Book Review: Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson

An athlete, a brilliant student, a minister's daughter.

Kate Malone is every one of these, a tall order to execute. The chemistry lover's life ironically falls apart at Merryweather High School in Syracuse, New York, like the fission of Uranium- 235#; her life was perfectly fitting together as nature intended, but MIT denied Kate's acceptance and, boom.

A nuclear explosion of Kate's life landed her arch enemy, Teri Litch, into her house. Her seemingly perfect life twists unexpectedly with taking care of a child and ensuring her brother takes his medication and doing the family's laundry and being the mother the family needs and secretly dealing with the rejection from her dream school: MIT.

Laurie Halse Anderson writes Catalyst to tell the world even in a seemingly bad situation, unforeseen results can turn out better than expected, to tell the world people can change, and you should get to know a person before you make assumptions about them, and to tell the world how preparation is vital to controlled results.

Anderson uses chemistry terminology to name each chapter and sub chapter, but Catalyst is not a nonfiction novel; Catalyst is YA novel that incorporates science to develop Kate's personality and character.

Kate learns that life isn't always what it seems, for herself or the people around her she thought she knew, similarly to how John Green portrays his message in Looking for Alaska.

No matter if you enjoy chemistry or don't know what an atom* is, Catalyst tells a tale relatable to any reader.

Key
* a basic unit of matter that consists of a dense central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The atomic nucleus contains a mix of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons (except in the case of hydrogen-1, which is the only stable nuclide with no neutrons).

# a light isotope of uranium of mass number 235 that constitutes less than one percent of natural uranium, that when bombarded with slow neutrons undergoes rapid fission into smaller atoms with the release of neutrons and energy, and that is used in nuclear reactors and atomic bombs.