different cover – a cartoon scientist with long legs and high heels, perhaps, the title scrawled in a light hand over a candy-coloured backdrop – and be unambiguously described as chick lit. As a fan of chick lit (an underrated, misunderstood genre anyway), I think it’s very refreshing to get the male perspective now and then.
So the hero is Dr Steve Fisher, a biochemist who runs a small research team at Oxford University attempting to develop a drug to treat Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD). Fisher is suspiciously similar to Professor Don Tillman of Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie Project, though less overtly autistic and less inadvertently charming. He’s an unreliable narrator in the same vein, a clueless, socially inept obsessive whose work is his whole life. We’re informed by other characters that he’s a great genius, but we only seeing him being incredibly dense about the people around him and making really stupid decisions in his dealings with them.
The plot gets underway when a beautiful woman walks into his life, or rather into the laboratory where he and his team test women for their sexual responses. ‘Miss G.’, as Fisher insists on referring to her for most of his portions of the narrative, is an English postgraduate who is sleeping with her insensitive supervisor, who has in turn convinced her that she has a sexual dysfunction. She volunteers to be a test subject in a half-hearted attempt to seek a cure for this, when it’s obvious from the outset that she’s merely in a bad relationship.
And that is one of the major problems I had in suspending my disbelief throughout most of the plot. Is research in this area – in any area of drug development, when the drug in question is intended to treat something with a large psychological component – really conducted in such an arbitrary and shoddy fashion as this trial seems to be? I had no sense of what the protocols in place were. First of all, when he gets anomalous results from Miss G’s tests (mostly because she’s lying about her response, although later we find out there’s another reason too), Fisher reacts as if this one respondent is going to scupper his whole trial, which is already mostly complete and ready to present. Surely drug trials don’t work like that – surely there are always some variable responses that can be accommodated?
We get no sense that the trial protocols are designed to factor in the relationship status, etc, of the participants, or even take account of false reporting… It seemed to be enough for Miss G, or Annie, to lie about her responses for everyone to get tied in knots. I just had no sense that real science was going on here, and I started to disbelieve in what was at stake.
Anyway, it’s immediately obvious that the running joke is going to be that Annie and Dr Fisher are sexually attracted to each other but that Fisher will be too blinded by his focus on the experiment to notice or understand. And that this was going to be played out for the whole of the novel, until the inevitable five-pages-from-the-end epiphany and resolution. Well, romances are predictable by definition, and indeed this was more or less what happened. But I found the misunderstanding meanderings getting more drawn out and implausible as they went along, and until there was quite an entertaining twist of events fairly near the end – and a new narrator briefly joins the fray, livening up the story for a bit – I was almost on the point of giving up and flipping ahead to the closing kiss.
I found the heroine Annie quite irritating, and her story totally implausible. She starts out as someone several years into a D.Phil (Oxford for Ph.D) in English literature. Now you don’t get to DO a D.Phil in English at Oxford (where I was at university, and where I lived for a many years after graduating – I have known LOTS of Oxford students and academics) without being pretty committed to your subject. It’s not like doing a PhD in a science subject – there is almost no funding, and you have to be outstanding. Of course many people do get fed up with and disillusioned by their thesis topic after a few years, but Annie seems to have chosen a subject and indeed a whole discipline at random and with no enthusiasm for it whatsoever. About a week after getting involved in Fisher’s project, she suddenly decides she would after all – after having done an undergraduate degree and most of a postgraduate degree in English literature – really like to be a Scientist. This never occurred to her at school, or at any point apparently during her undergraduate career (when she would have mixed freely with science undergraduates, as Oxford has an interdisciplinary college-based rather than a faculty-based system). She drops her D.Phil like a hot potato and – because, we’re told, she is so amazingly clever – learns enough Science! in about four weeks to qualify as an assistant on the project, and her name on the paper. I’m not making this up.
It was at this point that I started invisibly clutching my head, all disbelief-suspension gone, and just waited for the story to get more exciting. Which it did, briefly, towards the end. I found the resolution a bit disjointed and disappointing, too. There’s a set up for a Grand Gesture which falls flat (as well as being unbelievable), and while the real final scene is quite romantic, it’s too far removed from the setting of the whole of the rest of the novel to be satisfying.
One last thing. Swamps and Sorcerers. What was that all about? I’m sorry, and for all I know there are some desperately irritated bell-ringers out there too, but don’t just give your character a nerdy interest out of a book to demonstrate their total nerdiness if you clearly don’t have a clue about how said interest is actually pursued. Swamps and Sorcerers is obviously supposed to be a stand-in for Dungeons and Dragons. Putting aside the fact that tabletop roleplayers use a vast variety of RPG systems other than D&D these days and there really wouldn’t be a society dedicated to playing a single system - 1. Tabletop RPGs are not played like video adventure games with a set story, but in an infinite series of unique scenarios (so you will not hear a new player told, “That will be useful when you get to the Marshes of Morrow!” or whatever), 2. Tabletop roleplayers do NOT dress up in costumes, nor do they call each other by their character names as a matter of course during a session. Honestly, it was like something from an equally ill-informed 1970s movie.
All that aside… a fun read, and better than some. Three and a half stars.
Anthony Capella is a relatively rare phenomenon, a male author who writes romantic comedy. Quite honestly, if this book had been written by Antonia Capella it would have a completely different cover – a cartoon scientist with long legs and high heels, perhaps, the title scrawled in a light hand over a candy-coloured backdrop – and be unambiguously described as chick lit. As a fan of chick lit (an underrated, misunderstood genre anyway), I think it’s very refreshing to get the male perspective now and then.
So the hero is Dr Steve Fisher, a biochemist who runs a small research team at Oxford University attempting to develop a drug to treat Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD). Fisher is suspiciously similar to Professor Don Tillman of Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie Project, though less overtly autistic and less inadvertently charming. He’s an unreliable narrator in the same vein, a clueless, socially inept obsessive whose work is his whole life. We’re informed by other characters that he’s a great genius, but we only seeing him being incredibly dense about the people around him and making really stupid decisions in his dealings with them.
The plot gets underway when a beautiful woman walks into his life, or rather into the laboratory where he and his team test women for their sexual responses. ‘Miss G.’, as Fisher insists on referring to her for most of his portions of the narrative, is an English postgraduate who is sleeping with her insensitive supervisor, who has in turn convinced her that she has a sexual dysfunction. She volunteers to be a test subject in a half-hearted attempt to seek a cure for this, when it’s obvious from the outset that she’s merely in a bad relationship.
And that is one of the major problems I had in suspending my disbelief throughout most of the plot. Is research in this area – in any area of drug development, when the drug in question is intended to treat something with a large psychological component – really conducted in such an arbitrary and shoddy fashion as this trial seems to be? I had no sense of what the protocols in place were. First of all, when he gets anomalous results from Miss G’s tests (mostly because she’s lying about her response, although later we find out there’s another reason too), Fisher reacts as if this one respondent is going to scupper his whole trial, which is already mostly complete and ready to present. Surely drug trials don’t work like that – surely there are always some variable responses that can be accommodated?
We get no sense that the trial protocols are designed to factor in the relationship status, etc, of the participants, or even take account of false reporting… It seemed to be enough for Miss G, or Annie, to lie about her responses for everyone to get tied in knots. I just had no sense that real science was going on here, and I started to disbelieve in what was at stake.
Anyway, it’s immediately obvious that the running joke is going to be that Annie and Dr Fisher are sexually attracted to each other but that Fisher will be too blinded by his focus on the experiment to notice or understand. And that this was going to be played out for the whole of the novel, until the inevitable five-pages-from-the-end epiphany and resolution. Well, romances are predictable by definition, and indeed this was more or less what happened. But I found the misunderstanding meanderings getting more drawn out and implausible as they went along, and until there was quite an entertaining twist of events fairly near the end – and a new narrator briefly joins the fray, livening up the story for a bit – I was almost on the point of giving up and flipping ahead to the closing kiss.
I found the heroine Annie quite irritating, and her story totally implausible. She starts out as someone several years into a D.Phil (Oxford for Ph.D) in English literature. Now you don’t get to DO a D.Phil in English at Oxford (where I was at university, and where I lived for a many years after graduating – I have known LOTS of Oxford students and academics) without being pretty committed to your subject. It’s not like doing a PhD in a science subject – there is almost no funding, and you have to be outstanding. Of course many people do get fed up with and disillusioned by their thesis topic after a few years, but Annie seems to have chosen a subject and indeed a whole discipline at random and with no enthusiasm for it whatsoever. About a week after getting involved in Fisher’s project, she suddenly decides she would after all – after having done an undergraduate degree and most of a postgraduate degree in English literature – really like to be a Scientist. This never occurred to her at school, or at any point apparently during her undergraduate career (when she would have mixed freely with science undergraduates, as Oxford has an interdisciplinary college-based rather than a faculty-based system). She drops her D.Phil like a hot potato and – because, we’re told, she is so amazingly clever – learns enough Science! in about four weeks to qualify as an assistant on the project, and her name on the paper. I’m not making this up.
It was at this point that I started invisibly clutching my head, all disbelief-suspension gone, and just waited for the story to get more exciting. Which it did, briefly, towards the end. I found the resolution a bit disjointed and disappointing, too. There’s a set up for a Grand Gesture which falls flat (as well as being unbelievable), and while the real final scene is quite romantic, it’s too far removed from the setting of the whole of the rest of the novel to be satisfying.
One last thing. Swamps and Sorcerers. What was that all about? I’m sorry, and for all I know there are some desperately irritated bell-ringers out there too, but don’t just give your character a nerdy interest out of a book to demonstrate their total nerdiness if you clearly don’t have a clue about how said interest is actually pursued. Swamps and Sorcerers is obviously supposed to be a stand-in for Dungeons and Dragons. Putting aside the fact that tabletop roleplayers use a vast variety of RPG systems other than D&D these days and there really wouldn’t be a society dedicated to playing a single system - 1. Tabletop RPGs are not played like video adventure games with a set story, but in an infinite series of unique scenarios (so you will not hear a new player told, “That will be useful when you get to the Marshes of Morrow!” or whatever), 2. Tabletop roleplayers do NOT dress up in costumes, nor do they call each other by their character names as a matter of course during a session. Honestly, it was like something from an equally ill-informed 1970s movie.
All that aside… a fun read, and better than some. Three and a half stars.
Want to Read
June 29, 2021Dr. Jennifer Rohn at Lab Lit liked this one:
"Love and Other Dangerous Chemicals, by Anthony Capella, stars a stereotypical, nerdy scientist studying the female orgasm. It's "absolutely, utterly ridiculous," Rohn says. And the ethics are highly questionable, to say the least. But Rohn says it's hilarious, and a perfect beach read."
https://www.capeandislands.org/show/l...
Not at our library, and I doubt I'd actually buy a copy, humor being what it is (completely unpredictable, from one reader to the next). TBR just in case a copy comes my way?
"Love and Other Dangerous Chemicals, by Anthony Capella, stars a stereotypical, nerdy scientist studying the female orgasm. It's "absolutely, utterly ridiculous," Rohn says. And the ethics are highly questionable, to say the least. But Rohn says it's hilarious, and a perfect beach read."
https://www.capeandislands.org/show/l...
Not at our library, and I doubt I'd actually buy a copy, humor being what it is (completely unpredictable, from one reader to the next). TBR just in case a copy comes my way?
May 11, 2019
I loved The Food of Love and was looking forward to this. It was slow, I don't like novels in diarised form and this was worse with changing fonts and foot notes. Long dawn out love story that may appeal to academics. Will have a go at the other books that have a foodie theme.
February 22, 2026
breezy read.
February 6, 2015
After having read, 'Food of Love' and 'The vrious flavours of coffee', I was really looking forward to reading this. It didn't live up to expectations. It read more like trashy chick lit, it was not beleivable and I didn't relate to the characters at all. His writing is usually sensitive and descriptive, reading this, I felt like he used the slightly outrageous and taboo subject to cause controversy and it made him lazy with the plot and characters. I was happy when it was over.
September 15, 2015
"sometimes you just have to tell evolution to go screw itself"
A story of scientists and higher level geeks investigating sex and finding love along the way.
Cute and quirky yet riddled with typos to a strongly distracting and obstructing level... Unless they were added on purpose, to reflect the fact that the book is meant to be a manuscript written in a literal and emotional rush.
A story of scientists and higher level geeks investigating sex and finding love along the way.
Cute and quirky yet riddled with typos to a strongly distracting and obstructing level... Unless they were added on purpose, to reflect the fact that the book is meant to be a manuscript written in a literal and emotional rush.
October 29, 2013
Odd, beautiful writing as expected, but an odd subject.
I was surprised that there was so little reference to food, a departure from Capella usual style.
Heaps of research pads the novel out, forming a fantastic story but not entirely the sort of book you would fall in love with.
I was surprised that there was so little reference to food, a departure from Capella usual style.
Heaps of research pads the novel out, forming a fantastic story but not entirely the sort of book you would fall in love with.
October 21, 2012
(Read in the rain, at Latitude 2011)
October 2, 2013
This book is so damn good!
December 23, 2012
Gave up on
January 9, 2013
A funny, scientific and, yes, romantic story of love, attraction and misread results. Worth trying out.
June 12, 2013
Funny and touching.
July 15, 2013
Cross between a scientific diary and a romance novel. Didn't think I was getting into it and suddenly I had finished ... so I must have become engrossed without realizing.
January 2, 2014
Loved this book! Was very surprised by what is actually was about, but found it fascinating, and it really helped soothe the very lonely science nerd in me (o:
January 2, 2014
Researchers look into women’s ‘sexual dysfunction’.
There are some good ideas in this story, but there is far too much waffle / padding – I found roughly 25% of this book interesting.
There are some good ideas in this story, but there is far too much waffle / padding – I found roughly 25% of this book interesting.
October 5, 2014
I have never read such a scientific description of the female orgasm...
February 5, 2015
I really enjoyed this book. It was unusual, funny and highly intelligent, and had me constantly researching little nuggets of biochemistry. Starting to wish I'd done that biochemistry degree...
June 25, 2018
"Yes," he said doubtfully, "on a submolecular level, Rhona's pussy, does thend to confirm Schrödinger's cat."
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews