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A review by girlglitch
Last Things by Jenny Offill
4.0
Told from the guileless perspective of eight-year-old Grace, Last Things is endlessly inventive and unexpected. Grace is caught between her father's love of science and her mother's myths, and the story is vaguely structured around her mother's own version of the history of the world. Then things start to unravel...
Last Things feels like a debut novel: it's creative and engaging, but there's something missing. It's a coming of age story without a transformation: Grace watches her mother descend into madness and her world spirals out of control, but her voice remains unaltered. Her journey never seems to reach a conclusion.
That said, Last Things is a compelling, imaginative read - hinting at the future brilliance of Offill's second novel, Dept of Speculation.
Last Things feels like a debut novel: it's creative and engaging, but there's something missing. It's a coming of age story without a transformation: Grace watches her mother descend into madness and her world spirals out of control, but her voice remains unaltered. Her journey never seems to reach a conclusion.
That said, Last Things is a compelling, imaginative read - hinting at the future brilliance of Offill's second novel, Dept of Speculation.