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3.58 AVERAGE
3.58 AVERAGE
i think maybe i need to reread this again to fully pick up on everything its trying to do and i think when i do it might be 4 stars ?? maybe. bc rather than a full plotted story, it’s a series of fragmented vignettes giving us a glimpse into the characters life and humanity. so to like this book at all you have to be okay with the floaty structure and jumping around in time.
but anyway i loved the free form, it felt like reading a story and a journal at the same time! so to me it was interesting to get to see these snippets which explored the main characters views on society and it’s issues and the anxiety that comes along with it in ordinary life
but anyway i loved the free form, it felt like reading a story and a journal at the same time! so to me it was interesting to get to see these snippets which explored the main characters views on society and it’s issues and the anxiety that comes along with it in ordinary life
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
“Of course, the world continues to end,” Sylvia says, then gets off the phone to water her garden.
A compelling and stressful and enjoyable read- I struggle with books so set in a specific moment of the world, but I love Offill’s style and honesty.
I liked all the characters a lot. I felt a disconnect from pretty much the whole story. Maybe that was the point?
relaxing
medium-paced
Though I loved [b:Dept. of Speculation|17402288|Dept. of Speculation|Jenny Offill|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1367929545l/17402288._SX50_.jpg|24237023], also by Jenny Offilll, I had a hard time getting into Weather. I read the print version of the former and the audio version of the later, so that might have influenced how I felt about it. Both novels have an almost flash fiction mixed with stream of consciousness style, and I think being able to see the paragraphs might have helped me get into Weather.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I read 8 books in June 2020 and imagined each one as a character in a Living Book Review. Sign up here to receive the Living Books Reviews newsletter in your inbox each month! https://mailchi.mp/53d716a27eaf/living-book-reviews.
Still staying at home and working online. Does it count as working if I don’t have to put on makeup? Who am I if no one sees me all day? Except for Jane Austen, who has promoted herself to my supervisor and gives me passive-aggressive performance reviews. When I see my friends smiling faces, it’s through Zoom under a warning that our connection is unstable. The books clamor in too - they want their faces in little boxes.
Weather by Jenny Offill is uncomfortable with silence. She can’t keep her hands still, they flutter like birds in front of her camera. She interrupts herself. She forgets what she was saying, it was something about dystopia too! Was it? Or, like, real life? Technology, family, disconnection, connection, something like that. Then, she retreats into white space for a while. Then, she comes back out, her mouth open and grinning: I remember, I remember! She says, I remember what I wanted to say! But, the conversation has moved on.
Still staying at home and working online. Does it count as working if I don’t have to put on makeup? Who am I if no one sees me all day? Except for Jane Austen, who has promoted herself to my supervisor and gives me passive-aggressive performance reviews. When I see my friends smiling faces, it’s through Zoom under a warning that our connection is unstable. The books clamor in too - they want their faces in little boxes.
Weather by Jenny Offill is uncomfortable with silence. She can’t keep her hands still, they flutter like birds in front of her camera. She interrupts herself. She forgets what she was saying, it was something about dystopia too! Was it? Or, like, real life? Technology, family, disconnection, connection, something like that. Then, she retreats into white space for a while. Then, she comes back out, her mouth open and grinning: I remember, I remember! She says, I remember what I wanted to say! But, the conversation has moved on.
Jenny Offill is the most economical fiction writer I have ever read. Her narrator Lizzie is a university librarian who tells the story of her life in Brooklyn the way a smart friend with a wry sense of humor might through a series of text messages (if she sent a little longer and more literary ones than the normal person), but as compelling as these gemlike paragraphs are, I wasn’t able to sink into this book the way I usually do in a good novel. Instead of a traditional narrative arc we’re treated to well-wrought observations on marriage, parenthood, drug addiction, climate change, and preparing for a post-apocalyptic future.
“Does this feel like a country at peace or at war?” Lizzie asks a war reporter she’s become friends with. His answer sums up the dread in the novel. “He says it feels the way it does just before it starts. … Even while everybody’s convincing themselves it’s going to be okay, it’s there in the air somehow.” Exactly how I feel right now.
“Does this feel like a country at peace or at war?” Lizzie asks a war reporter she’s become friends with. His answer sums up the dread in the novel. “He says it feels the way it does just before it starts. … Even while everybody’s convincing themselves it’s going to be okay, it’s there in the air somehow.” Exactly how I feel right now.
review pending, needed to mark finished to add to my yearly reads :)
A very quick read- I felt like I was getting sucked in while reading in although nothing high stakes is actually happening. I think because the language used is so simple, eloquent and evocative.