Weather by Jenny Offill. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) from the publisher via Netgalley included. No affiliate links used. You can read my full disclosure policy here.
Lizzie Benson’s life hasn’t exactly gone to plan, but she is doing the best she can. Having dropped out of university—to help her brother deal with his addiction—she secured a job as a university librarian without the requisite degree.
When Lizzie’s former mentor—Sylvia Liller, an academic who hosts a climate change podcast— offers her an additional job answering the emails she receives from listeners of Hell and High Water, Lizzie can’t bring herself to say no.
Lizzie soon finds herself taking on the worries of everyone who contacts Sylvia, which leads to a whole host of stress she could do without but can’t escape. As her climate anxiety grows, her marriage becomes more strained and Lizzie wonders what will be left of the world for her son to grow up in.
Told as a series of vignettes, Weather sees Lizzie navigate motherhood, marriage and codependent familial relationships, while also worrying about the climate crisis and life in Trump’s America. Offill is a skilled writer, with an ability to make the seemingly mundane utterly compelling.
Weather* is the first Jenny Offill novel I have read and what a brilliant introduction it was. I’ve already added Dept. of Speculation and Last Things to my towering to-read pile.
Weather by Jenny Offill is published by Granta Books and is available in hardback and ebook format.
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