I really liked this new novel from Jenny Offill, but I think it probably won't be for everyone - the format of vignettes appealed to me, but I can see how it wouldn't be everyone's cup, and the plot is quite... loose.
But I loved the themes - addiction, boredom, climate anxiety... And I think the format really did justice to these themes, creating a constant stream of anxiety-enducing thoughts.

A weird, compelling read of life's observation from the protagonists view. What would usually be ignored sounded bizarrely addictive to read.

Offill's much anticipated follow up to the striking and highly praised "Department of Speculation" absolutely hits the nail on the head in showing us what it is like to live right now, politically enraged and anxious about climate change, never being able to escape the feeling that these are the end days, while still having to live our lives,go to work and look after our loved ones.

The novel begins with Lizzie, working in library after giving up her graduate degree. She observes the people she meets there with detatched curiosity, feeling herself to be an amateur psychologist. Outside work, she cares for and frets about her son, her husband, her brother who is a recovering adult, and a mother who seems to be as anxious as she is. We see this life through the prism of her worries about it, about the small (not buying a particular dye) to the large (what can she do to make sure she and her family survive what will surely be a climate emergency). The book takes place in what seems like the beginning of Trumps presidency, and cleverly one character tells another to save their rage, as they are only in the "first twenty minutes". This feeling of burnout, emotionally and politically only becomes more palpable as the book goes on.

When she takes a job answering emails for a podcast called Hell and High Water, Lizzie finds it difficult to separate her own concerns from the writers, and it exacerbates her existing anxieties. Listeners of the podcast write in about all their anxieties about life, religion, and depending on the writers outlook, how the world will end either due to the climate crises, or the collapse of "Western civilisation".  This onslaught of voices makes her feel increasinly helpless, googling survival tips while trying to balance caring for her family and keeping her brother on the wagon.

I thought that this title might be hard to read, and certainly too cerebral for how I was feeling at the time, but I sped through it in two sittings, one of which was in the bath - and the only reason I stopped is that the water had cold without me realising it, as I was so caught up in Lizzie's narrative. I highly recommend you get your hands on Weather as soon as it comes out later in the month.

weather noun
: the state of the atmosphere at a particular place and time
weather transitive verb
: to come safely through a difficult period or experience

“First, they came for the coral, but I did not say anything because I was not a coral.”

I loved every minute of Jenny Offill’s Weather. It won’t be to everyone’s taste, thanks to its choppy style, specific brand of humour and refusal to deliver conventional narrative movement, but I thought it was brilliant.

This novel is both sardonic and warm, reflective of our anxious times but also strangely reassuring. It’s got wit and wisdom and a fantastic narrative voice in librarian Lizzie.

There are plot threads—Lizzie meets an attractive stranger; supports her addict brother; works as an assistant for the charismatic Sylvia who hosts a climate change podcast called “Hell or High Water”; becomes obsessed with doomsday preppers—but these threads don't go very far. This is a novel more concerned with potentialities, the tension of the time before, of something about to happen. This extends not just to domestic worries, but an impending existential doom.

Inaction and indecision permeate Weather, as does the ‘incredulity response’: the human tendency to freeze up in crises, the brain unable to take in what is happening. As much as this novel delights in absurdity, its comedy is freighted with darkness.

“A turtle was mugged by a gang of snails. The police came to take a report, but (the turtle) couldn’t help them. “It all happened so fast,” he said.”

Wise and very funny and heartbreaking and completely unique. This book is about motherhood, climate change, marriage, depression and so much more. I will read everything that Jenny Offill writes!

Once again, this author has written an unusual, off beat and highly original book. She is a skilled observer of human behavior with a wicked wit, and the book is both enjoyable and though provoking

I love books like this! It doesn't have a plot or characters that develop but it is a book that speaks to the reader and chimes with their thoughts, fears and social responsibility.
The main character is a librarian who works in an academic library. She has a husband and son and initially you could get the feeling that this is similar to Elizabeth Strout's Olive novels - passing judgement on her patrons, friends and family - but Weather is more kind-hearted.
I found it to be a miscellany on the state of the USA, covering US election despondency and its fallout, and the world in general. Small paragraphs follow the main character's interactions at home and work and are filled with thoughts on climate change, technology, social preoccupations. It also offers snippets of survivalist information and some witty sayings and jokes.

"A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying "You are mad, you are not like us"

If you like Monica Ali's Seasons Quartet you will like this.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

This was not a hard read, but a challenging one. Offill's fragmented style means a fair amount of concentration is needed to keep up with the narrative, even though the shortness of the prose means you can read the book fairly quickly. This is also a book underpinned by worries about the climate change emergency - a low level of anxiety permeates the narrative and I think it encapsulates the current attitude of most people towards the issue, which is anxiety with a level of apathy, because what can we really do? The comparison of this period of time to the time before a war starts also felt quite on the nose. This book is a short read but it feels like an important one.

In Jenny Offill’s Weather, Lizzie is a wife and mother, struggling to balance her family’s needs while also supporting her brother as he battles addiction. She works as a “feral librarian” at a university in New York City, a job she got after she dropped out of grad school, despite a lack of proper qualifications. She also acts as an assistant for her former advisor, now an environmental campaigner, travelling with her to events and responding to all her emails and letters. Offill’s prose will not be to everyone's taste, but I thought the fragmented, stream-of-consciousness style effectively mirrors the anxiety and emotional turmoil that Lizzie is experiencing. Lizzie’s concerns are relatable and recognizable, ranging from the small, mundane complications of everyday family life to the ever-looming, global issue of climate change. Her inner thoughts are disjointed, sometimes confusing, but often extremely funny. I would recommend this short novel to readers who are fans of Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet, and readers who enjoy unconventional, poetic prose which explores timely and important issues.

This is a superb, unconventional read focusing on so many things it is difficult to know where to start. Offill's novella focuses on the character of Elizabeth and her work in a library - plus the writing she does for Sylvia, a psychologist, which results in some quirky, fairly odd replies to people who contact her.

Many might think that 'Weather' is disjointed; that its unusual structure, ranging from introspection from Elizabeth, through to corny, albeit out-of-context, jokes about dentists and moths, to learning more about the work, or lack of, that Elizabeth's husband does/doesn't do, to her drug-addled brother, and the astute qualities of Ely, her son. There - my sentence itself speaks volumes!

Running through the whole story is a dystopian theme - and more specifically, climate change, very current, and how it is impacting on the world, or what it might do in the future. Offill writes about such serious topics with brevity - but also with such skill.

In short, then, what this book does is quite incredible - it crams a lot into so few pages. One thing that really struck me was the way readers learn so much about characters - not through explicit description but through implication and hints. This is no mean feat but definitely makes for a superb read and one that's hard to fault.

I found myself so caught up in the flow of life and thought that I lost sight of the fact it would ever end (easy to do on a kindle)

Some utterly wonderful passages and phrases in this - to the extent that I stopped to absorb them and reread.

Absorbing and fascinating, akin to living in someone else’s mind for a while.

I don't deny that there are many clever observations in the book and that it is a poignant, often funny snapshot of America in 2016 (and much shorter than Ducks, Newburyport(. But I have the same issues with it as I had with Dept. of Speculation: this is fragmentary bits and pieces which are supposed to have a purpose but often feel simply like lazy writing. I need more of an overarching theme or plot to keep the book together. I suppose this is designed to be an example of the constellation novel that Tokarczuk writes so well, but it is too small, too much grounded in one person's point of view, to achieve that.

I read Offill’s novel Dept. of Speculation recently and loved it, so I was really excited to be able to read her new book before its release next month. And I liked this too but it didn’t quite have the same narrative punch as her earlier novel, although there is still an element of experimental stream-of-consciousness that I love. What I did find really interesting about Weather was that it is a book (somewhat) about climate change not from a scientific perspective but just from a protagonist (and presumably an author) experiencing life in a climate emergency.

I don't mind novels in verse or written in an impressionist style. Sadly, there is little beauty or innovation in the way in which Weather is written. To me, there is nothing poetic about its disjointed and fragmented prose (so much so that to call it prose seems a stretch).
Here are two extracts which other readers may appreciate, but I certainly didn't:

“We were at the supermarket. All around us things tried to announce their true nature. But their radiance was faint and fainter still beneath the terrible music.”


“The window in our bedroom is open. You can see the moon if you lean out and crane your neck. The Greeks thought it was the only heavenly object similar to Earth. Plants and animals fifteen times stronger than our own inhabited it.”


“There is a heroic tower of folded things on the table. I spot my favorite shirt, my least depressing underwear. I go into the bedroom and change into them. Now I am a brand-new person.”

This is a sort of ‘state of the nation’ address from one woman in New York going about her daily life, her thoughts and reflections mirroring the preoccupations of those around her. Civilisation’s decline and climate emergency are two of the main themes, highlighted by a new and very different president and political style. Her musings on these are interspersed with worries about her family, her marriage, her child, and observations of her customers at the library where she works, people she meets in the course of her day and those who write in to her friend’s online show. A highly effective structure involving short, sharp anecdotes, reminiscences, old jokes that spring to mind, the kind of mental shorthand acquired over a long marriage - all these appealed to me and felt as close as could be to the way my own mind works in the course of an average day.

No real action here, this is a novel of observations and a distillation of people’s feelings about the world today. A joy to read, highly recommended. I haven’t read the author’s earlier novel, Dept. of Speculation, and am now keen to read that and all her back catalogue as soon as possible.

Thank you to netgalley for the opportunity to read this ARC. It is a short book told in a stream of conscience style which works for the story of this dysfunctional family. The title Weather is meant to be a clever analogy to the ever changing ways every person behaves. even when it couldn’t have been predicted they would do so. Lizzie, our narrator, is a librarian who, not unlike many of us, has found that navigating her way in these distrumpain times makes everything more difficult, more emotional. She doubts her decisions. She takes on a ridiculous job for her friend Sylvia who is so stuck inside her own head it is hard to imagine wanting to be her friend. Lizzie has a sense of humor. She also has a brother whose life is anything but humorous. The book was an enjoyable quick read, but there were no WOW moments. Nothing that provoked me or caused me to think a little deeper.

I requested this book from NetGalley because I am interested in weather and I liked the cover and the synopsis, but was I reading the same book as everyone else?
The book was told in little snippets is the best way I can describe it. It jumped so frequently from one subject to another that I never found my way into the book.
The people were unlikeable and forgettable. Then the book ended, but there was no conclusion to anything.
A seriously disappointing read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for my ARC in return for an honest review.

I am a big fan of Dept. of Speculation, and I had high hopes for this book. & those hopes were met!

It is a step further than Dept. of Speculation, definitely sadder and maybe a little bit more complicated - or at least, broader in scope. Still with moments of dry humour, but also a lot of moments of really sad shit.

Good reading for: someone who asks you when you're having kids, and can't seem to articulate the connection between not having kids and the growth of XR? or someone who read a lot of old poetry or Victorian novels this last year and doesn't get how you can make art from modern politics. or maybe to be read alongside Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit.

quirky, weird and strange. I just couldn't get in to this one for some reason, although i enjoyed her other books. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher.

At the heart of this novel is a deeply charming and sympathetic character who drives the narrative on. Thoroughly enjoyable read thanks to her.