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How to describe a book that alternately, makes you laugh out loud, cringe at the no-holds-barred misogyny of the fifties, grieve and ache (when your heart’s not soaring with delighted wonder), and throughout it all, cheer with wild abandon for the main protagonist Elizabeth Zott (a mother, lover, Chemist, TV Cooking-show Star, and at her core, a fiercely confident combatant of inequity) – who is right up there with the very best-of-the-best female heroes to hit the pages during my watch.

(And don’t get me started on Six-Thirty – her immensely wonderful, compassionate and sentient dog – who unfortunately, cannot speak but can certainly communicate the nine hundred or so words proudly mastered.)

And then there’s Mad (Madeline) – Elizabeth’s charmingly precocious daughter, who, like her mother, refuses to settle for anything but the truth and the best, regardless of the consequences to her fantastically ineffectual kindergarten-centric social circle.

Who could not love the brisk, no-nonsense obstetrician, Dr Mason, who is just as likely to plunge his hands into soapy water and do a load of Elizabeth’s dishes, as he is to discuss child care, while, central to his world, (as is the case with several of our main and much-loved characters) the solution to life’s problems often comes down to the simple joys (and terrors) of competitive rowing.

I adored this book. From the very first pages it’s brilliantly clear that this is something fresh, effervescent, vivid and engaging, – an absolute joy this reader did not want to see end.

When Elizabeth meets Calvin Evans, a brilliant scientist, himself a strange and endearing six-foot-four sloucher, an impatient introvert who cannot help but hold a grudge, with his large grey eyes and the look of “a child who raised himself” – it’s clear that, for Elizabeth, with her “flawless skin” and deeply-entrenched independent-survival instinct – all bets are off.

The story that follows is as much a warm and wonderful huddle with the divinely odd as it is a blazing testament to perseverance, love, compassion, and ultimately, the ongoing, deliberate practice of standing tall, (alone if necessary), for what one believes to be right, to matter, to be intrinsically central to a valued and purposeful life.

A great big thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book, easily one of my favorite reads this year and beyond. All thoughts presented are my own.