I enjoyed this book when I read it, however I did not get to submit full review in time as unfortunately I lost my devices when my house was burgled and it took me a long time to replace my belongings and just get back on track. I have an ereader again (and a laptop, although I am not reactivating my blog and have started a bookstagram instead) and I hope to review again in the future.

This was an enjoyable read and I would recommend it. thanks for letting me have an advance copy. I'm new to this author.

I would pretty much read Jenny Offill's shopping list at this point, so I already knew this was going to be good, and I wasn't disappointed. Lizzie, librarian and amateur shrink, is trying to save everyone - the people whose letters she answers, her mother, and her brother, a recovering addict. The book is beautifully written and I loved LIzzie in particular, and I found the backdrop of climate change and weather both fascinating and haunting.

A beautiful novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher, who provided me with a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review,

An interesting book that I thoroughly enjoyed. It's a quiet and introspective account but deeply felt. I think it would appeal to the readers of Kent Haruf and Marilynne Robinson.

Stream of consciousness existential dread. I didn't get it. Offill seems to be dividing opinion with "Weather". I enjoyed a few sections but overall it just wasn't for me. A mercifully short read.

An odd book... not something I would generally choose to read but I was intrigued by the premise and the reviews and I'm glad I did. Short, concise, mesmerising in parts and lots of 'quotable' statements that I'm sure will be used a lot over the next 12 months given the times we are living through with the current pandemic.

Not sure who I would recommend this to as you need patience and an open mind to enjoy the prose and unusual way it is written.Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the advanced reader copy.

Jenny Offil is a writer of remarkable economy. Her crisp, agile prose leaps off the page.

Through a series of pithy vignettes as propituous, as they are brief, a snapshot of a life emerges. A librarian, wife, mother, sister, former bar tender, wannabe mistress, doubter (We hear the protagonists name just once). The effect is mesmerising.
This is also a novel about language and knowledge, underpinned by the slow certain advance of climate change and impending crises. Shortly afterwards the world shifted in previously unimaginable ways as we faced a global pandemic.
I re-read Weather as the UK was emerging from Lockdown to mark up passages which resonated with me and its relevance to the altered state we're now living through rang out from every page.
A book for our times, I ended it feeling as the narrator hears her relationship with her brother described: enmeshed.

I picked up this book several months ago and put it down as I didn't know what was going on in it. This time I picked it up and once attuned to the narrative style, read it in two "sittings".

It's the tale of auto- didact, librarian mother Lizzie. She has her own "emergencies" to deal with. Her mother is in financial difficulty as is the narrator herself. Her relationship is "strained" and her brother is recovering from a drug addiction, then fathers a child adding more responsibility to Lizzie's life. The people she meets are largely "outsiders" or people on the fringes of society.

This is all set against the background of the climate emergency which is constantly in her thoughts as she has taken on a job for Sylvia (who disappears) answering questions about dealing with the climate emergency and what happens afterwards.

The narrative style mirrors this fragmentation in her life . It's an interior monologue about all that is going on for her.

Lizzie's huge heart, empathy and intelligence shine through making you care for her as a character. her resilience but sometimes despair in the face of potentially overwhelming events are well portrayed.

An excellent and timely book.

This is one of those deceptively slight books – it is packed with meaning. Offill writes bitesize witticisms (perfect for these tweety doom days) as we spend time with Lizzie the college librarian, a woman who feels so familiar to me, only way smarter and funnier than anyone I actually know.

“I remind myself (as I often do) never to become so addicted to drugs or alcohol that I’m not allowed to use them.”

Unsurprisingly for a book called Weather, Lizzie is deeply concerned with climate change but Offill has a light touch. Her pithy paragraphs contain wit, science and fun and carry the weight easily. Her brother is an addict, her husband works in IT, she has a young son, she works in a library where she is a research goddess, and she spends time answering emails about climate change sent to a podcast.

Honestly, this is my book of the year so far. I love how the fragments and thoughts and tips build and build and become a portrait of a woman looking at the end of the world. It feels honest and frightening but also beautifully human and hopeful.

Of course, my favourite line is, “How do you know all this?’ “I’m a fucking librarian.”

(I’ve recommended this to a ton of people already and all of them have loved it too. Do it!)

This title was reviewed on Splice on March 4, 2020: https://www.thisissplice.co.uk/2020/03/04/todays-weather.

Weather has a key focus on climate and political anxiety. Given the times we are living in, this made for an interesting and apt focus for a novel to pool around. I found it a difficult book to engage in; despite being rather short I wasn't drawn into into it. Comprised of short bursts of prose, I found it difficult to keep up with the strands of storylines that were explored throughout. Because of this I also felt there wasn't opportunity to fully connect with Lizzie the protagonist. I am more used to reading novels that fully immerse you into the world the author has created, but that seemed to be lacking in Weather.

I enjoyed it and glad I read something out of my typical writing style, but I'm not sure it's for me.

Thanks to the Netgalley and Granta for this arc. I've heard such good things about this book, so was excited to read this. This follows Lizzie, a 44-year old librarian in New Jersey (I think). She's an empath and listens to everyone in her life: her family, her neighbours, the parents in her son's schools and the people she meets at the library. She meets her brother, Henry, who has has battled addiction and is now sober. Henry has met someone; they get married and have a daughter which Henry finds overwhelming and it unravels him. Lizzie also has a husband Ben, who reads books about wars. And Lizzie also goes a yoga/meditation class where she meets quirky characters.
This is a difficult book to review because this doesn't really have a plot. There is no sense of time and place, except of Henry's story providing a loose narrative. Mostly this snippets of thoughts; a collection of vignettes on surviving, the climate change, life in America and immigration. Some of the vignettes were hilarious. I loved a conversation she has early on with her brother about people throwing anti-depressants into the sewage and it being consumed by worms which is altering their behaviour. Offill writes sparse, yet beautifully observed pieces. However beautiful writing alone was not enough to capture my attention and the lack of plot, structure and a clear sense of setting and place was greatly felt and at times I did find my attention wandering. I was grateful that this was a short book. On the whole if you're interested in an experimental and thought=provoking book then definitely read this. But just don't expect this to be pacy. 3.5/5

This is an odd, whimsical book that drops in and out of time and place. Nothing is hugely explained or resolved but for me that just added to the pleasure of reading it. I was drawn to the book by the fact the main character is a librarian (can't think why!) but stayed for the beautiful writing.

Weather is an entertaining and insightful if somewhat slight novel. It is filled with snippets of interest but doesn'y quite come together as a whoke entity.

The reality of life for many women is that they multi-task. Offill’s “new style of writing” (auto fiction) of short paragraphs of tale, carrying great depths of home truth, is a textual form that speaks to this, but has the potential to hold so much more. A potential that Offill brilliantly fulfils as she presents – through her thoughts - the life of Lizzie and people around her. But as much is about the basics of daily living it reflects the lives of so many more of us, whether we live in the USA or not. Her simple sentences say so much they build pictures of the complexities of life, the balancing of the large and the small.
Lizzie works in a university library, but is occasionally unsettled by the fact that she has no formal qualification. She has to juggle the regular anodyne chores with “customers” who range from the obsessively odd to the purposeful researcher; those of her generation to youngsters who “speak a different language”; only occasionally being able to reach the point of intellectual satisfaction of joy of knowledge albeit melding with the humdrum. Ben her husband has apparently had to compromise his career too. She has a young son Eli who attends a “special bright” programme at school. But then she has to negotiate the relationships his life and hers of mothers and of classmates – all in what can be seen as a highly competitive milieu in which she is uncomfortable. Coping with a very intelligent and questioning single child is not necessarily always easy even before she juggles her multiple roles. Brother Henry lives nearby, is drug addicted seems likely to be “on the spectrum”. She thinks he requires support that may vary in scale, necessity, or urgency as his life wanders through its ups and downs. Her constant worry around this is another burden. Mother, getting older, lives in another city and deserves more attention and support.
The wonder of this seemingly slight book is that Offill manages to quietly drop so much detail into each paragraph – issues and happenings that are so universally recognisable to the busy family woman. As well as building an increasingly detailed portrait of Lizzie herself, they speak to personal experiences of anxiety of never doing enough, or in the right way, or the right order and manage to create the constant unease or feelings of often overwhelming “busyness”.
But then she takes it further. Because the informed woman does not see life through the spectrum of home life only, there is of course the real world outside. This is about now so there is the hardening of politics, the increasing conflict of views, the rising totalitarianism, together with the awareness that spoken word and feelings can liberate some to act and have real effects on people. Added to this is the great international developing issue (well it was before the pandemic cut across the dialogue) of global warming and environmental degradation that can already be seen to be playing out through visible climate change and mass migrations with their difficulties or horrors. Does a responsible parent sit it out – or do they start to plan an alternative reality? Lizzie is making her plans and thinking of learning new skills, but Offill still manages to portray the uncertainty of this.
This makes this a deep and compelling read that asks many questions of the reader – questions that are not always answered. Because it is so real and so close to the knuckle it is not always a comfortable read, dealing as it does with thoughts of not just the close world that you have some measure of control over – but a much wider one that you almost certainly do not. But it is about carrying on, finding pleasure in the good things – intellectual ideas, a growing child, the beauty of the weather or landscape and tolerating the rest. And waiting…..

I absolutely adored this. Jenny Offill is a true master of storytelling and this is utterly gorgeous. Offill's true to life writing feels real and as though reading the thoughts of a real woman.

I had high expectations because I loved Offill's Dpt. of Specualtion but was rather disappointed. The book never came together for me and the characters remained cardboard figures without a soul.

A current and arresting read that I had to slow myself down to contemplate. You may need to settle to the 'stream of consciousness style' (which I found reminiscent of Ali Smith) but it's worth it! A challenge to consider what effect we have (or aren't able to have) on those around us. Well observed, wryly communicated and well worth a read.

As though you’re reading your own broken train of thought, this book straddles stream of consciousness and worldly paranoia.

Similar to Laing’s CRUDO, but American, WEATHER is a mother, wife, sister, daughters ramblings about life and society today.

Quick and easy to read, with a very relevant concept Offill takes you on a journey of what’s bugging people today, what keeps up awake and what keeps us sane.

Though it is surprisingly easy to read, it’s also relatively easy to forget - I’m not sure if it was the nature of its writing or its message - I just haven’t recalled too much and I don’t think I’m minded to.

We live in anxious times. The impending climate crisis, the turbulent political landscape. Fiction is a good place to explore these fears although often it is done by creating dystopias far removed for our daily reality. Weather couldn’t be more rooted in our reality.

Set in around 2016 - with the election of Trump as President of the US as the backdrop - Offill writes in first person using fragments of thoughts and dialogue. This disjointed style of narration won’t be for everyone but for me it worked beautifully to capture the truth of our minds. Although you only get glimpses of Lizzie’s life, I actually felt I knew her better than most protagonists because it felt like I was inside her mind.

It’s a short book and I recommend you read it in as close to one sitting as possible. It’s definitely not the type of book you can put down and pick up whenever. Although I didn’t find it that quick a read because I found every single sentence so beautifully written I would often find myself stopping to admire it.

Although there is a lot of despair within these pages - if you aren’t feeling a certain amount of despair right now you aren’t paying attention - it is also incredibly witty and it certainly didn’t leave me feeling despondent. Mostly, it left me thinking what a perfect book Offill has crafted.