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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
What a strange, charming little book. I read this in one night. The little tidbits--the glances into a marriage and motherhood--were seductive and so spot-on. Offill articulates often what I'm thinking but in a seriously more eloquent way than I would put it. This book delighted me.
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Read this in one sitting, at a whim, while on an airplane. Compressed and sprung aloft, it glimmered, shuddered, nearly-exploded; it was tight and wounded and brilliant like a steady stare held for too long. I loved it.
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was beautiful. It followed a path I had trouble following at first but as I made it to the end her chronicles of love and pain intertwined with philosophy quotes were beautiful and engaging.
A marriage untangling
“Sometimes in bed the wife can feel herself floating up towards the ceiling. Help me, she thinks, help me, but he sleeps and sleeps.”
A marriage untangling
“Sometimes in bed the wife can feel herself floating up towards the ceiling. Help me, she thinks, help me, but he sleeps and sleeps.”
I am speechless. Dept. of Speculation is the story of a marriage from start to end, told in such an emotionally raw way it feels like a chat with the deepest parts of oneself. This book captures the quiet devastation of marriage, motherhood and ambition slipping away. It explores the complexities of female interiority, leaving us with existential reflection, and the same loneliness and longing the narrator shows. Amazing book.
This book is 100% not my style. I put it down on page 3.
I think people will either love or hate this book. Clearly, I loved it. I love flash fiction and prose poems, and this book is essentially a string of those. Each moment is lyrical and full of emotion. Some reviewers have said that the characters and story aren't fully formed (or are kind of typical), but that worked really well for me because of the style and poetic writing. It's kind of like modern art in that way.
dept. of speculation reads like a box of unsent letters. the narrator—a wife, a mother, an “art monster”—charts the disintegration of her marriage with facts about astronauts, ants, and buddhism. the trivia seems arbitrary, but it isn’t. it’s what you say when you can’t say what’s breaking, or when you want to deny the truth. it is grief in camouflage.
at some point, the narrator stops calling herself “i.” she just becomes “the wife.” the move is subtle, yet devastating. she vanishes inside the roles she’s been handed.
what offill does so well is refuse to force the story into clean lines. she honors the fragments. love arrives as a joke. resentment breaks in mid-thought. the emotions loop, stutter, repeat.
and ultimately, the lesson here is clear: how love insists you stay, even when the hurt feels endless. especially in marriage. most especially when a child is involved. you save what matters. you hold on for love’s sake.
at some point, the narrator stops calling herself “i.” she just becomes “the wife.” the move is subtle, yet devastating. she vanishes inside the roles she’s been handed.
what offill does so well is refuse to force the story into clean lines. she honors the fragments. love arrives as a joke. resentment breaks in mid-thought. the emotions loop, stutter, repeat.
and ultimately, the lesson here is clear: how love insists you stay, even when the hurt feels endless. especially in marriage. most especially when a child is involved. you save what matters. you hold on for love’s sake.
This book was stunningly beautiful. Succinct, specific, heart-wrenching. A woman tells the story of her life and her unraveling marriage. It’s like the most heart wrenching short story you’ve ever read, but book-length. Beautiful. One of the best books I've read this year.
challenging
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
‘But now it seems possible that the truth about getting older is there are fewer and fewer things to make fun of until finally there is nothing you are sure you will never be.’
Interesting one. Quite difficult to follow, but enjoyed the unique way it was written and how it felt like memories you couldn’t quite remember.
A quiet meditation on marriage which had no huge plot and characters stayed pretty anonymous. Might’ve enjoyed this more if I was in a different stage of life. Definitely not a book for everyone but can see why some love it.