Love and Other Dangerous Chemicals by Anthony Capella

Narrated by Simon Vance and Kate Reading

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.

Caz

Narration: A-

Book Content: B-

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence: None

Genre: Contemporary Romance/Chick Lit (Audible UK and US has this in their Literary/Fiction category, but I’d question that)

Publisher: Whole Story Audiobooks