This bizarre conversational overkill continues within the inner dialogue of another main character, a female Indian post-doc. She also writes her adviser letters that begin, I'm sorry to say, "Dear Prof," and which contain not only the same types of extraneous detail described above, but also thoroughly unbelievable passages that I cannot begin to imagine any student communicating to a male colleague, such as, "And then there is the relatively primitive selection of cosmetics and female sundries available here..."

Elmore Leonard is not my favorite author, but he does have ten rules for writing. I am sure this book violates most, if not all, of them. For instance, one rule is, Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. Leonard explains, "The line of dialogue belongs to the character, the verb is the writer sticking his nose in." In the opening pages, two characters mimed, sighed, interrupted, prodded, and exhaled dialogue. Leonard sums up his rules by saying that if it sounds like writing, he rewrites it. The overbearing voice of Djerassi and his amateurish writing are simply deafening in NO.

I made a recent resolution to not feel obligated to read, or complete reading, every single book, journal paper, or magazine article that ends up in my hands. I realized that while I enjoy being well-read and able to spout arcane facts about topics that I really have no use for, I was wasting too much time digesting all this enlightenment. I felt especially compelled to read every page of any book I had purchased; not doing so made me feel guilty.

I did not have to force myself to adhere to my resolution in order to put this book down. The writing was so atrocious, I couldn't carry on, not even to evaluate the plot. This book may be full of technical brilliance. It may, somehow, point out how research science functions and highlight timely and important ethical dilemmas. I don't know. Guilt-free (and with pronounced relief), I ditched this book on page 30.