What a disappointment. 
 Like every other teenage girl at the time, I devoured the Twilight books whole and was obsessed. As I got older, I became a little embarrassed by that fact, but still enjoyed the story. I watched all of the (horrible) movies, but as time passed, I stopped staring at my husband and wondering what he would look like if he sparkled in the sun. (Hint: He'd look awful. Too ruggedly manly for that. Thank goodness.) 
 However, it wasn't until The Host that Stephenie Meyer solidified herself as an Author To Watch in my opinion. I loved that book. It was very well done, and I've reread it more than once. 
 Enter The Chemist. This book was so boring. I'm not quite sure how that's possible for a book about a chemist-torturer who is running from the former employers, which happens to be the gov't with too many resources to list. I regularly found myself checking the book to see how much farther I had to go, and being perpetually saddened by how much I had left to endure. This was almost a DNF. 
 This book was told with clinical coldness. I didn't care about the characters. Too much of the character development was unbelievable and illogical. The romance was shallow, rushed, uninteresting and unbelievable. The true nature of the MC took too long to reveal, and she was incongruous. She crossed so many moral lines, yet stopped herself a couple of times because she just couldn't go there. Those places she couldn't go weren't nearly as bad as the places she ran to with reckless abandon. 
 I could be more specific and give more examples about why this book simply doesn't work, but I have given it way too much of my time already and refuse to give it more. 
 I only recommend this book to fans of Mrs. Meyer who will overlook inconsistent writing and a terrible story because they love the Twilight author and will read anything she writes anyway.