Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

As a woman chemist for 45 years, I looked forward to GIVE ME YOUR HAND. What great potential existed in a story of two female postdocs competing within a group of men for two positions on a groundbreaking research project led by the esteemed Dr. Severin, also a woman! And a mystery story, too! Kit Owens and Diane Fleming meet in high school. Both exceptional students, they are inspired when the elegant Dr. Severin addresses their school about the wonders of scientific research. Despite socioeconomic and personality differences, Kit and Diane become study buddies, spending many evenings at Kit’s humble home poring over science homework. Kit is described as the more typical teenager who favors cutoffs and tee shirts, while Diane wears prairie skirts and blouses with high neck collars. When Diane begins to share a dark secret with Kit, I assumed it was of a sexual nature. Unless I missed it, the author never explained Diane’s bizarre choice of clothing. The secret IS the story. Kit carries the burden with her even as she achieves the first rung of her prize. She postdocs for Dr. Severin with a group of male chemists. To her shock and dismay, Dr. Severin brings her now-nemesis, Diane, into the group soon before the prestigious project will be staffed. As I learn more details of Diane’s secret, I remembered a television program, FORENSIC FILES, that told the same story a few years ago. A quick Google search turned up the story of Marie Robards, a Fort Worth high school student who shared the identical secret with her friend that Diane told Kit. Even stranger is an identical English class on Hamlet that plays into the secret. Stranger yet, the dialogue I found between Marie and her friend detailed in TEXAS MONTHLY was also identical to the words exchanged between Kit and Diane. I then assumed that GIVE ME YOUR HAND was a fictionalization of the Marie Robards story. As the Kit, Diane and Dr. Severin story slowly progresses, it bears no resemblance to the Marie Robards story, but I began to lose interest. I have no idea why Ms. Abbot used minute details of the Marie Robards story (which might have been more interesting than this book), but after comparing the actual dialogue to the words exchanged between Kit and Diane, I was more than confused, especially when I found no attribution. The description of life as a chemistry postdoc was accurate, but Ms. Abbot should have minimized the narrative about the actual lab work. Most of it is superfluous, and a key part of the story is flat wrong. The competition among the postdocs for the research slots is spot on. The chemists who have toiled for years, barely scraping by financially, know that careers are predicated by prime research positions, and the competition is cutthroat. I was disappointed by a book that held much promise. The story began to drag, and the ending was predictable. I expected more.